The Other Voice

A couple of months ago, I asked my graphic designer friend, who has lately also put his oar into Web design due to his client’s demand, to design a Website for an institution where I am committed to. I don’t know whether it’s because his taste for art is still rather low or his technical know-how in Web design is yet not broad enough, the outcome did not please me or other people to whom I had shown his design.

I was eventually bemused, because the institution got to have a Website soon to communicate its vision and mission to the public, while on the other hand it’s not easy to find a reliable Web designer who is simultaneously inexpensive. On one evening, on my way home from Latihan at the Sudirman Group (S. Widjojo Centre), I, who was concentrating on the road as I was driving a motor-cycle, unexpectedly heard a voice inside me. The voice was exceptionally clear, although the road was crowded with the sound of vehicles. The voice only ‘talked’ briefly: “Why don’t you examine the Web designed by your friend.”

Arriving home, I quickly switched the computer on and inserted the compact disc that contains the Web designed by my friend. The voice yet again whispered, “Don’t open it yet. Look at the file type first.” I am one of those people who is rather incomprehensible with technology. In Indonesia, people like me are called gaptek (acronym of ‘gagap teknologi ‘, literally ‘technologically stuttered’); I only use a computer for browsing the Internet, writing with Microsoft Word and drawing with Paint as well as playing games. I am seldom titillated to surf over all possibilities offered by other software. But, then, ‘the other voice’ demanded me to check the file type of my friend’s Web design. I only caught sight of three .psd-type files which for someone who is rather ‘technologically stuttered’ like me didn’t mean anything, but the voice kept asking me to look, observe, and examine. Suddenly the voice asserted – maybe because it considered me a slow learner – that the three files are Photoshop documents!

Something flared up within me, which was not easy to express how it felt. Maybe it’s like an ecstasy, or orgasm. The point is, back then I jumped off the chair and bounced up and down with pleasure. After I sat back down before the computer, I clicked one of the files, which opened up in Photoshop. I scrutinized the program’s entire menu, but it was hard to figure out how my friend could design a Website with Photoshop CS2. I whined, and then mumbled, “O God, what did I miss?” Just then, ‘the other voice’ directed me to the History window (which I understand what it’s for at that point in time), which recorded what steps had been taken by my friend when he designed the homepage, and by which I could refer them to the toolbar and arrange the sequences of the process.

After that night, I put across my wish to borrow tutorials for Web designing software – Macromedia Freehand MX, Flash 8, and Photoshop CS2 – to several designer friends of mine. No one ever complied with my wish, due to reasons which only made me assume that they were worried about me becoming their most treacherous competitor in the Web design business. One friend even talked turkey, “Mas Anto, don’t you dare to grab hold of our domain.” Now, here are people worrying about somebody who wants to learn for a good reason…

But on the face of it, God didn’t let my effort to end just like that. A certain Subud brother, who also wanted that the institution’s Website could be implemented soon, supported me financially to buy the books I needed. My wife and my sister went to buy them. They also mistakenly bought a tutorial for Adobe Fireworks CS3, a program not yet installed to my computer. But, shortly after that, I was like heavenly blessed to obtain the software and also Dreamweaver so effortlessly, which made my designer friends more worried after I told them! “What?! They're Web design software, right? Do you plan to be a Web designer?” asked one, suspiciously.

That’s a story about Web design. The other story for which I would like to tell you is about a CDMA cell-phone which I got from my wife recently. From the time when it was bought to a week later, the battery got off quicker – only in one day, while I hardly ever use the cell-phone to make calls as well as for sending short messages. Three days ago, the cell-phone was completely in a low-battery condition, but as it was already late at night my wife switched it off. I charged the battery the following morning, still switched off. It was only at the next day that I was readily aware that the battery was still full. I looked for any information about that in the manual, but found nothing that explains the indication, while the vendor who was called up by my wife said, “I expect you to understand, Ma’am, it’s a bargain basement priced cell-phone. A CDMA, Ma’am – its batteries don’t last long.”

