Stories from Cananga Tree (11)

"A teacher was teaching the Theory of State, asking his students, 'When was the president said to be a good gardener?'

'When he knew how to address the grass-root issues!' answered one student.

'And why didn't the president trust trees?' the teacher asked.

'Because they're always shady,' another student responded.

"Business owners often face various fears and challenges, there are three common fears that entrepreneurs and business owners encounter: fear of change. Change can be intimidating. Our brains are wired to resist it because it threatens our status quo. However, embracing innovation and advancement is essential for business growth. To overcome this fear, recognize that change is inevitable and seek ways to adapt and harness it. Second, fear of failure. The fear of failure can paralyze us. We worry about embarrassment and losing everything. Instead of dwelling on failure, consider these questions: Will you regret not taking this opportunity in 10 years? If you fail, what’s the worst that can happen? Having a backup plan can boost your confidence and encourage you to try new things. Third, fear of not knowing enough. It’s normal to feel like you don’t know everything. Everyone has blind spots, and seeking knowledge is a sign of growth.

On the broader side, States, like individuals, experience various fears that can shape their behavior and decision-making. There are three common fears that many states grapple with. First, fear of failure. Whether it’s a failed policy, economic downturn, or military defeat, this fear may lead states to play it safe, avoid taking risks, and prioritize stability over innovation. Second, fear of success. Surprisingly, success can be intimidating for states. Achieving success often brings increased visibility and responsibility. States may worry about maintaining their newfound status, managing higher expectations, and dealing with potential backlash from other nations. Fear of success can sometimes undermine the very achievements they strive for. Third, fear of Uncertainty about the future. They fear unexpected events, geopolitical shifts, and emerging threats. This fear drives states to invest in intelligence, diplomacy, and military preparedness to mitigate risks and maintain stability.

These fears are not universal, and each state’s specific concerns may vary based on its unique circumstances and historical context," said Cananga while looking at Monas's obelisk, built to commemorate the struggle for Indonesian independence. Will it also be leased to third parties along with other state assets? Indonesian government has spent a lot of money to finance its politics, so is there still money left for its people? They say people don't like these three things: empty skulls, empty barrels, and empty pockets. And still, Mother Prithvi is having a hard time.

"Indeed, the Indonesians keep on struggling in paradoxes, wrote an Indonesian press figure, Sabam Leo Batubara. The struggle was to realize the goal of establishing 'Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia' (the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia; NKRI), i.e. one homeland, one nation, and one unified language. The NKRI also aspires to make all the nation's children, without exception, become prosperous, peaceful, and advanced, to obtain justice, and to gain protection to acquire a sense of security. But the realization is still in struggle. The struggle is full of paradoxes.

On one side, paradoxes are fun, says R. M. Sainsbury, in most cases, they are easy to state and immediately provoke one into trying to 'solve' them. Sainsbury defined a paradox as an unacceptable conclusion derived by apparently acceptable reasoning from apparently acceptable premises. Appearances have to deceive since the acceptable cannot lead by acceptable steps to the unacceptable. So, generally, we have a choice: either the conclusion is not unacceptable, or else the starting point, or the reasoning, has some non-obvious flaw. A paradox is a situation or statement that seems impossible or difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts or characteristics. It’s like a mental puzzle that challenges our intuition and logical reasoning. Many paradoxes raise serious philosophical problems, and they are associated with crises of thought and revolutionary advances.

One of the hardest paradoxes to handle is also one of the easiest to state: the Liar Paradox. One version of it is the Pinocchio paradox, which arises when Pinocchio says 'My nose grows now'. Imagine someone saying, 'What I am now saying is false.' Is what he says true or false? The problem is that if he is telling the truth, then he is lying. But if he is lying, then he is telling the truth. This creates a contradiction. This paradox is said to have 'tormented many ancient logicians and caused the premature death of at least one of them, Philetas of Cos.' Fun can go too far.

On the other side, paradoxes are serious. Unlike party puzzles and teasers, which are also fun, paradoxes raise serious problems. Historically, they are associated with crises in thought and with revolutionary advances. To grapple with them is not merely to engage in an intellectual game, but is to come to grips with key issues.

