On Writing about Things You Hate Most

I HATE politics. I hate it so much I refrain myself from blatanty and perpetually discussing anything about political stuff offline and online.

At work, aside from talking about World Cup and soccer (which I also happen to find uninteresting), the coworkers around me keep mentioning some political maneuvers a bunch of politicians made before, during and after the presidential elections this year. I hardly ever, maybe never, spoke about my political stance in front of others. Also, I never agressively mentioned my endorsement or support to one of the presidential candidates. I am relatively reserved and I would like to keep it that way when it comes to my political orientation. I, that said, let people draw their own conclusion. Take one occasion for example, when I was asked by my manager whom I would vote for, I could not care less, quipping,”That would be confidential.” It is true. Even my parents, both of them, do not bother to seek the answer. My mother once asked such question but I provided her a vague answer on purpose. “I don’t know… Maybe Jokowi,”I said. My mother stared at me, and I went on,”Or Prabowo, or go abstain…” Whatever, I mumbled. I keep it for myself, and I do it with the purpose of simplifying my social life. I am a pacifist, so to speak. I avoid unnecessary conflicts or endless so-called battle of wits words against people around me. It is not because I am uninformed or dumb, or deliberately dumb myself down, but I can NOT see any significance or real advantage in spending time that much to talk about politicians and their insanity. I have no television set at home, for your indormation, which makes my life a lot more peaceful these recent 4 years. I would rather spend my time to read or write.

As skeptic as I can be, I did participate in the July 9th election. I exercised my rights as a citizen eligible to cast my ballot that day and I felt good about it, simply because my voice or aspiration can be heard without having to speak up like a jerk or undergo lengthy debates which employ senseless, questionable data and statistics. I thank God for never watching presidential debates even once because I think that is stuffed with flowery sentences, flattering and promising claims. Enough with the rethorics. Those man, if they get elected, are paid to work, to get things done. They possibly must speak a lot too but all the speeches are nothing without being followed by real actions and Indonesians, correct me if I am wrong, suck a lot when they have to act based on their neatly-arranged plans.

So it seemed out of my character to write political articles last Friday. I just saw a yoga friend posted on Facebook, asking,”Does anyone have this book?” She shared a screenshot of book pages uploaded by her friend. I casually read it, realized I have the book and commented,”Yes, I do have it. It says…” And I felt the sudden urge to write that. “It looks informative. Why not write it on my blog? Some of my friends would probably love it,”I thought. I set aside my hatred towards politics, sticking to my spirit of reporting, spreading valuable or desirable piece of information to the virtual world. (Yes, I work as an online reporter in fact. A business, not a politics, reporter though)

It turned out not only do my friends read and like it, but some others whom I have no idea on who they are also.

But not to this extent. The blog’s traffic has been going through the roof and breaking its own record of 100-ish page views and 50-ish visitors a day. And to be blunt, the idea that this pathetic personal blog gets read by thousands of strangers makes me nervous. Ok, I’m lying. I feel proud as well, but like I said on my Path and Twitter and Facebook wall, I somewhat lament over the ignorance of my non-political blog content here. I regularly write about various themes like daily anecdotes, yoga experiences and tips, entrepreneurship and so on, yet only few read, not to mention leave nice or harsh comments. But once I decided to write about prominent political figures and their allegedly horrible past, BOOMMM!!! The traffic is soaring like it never had occured before.

I never meant to write this to be a pure link bait. I am happy to spread the information, regardless of the validity, and just see the booming traffic as the bonus and then let it pass, so I can write about things I am passionate about, which is not closely related to politics and politicians. And I would be thrilled to see people can start civilized discussions after the reading instead of savage, merciless exchange of F*** words in the virtual world.

Long live Indonesia… (And our soon-dethroned SBY perhaps for the freedom of speech)