On my way to the creative boutique where I exert myself as freelance copywriter, driving my motor-cycle over the swarming Semanggi viaduct in Central Jakarta, ‘the other voice’ abruptly sounded within me, which taught the dim-witted person that I am that “next time you want to charge your CDMA battery, switch it off first.” That way, my CDMA cell-phone didn’t get off for as long as four consecutive days, despite the fact that during the course of the period I had used it to send short message texts and received lengthy calls. (If I ever tell this to the vendor he may regret the fact that he had sold it cheaply.)

Those experiences are related to technology, a subject I’m not fully common with. But how could I eventually manage to understand and master it? It’s thanks to ‘the other voice’ I had mentioned earlier. We all have it. It’s generally called ‘inner voice’ or, as Buddha Gautama puts it, ‘the voice from the heart’. A. Reza Arasteh wrote in his book, Growth to Selfhood: a Sufi Contribution (1998), all human beings have at least once in their entire life listened to their inner voice and followed its guidance. I won’t thrash out herein, what or who is actually behind ‘the other voice’, because I would ultimately end up in ‘conceiving God’ which, to me, is ridiculous.

In the initial Karate Kid movie (1985), Sensei Miyagi (Pat Morita) asked his young pupil in karate, Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio), to arrange a bonsai. Daniel didn’t grasp on how to do it, as it was even the first time he ever came to grips with a bonsai. Sensei Miyagi said, “Just follow what comes from your inside.”

“How would I know which is right?” asked Daniel, unadorned.

“What comes from the inside is always right!” said Sensei Miyagi, assertively.

This teacher-student discourse sounded back in my head ever since Karate Kid was again screened by HBO recently. I was impressed by Sensei Miyagi’s expression, especially for the reason that I had and am frequently subjected to inner voices since I was a kid. When I was little until I got into high school, I was extremely introverted; therefore, I really enjoy the moments where I am apt to confer with myself. ‘The other voice from inside me’ has become my sounding board in my solitude. ‘The other voice’ has repeatedly given me congenial solutions, even in matters for which I don’t have the familiarity of.

I am often criticized (even derided) by some Subud brothers in Jakarta in relation to my articles that I shared out through the Internet like the one you are reading now. My articles are condemned as ‘products of the nafsu and the mind’. I would stand up for myself as much as I could, but mostly I submit it to God – as the criticisms and the derisions might be a divine ordeal for me. On the contrary, there are also those who go into raptures over me and I am subsequently considered ‘an expert in literature’. Their consideration discommoded me, as it was ‘the other voice’ all this time which dictated me in every word I wrote. There are several Subud brothers, including those who are close to me, who asked for me to write on certain subjects surrounding the Subud Brotherhood of Indonesia, whether it’s constructive or off-putting. I was never successful in doing it, no matter how hard I tried, because it appears that ‘the other voice’ cannot be instructed to do as I wish; conversely, the voice will usually tell me to do something else – some things that are more positive to me.

In interacting with clients, which is part of the dynamics of my profession as a copywriter, listening to ‘the other voice’ facilitated me a lot, especially when I got puzzled about what clients really want. One time, there was a client who didn’t know exactly what would be put to the front in the company profile. He was at a complete loss, let alone me! But when I was home, absorbed in thought by my own, ‘the other voice’ enthusiastically told me that “your client wishes to put forward his company’s unique service as the main theme of the company profile!” The client could in no way refrain himself from expressing his satisfaction toward the creative concept for the company profile, particularly the copywriting, which, on the word of my client, had successfully unraveled his aspiration that was initially difficult to express: Setting out the company’s unique service!

So as to record ‘the other voice’ clearly and explicably, you don’t particularly have to do the Subud Latihan, nor join any Sufi thariqat nor lead an ascetic life for a certain time in places far off the crowd – all these are even futile unless you are settled to know yourself. And it has also nothing to do with innate qualities. It needs only our willingness to be patient, sincere and confident (I prefer to use ‘confident’ rather than ‘faith’ as the latter suggest religious observance) when we calm ourselves. Here, calming oneself is not by way of parking oneself quietly, doing nothing. Many misunderstood the concept of meditation. The meditation (dhyana) as taught by Buddha Gautama turns out to mean ‘performing everything consciously’ – much in the vein of Bapak’s suggestion for Subud members to do enterprise, that is to say concentrating our mind towards what we are doing, muffling our frenetic desires and wandering thoughts, so there still exist ample room for the buzzing of ‘the other voice’.©