Paradoxes come in degrees, depending on how well appearance camouflages reality. Let's take a look at the Barber Paradox. Imagine in a certain remote Sicilian village, approached by a long ascent up a precipitous mountain road, the barber shaves all and only those villagers who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber? If he does, then he does not (since he shaves only those who do not shave); if he does not, then he indeed does (since he shaves all those who do not shave themselves). The unacceptable supposition is that there is such a barber–one who shaves himself if and only if he does not. The story may have sounded acceptable: it turned our minds, agreeably enough, to the mountains of inland Sicily. However, once we see what the consequences are, we realize that the story cannot be true: there cannot be such a barber or such a village. The story is unacceptable. This is not a very deep paradox because the unacceptability is very thinly disguised by the mountains and the remoteness. The deeper the paradox, the more controversial is the question of how one should respond to it.

Some paradoxes collect naturally into groups by subject matter. The paradoxes of Zeno form a group because they all deal with space, time, and infinity. Zeno, an ancient Greek philosopher, proposed several paradoxes related to motion. One of them involves Achilles and a tortoise. Achilles gives the tortoise a head start in a race. By the time Achilles reaches the point where the tortoise started, the tortoise has moved a little farther. Achilles then covers that distance, but the tortoise has moved again. This process repeats infinitely, suggesting that Achilles can never catch up to the tortoise.

Let us then consider an old story. Theseus had a ship. When a plank rotted, it was replaced, and thanks to the repair the ship remained in service. After a while, none of the original planks were left. Likewise for the other kinds of parts of the ship—masts, sails, and so forth. Did Theseus’ ship survive? There was a ship in continuous service, and we incline to hold that this is indeed Theseus’ ship, much repaired. But suppose that someone had kept the rotted planks and other parts and then reassembled these into a (possibly unseaworthy) ship. Does this have a better claim to be the original ship of Theseus? There is vagueness of some kind here. The question is: is the ship itself vague, or does the vagueness end with the word 'ship,' leaving the ship itself uncontaminated?

In short, if you replace every part of a ship over time, is it still the same ship? Even though all the parts have changed, but still, we consider it the same ship.

There is another paradox called the Moral Paradox. Suppose that crimes of a certain category (e.g. car-jacking) are eliminated by prescribing an extraordinarily severe penalty (e.g. death). The penalty is so severe that it is 100 percent effective as a deterrent: car-jacking (or whatever crime we consider) never occurs, and so is never punished (so the prescribed severe penalties are never in fact imposed). It seems that we are forced to make conflicting judgments about this imaginary situation:

Good: A crime has been eliminated. There are no bad side-effects: no carjackers are executed (which might indeed be unjust), for there are no carjackers.

Bad: A crime has been associated with a punishment of unjust severity. This makes for an unjust society. Even if injustice is a means to a good end (crime reduction) it is still unjust and should be condemned.

Both views are reasonable; but as they conflict, it appears we cannot hold both. It may be objected that the imaginary situation is unrealistic, and so need not be taken seriously: we cannot be expected to have consistent judgments about such situations.

A most curious thing about common views of morality is their deep ambivalence: many people cherish morality as a basis for laudable moral behavior, while many other people deprecate it. According to Saul Smilansky, it is important to note that while the elucidation of such value achievable by moral behavior involves taking account of subjective components, we have to set some objective standards for what we will consider as having moral value. If any trivial moral conformity would grant one high moral value, then the issue would make no sense. When we speak about high moral value as an achievement, we are, then, referring to matters such as stealing oneself to do the morally good thing, even when there are very good self-interested reasons not to follow morality.

Laudatory views hold moral behavior to be the highest achievement of civilization, the hallmark of humanity’s superiority over other species, the measure of one’s worth as compared to others, and the like. When people act morally, and in particular when they follow the moral code for its own sake, sacrificing self-interest, they are said to be most deserving of admiration. As in so much else that concerns morality, this idea finds its strongest expression in Kant. Utilitarians, too, hold the widely shared view that true moral action bestows great value on people, particularly when they act morally in demanding situations.

