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Everyman for himself

Mar 1, 2009

1048

I can not save you. I can’t even save myself. So just save yourself!
Stabbing Westward – Save yourself

If you watch the news recently, you probably stumble on the news about Ponari, the little shaman, I really don’t know what’s the appropriate word for “Dukun”. The li’l shaman known to be so powerful that he could cure any kind of disease, except ugly faces, bad luck, or love problems, well that sort of things he can’t cured, you have to cursed God for the day you were born under the bad sign. He’s so famous that thousands of people came from, also thousands mile just to be cured by him. Lot’s of people died, faint or exhausted while waitin in line to be cured by him Legend has it, that Ponari gain his abilities after he, well it sounds weird, it said that he catch a lightning and that lightning turned into a stoned that he used to cured people. He dipped the stone into a liquid than the patient drink the liquid. Ponari became so famous that he opened his own line of medical product.

It’s stupid really. And it’s proof to be stupid when the news tell a story about former Ponari patient have to go to the hospital cuz they became worse (for not getting medical treatment). If you see the list of symptoms he cured, headache, stomachache, and other petty symptoms. He cured a disease that just need a placebo to be cured. Well that’s a story about disease like cancer could be cured by power of faith or positivism.
But my point is, how we all sold to “salvation”. We all longing for heroes, knight with shining armor on the white horse, came out of nowhere to rescue us. Liberating us from pain and sin. This Salvatore syndrome is so addictive that we just can’t help but to give up our self into it. Maybe because we love everything that is instant. Problem – cry for help – pronto done. So addictive that somehow we rely too much on it, and there’s where the problem is. Not everything in life could be solved immediately, some problem required process that took so long, sometime it took like forever. So when problem hit us and our faith, religion, friend, etc, all sort of things seems like betraying us cuz it can’t help, or it seems to, we usually turn into some substitute, that sometimes we turn into something that we don’t fully understand as long as it seems could help. Hence, enter mystic, superstitious even suicidal cult or infidel cult seems like a shining light at that moment.
What went wrong is the addiction to salvation, the instant solution for problem. Even Friedrich Nietzsche is sold. Yes he said that “God is dead” (I ain’t kill it I swear, I just came here. It’s a joke people) in his book Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus speak Zarathustra) as a protest for religion that became like drugs addictive (and some people in religious institution became corrupted and gain some extra shit from selling stuff like redeemer coupon or expensive extra service for sin atonement). But deep down inside he longing for a salvation. His ubermensch / primus inter pares / superman theory is a theory about waiting for the chosen one to come rescue us (in Indonesia we knew a myth about “Ratu Adil”). Hell even religion taught us about the chosen one, Jesus Muhammad, other prophets.
So, is there a cure from this addiction? Well I think we have to know the age of wonder, miracle that was sent by God/s is over (in some way). We live in the advance world, modern world. So many possibilities, alternative ways. We have to learn that, just like the Joker said, the only sensible way to live in this crazy world is to live without rules, or like Batman said, the only way to make things works in is world is when you force your way into it. When one door of happiness is closed, the option is yours, whether you kept knocking and hopefully the door knocking eventually, don’t know how long that is. Or you search other door, when one door is lock, the other is open, just like when one love is bloom, the other one is withered. Yin and Yang, once goes up and the other times goes down.
Remember that the age of wonder, miracle is over. It is the world where every man for himself. God wouldn’t help us if we don’t try to help our self, or in Islam there’s a saying God wouldn’t change the fate of the people, unless the people it self try to change it self. Remember, every man for himself. Hey, even woman todays left the damsel in distress attitude, wake up everyone!

Oh BTW, Ponari dig so deep that the exploitation of it’s talent went so well that his chain of product went international and release in many foreign countries. Here one of his advertising promo :