Deprecatory views of morality, by contrast, perceive morality as a burden, at best an unfortunate social necessity that obstructs the pursuit of more interesting and important matters. How good it would be if morality did not require sacrifices if one’s projects were not constantly interrupted by external moral requirements, and if social needs that today make exacting moral demands could be met with only limited recourse to such demands.

Whether we hold the laudatory or the deprecatory view of morality has far-reaching implications. If we consider morality the crown of humanity, we will see many issues differently than if we see morality as essentially a nuisance. A major difference between these two views will emerge as we consider the idea of ordering society so that our lives rarely involve demanding moral behavior. At issue here is not the implausible notion that morality in the limited interpersonal sense can simply wither away, but rather that morality might become such that most people, as they currently are, would not find its constraints taxing.

Finally, The saying 'When money talks, one seldom checks the grammar' carries a powerful message. In a world where the influence of money often overshadows other considerations, this saying highlights that when someone has significant wealth or financial power, minor imperfections in language or etiquette tend to be overlooked. A book is disappointing if the author does not state and argues for the truth as he or she sees it. On the other hand, no one should believe what the author saying without first carefully considering the alternatives. Be very skeptical about the proposed solutions. So, while money may speak loudly, wise decisions are important. Let’s continue learning and making informed choices!

We've finished this episode and will continue in the next episode. Bi 'idhnillah."

Cananga then serenading,

It's not about the money, money, money

We don't need your money, money, money

We just wanna make the world dance

Forget about the price tag *)

Citations & References:

- Sabam Leo Batubara, Indonesia Bergulat dalam Paradoks, 2009, Dewan Pers

- R. M. Sainsbury, Paradoxes, 2009, Cambridge University Press

- Saul Smilansky, 10 Moral Paradoxes, 2007, Blackwell Publishing

- Michael H. Hart, Puzzles and Paradoxes, 2024, Austin Macauley

*) "Price Tag" written by Lukasz Gottwald, Claude Kelly, Jessica Cornish, Bobby Ray Simmons Jr.

[Episode 12]

[Episode 10]

Bahasa

Stories from Cananga Tree (10)

"A teacher who was teaching in class, asked her students, 'Please tell me something important that didn't exist fifty years ago?'

The students answered in unison,' Me!'"

Cananga went on, "Life is not a singular journey, but many journeys. Every person has a different experience, aims, and itineraries to tick off. Sometimes, one epitomizes the age-old proverb, 'Try and try until you succeed,' to reach what he or she aspires to, like Sylvester Stallone did. Or like Soichiro Honda, he says, 'Success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection.' His journey was long and difficult, his life full of trials and challenges. Several times he was shot down and several times he stood up to continue what he loved doing. At no point did failure prevent him from pursuing his dream; failure only urged him to find a way to do so and heightened his need for learning. He used his love for automobiles, his knowledge, and his skills to pursue his dreams, and, despite the obstacles, he fought within reason to achieve his dreams.

Or, Joanne 'J.K.' Rowling, her life is like a wheel; it has had its ups and downs. A single parent who had to raise a little girl on her own with only welfare money in her pocket, she was depressed. Through the years, only one thing was constant in J. K. Rowling’s life—her love for English and literature. She began writing as early as age 6 and has never stopped. She particularly enjoyed writing children’s fantasy stories and most of her works are of this nature. The idea of Harry Potter came to her while she was on a train from Manchester to London. Most of her personal experiences became sources of ideas for the books. Some characters she picked out of her roster of family, friends, and acquaintances who were given life in the magical world. All she did was to do what she does best and believe that one day the odds would turn in her favor. Patience has rewarded her with much more than she could have asked for.

Or, with perseverance and unparalleled willpower, Michael Jeffrey Jordan made a name for himself. Or, leaving behind the abusive life he was living and learn how to work out in the gym like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Or, especially, like Abraham Lincoln. He encountered numerous obstacles on his way to his eventual presidency. His path to the Presidency was tedious, he also suffered from depression, so severe that he spent six months confined at home. His popularity grew as he openly expressed his disagreement with the acquisition and trading of slaves in the country. He envisioned a world wherein everyone was equal and in which the government favored no specific race.

Lincoln’s aspirations captured the hearts of the people and, although he was not elected to become a senator, he was as popular as ever and his name was brought up whenever there was talk about the Presidency. The circumstances in Abraham Lincoln’s life led to great leadership during the Civil War. As he had always done, he studied military tactics and operations independently to lead his army. Furthermore, he still insisted on the concept of equality among all men and, later during his term, he finalized the decree that all slaves be freed.

With his military operations skills and his knowledge of political manipulation, the United States won over the Confederate States. His successfully bringing an end to the Civil War earned Abraham Lincoln a second term as President. He addressed his fellow Americans and said that it was time to build up the nation, as one of freedom. He, however, did not live to see the day. Shortly after the end of the war, Lincoln was assassinated while watching a stage play with his wife. Despite the premature end of the political leader’s life, the results of his battles are well-lived today. America is now the land of the free where gender and race are no longer measures of social status. Most importantly, and as Abraham Lincoln wished, the United States built a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

When we take a train toward a new destination, Héctor García and Francesc Miralles write, we may at first be stricken by worry upon leaving the world we know. However, after a while, seeing the landscape roll past our window, we are overcome with the calmness typical of travelers who flow with the journey and accept the temporary nature of life.

This willingness of spirit is what must accompany us when we embark upon any adventure, whether it be professional, artistic, or even emotional. We must be aware that we will leave our comfort zone, which will cause us uncertainty, but the new horizons that await us are worth being brave about.

One of Indonesia's presidential candidates in 2024, Anies 'Abah' Baswedan—I don't want to say that he has 'lost' or 'becoming defeated' in the 2024 election because he has won the hearts of most of Indonesian's young generation, even though other candidates claim to represent Indonesian's youth—refers the 'boiling frog' apologue. It describes a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if you put a frog suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out to escape the danger. However, if you place the frog in tepid water and then gradually heat it to boiling, the frog won’t perceive the danger and will be cooked to death—then served as swikee.. This story is often used as a metaphor for people’s inability or unwillingness to react to gradual threats rather than sudden ones. So, it’s not just about frogs; it’s a cautionary tale about our own awareness and adaptability to change. Our comfort zone is the place or situation where we feel comfortable because we find ourselves in a well-known environment where we can use our habitual responses, with no need to improvise new solutions or face up to the anxiety of change.

Alasdair White defined the comfort zone as a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk. However, always remaining in the 'known world' prevents us from evolving, and many people pay a high price for not abandoning the bosom of what feels comfortable, in the shape of apathy, feeling weary of life, and even depression.

The good news is that challenging our comfort zone is something that comes naturally and instinctively from the moment of birth. It allows us to grow, learn, and mature. Children are always venturing into the unknown until they become adults.

The trouble is that at that point we discover we are vulnerable. We become aware that we have things to lose and that we can get hurt. We stay where we are comfortable. We become like the fabled frog who stays in the pot because, as he becomes accustomed to the slowly rising temperatures, he remains unaware of the danger he’s in, and is boiled to death.

None of the breakthroughs that have made society progress would have come about if humanity had remained in its comfort zone. Likewise, on an individual level, only by venturing into the unknown will we achieve what we desire. Dale Carnegie puts it like this, 'We learn by doing. Children don’t learn to walk by watching others, they try to stand and fall hundreds of times before learning how to put one foot in front of the other in perfect balance. Doing things that are uncomfortable and new ultimately expands your comfort zone. It enables you to confront new tasks courageously—not without fear, but with fear under control.'

If you do the thing you think you can’t do, you’ll feel your resilience, your hope, your dignity, and your courage grow stronger. Someday, you'll face harder choices that might require even more courage. When those moments come, and you choose well, your courage will be recognized by the people who matter most to you. When others see you choose to value courage more than fear, they will learn what courage looks like and they will only fear its absence.

Sometimes, 'those who fly alone have the strongest wings', they have the ability to turn losses into wins, they are able to bounce back from problems more readily than those who depend too much on others. The ability to control people and events refers to power. It represents the capacity to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events. The term 'power' has several meanings, and it can be used in different contexts. Power refers to the ability to control or influence people and events. When referring to physical strength or energy, power can mean: the strength to perform tasks; the energy produced by mechanical, electrical, or other means; the electricity used in various contexts; natural abilities. Power can refer to an official or legal right to do something. Power can also describe the possession of control or command over people or situations. The meaning of 'power' can vary based on the context in which it is used.

Philosophers, feminists, and sociologists understand social power as control, domination, oppression, violence, choice, influence, capacity, and agency. It includes the ability to create, the ability to change things, and the ability to produce an intended effect. It is the ability to get what you want or need. It is the ability to get a group of people to join you to produce the effect that you intend. It is the ability to get opponents to do what they would not otherwise do.

Rebecca Subar defines power as the ability of a group to meet a specific objective despite barriers posed by another group or groups. I am powerful enough to steal a jug of water from the co-op without fear of clerks or cops. My neighbor is not. Like my own lack of awareness about the privilege that let me steal with impunity, a group’s sense of power may be intuitive rather than conscious. But those employees, neighbors, and citizens who strategize intentionally about change will base their strategy on a conscious assessment of power relations. If their power is balanced with the power of their opponents, they will talk with their opponents, negotiate, and try to work out a deal.

If you were a kid in 1995 or since you may be intimate with the 800+ species of Japanese anime characters who inhabit Pokémon World. Even if you aren’t, you probably know of them, since, by 2020, Pokémon video games, TV shows, movies, and merchandise made up the highest-grossing media franchise in the world. Pokémon characters are always seeking opportunities to conquer regions beyond their own, says Subar. They constantly size each other up, estimating the other’s power. They do this both for their own safety and for purposes of potential conquest.

How do the Pokémon estimate each other’s power? Well, each Pokémon is coded as having or missing certain attributes. Each has a gender assignment of female, male, or no gender. Each has a size and a level of shininess, and the spots on the little cases that serve as homes to the Pokémon differ in number and positioning. Pokémon have quantifiable abilities, and the 'nature' of an individual Pokémon is defined by just a single one of these abilities: hardy, lonely, brave, adamant, naughty, bold, docile, relaxed, impish, lax, timid, hasty, serious, jolly, naive, modest, mild, quiet, bashful, rash, calm, gentle, sassy, careful, or quirky. This quantifiable ability is one of Pokémon’s 'constant' attributes. One Pokémon can get help predicting how another will behave by factoring together the calendar date, the beverage drunk most recently by that other, and the other’s constant attributes. An intrepid Pokémon can get access to the Pokémon hidden power calculator and determine precisely how much and what type of power a hostile Pokémon has.

Estimating the power of a human group is not so simple. It would be useful to reduce all forms of social-change power to a single currency, like Pokémon power attributes for people, but in human conflicts, it’s never so easy to judge power. Fortunately, we don’t need a single currency to measure power or any absolute measure of power. We only need to determine whether a given group has sufficient power to negotiate, says Subar.

When someone else is holding the keys to your happiness, conflict occurs. Conflict is a situation when your people need something but the other side isn’t giving it up. Your side needs to figure out how to get it. You need to determine whether and how to approach the other side. Be it intentionally or unconsciously, groups often make this determination by assessing the power dynamics of the conflict. When our power is equal to our opponent’s power, we have the possibility of getting what we want.

Every one of us has experienced conflict. According to Subar, 'conflict' is when your people want something, and the other side isn’t giving it up. Conflict emerges at the moment your side needs to decide whether to struggle to build power or sit down to negotiate with the other side: whether to talk or to fight. When it comes to handling conflict, sometimes talking makes more strategic sense than fighting, and sometimes fighting is a more promising strategy. In some settings, one might perceive fighting as morally wrong and, in others, as the only principled course. In addition to questions of strategy and principle, most of us have preferences, comfort zones, and even biases toward either dialogue or resistance. Some people are natural provocateurs. To others, peacemaking is a more natural choice.

As individuals, we choose how to approach conflict with a combination of conscious choice and personal predispositions toward one approach or another. Our styles are influenced by earlier events, Subar added. Individual conflict style is made up of 'personal beliefs, values, and motives that ‘push’ one’s conflict behavior in a consistent direction.' We may find ourselves reflected in one of the five conflict styles identified in the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Styles grid: collaborating, accommodating, competing, avoiding, and compromising.

There are two dynamic approaches to conflict. The first: dialogue, negotiation, or talking, includes activities taken on with the consent of both (or all) parties to the conflict. Negotiation, mediation, and voting are methods of consensual problem-solving. Everyone who participates in a negotiation subjects themselves to mediation or goes to the ballot box to vote is participating in a process of decision-making (or a sort of problem resolution) by choice.

Nonviolent methods are not the only way to build power. For starters, one person’s nonviolence is another person’s terror: a disciplined nonviolent street blockade preventing entrance to a bank accused of predatory practices will predictably be experienced by some passersby as violent. So, the second approach: resistance, protest, or fighting, includes activities taken on unilaterally by one group against a second group, without the consent of that second group.

Governments use police and military violence, though this is frequently in the exercise of the power the state already has rather than to build up the state’s power. Whether we call them terrorists or freedom fighters, non-state groups have at times chosen violent methods as the cornerstone of a power-building strategy. Historical examples tumble in once you start thinking about it: the Irish Republican Army, the Jewish resistance in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Algerian resistance to French rule, and so on. These groups targeted the power of states, just as so many countries were formed when revolutionary groups used armed struggle to grow their power against the governments they sought to topple.

Groups in conflict are unlikely to agree on a definition of power, let alone on which group is more powerful. Unbalanced power relations have a profound impact on our self-perceived role in social systems and social struggles. The nature of relative powerlessness and the characteristics of the powerless tend to be imperceptible to the powerful; power protects the powerful from seeing beyond their reality. Because of this phenomenon, groups on different sides of a conflict have different perceptions of who has more power. Unbalanced power affects perceptions of power.

Unbalanced power is ubiquitous in human systems. Every day, each one of us navigates power differences within our families, at schools and workplaces, in our mosques, synagogues, and churches, and in our neighborhoods. Government agencies and corporations set rules and obey unofficial practices that guide our economy and ensure that power is hard to shift. In every human setting, power is present, influencing social dynamics. Power dynamics are ubiquitous across organizations, communities, and society.

People typically grow into adulthood with the knowledge that they ought to have power over decisions that affect them. This means that power differences—whether obvious, subtle, or invisible—are a significant factor in motivating action among weaker parties. These imbalances cause fistfights, family feuds, and wars. So, people seek power.

Power flows through families, organizations, communities, societies, and countries. Each of us creates a personal story of power as we comprehend it from our particular seat in the particular row of our particular theater. The more we perceive the power of our group and of other groups, the more freedom, flexibility, and choice we have as we strategize to win.

That's one of the meanings we can learn from the month of Safar. The third month in the Islamic Calendar is Rabi' al-'Awwal. Muharram means 'forbidden,' Safar means 'void', Rabi' al-'Awwal means 'the first spring', and it also means to graze, because cattle were grazed during this month. It is the very holy month of celebration for many Muslims, as it was the month the Prophet (ﷺ) was born.

Talking about birth, cannot be separated from a discussion about the role of parents, family, and education. We'll continue in the next episode. Bi 'idhnillah."

Cananga then chanting,

Life is dandy

We are what we don't see

We miss everything daydreaming

Flames to dust, lovers to friends

Why do all good things come to an end? *)

Citations & References:

- Kevin Johnson, Never Give Up: Motivational Stories of Determination, Perseverance and Success, 2016, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

- Rebecca Subar, When to Talk and When to Fight: The Strategic Choice between Dialogue and Resistance, 2021, PM Press

- Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, The Ikigai Journey: A Practical Guide to Finding Happiness and Purpose the Japanese Way, translated from Spanish by Russell Calvert Tuttle Publishing

*) "All Good Things (Come to and End)" written by C. Martin, Floyd Nathaniel Hills, Timothy Z. Mosley, Nelly Kim Furtado

[Episode 11]

[Episode 9]

Bahasa