Tiris

📷 Springlake

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 13:57:30 +0700

I was snapping some photos around the lake while these kids were running around, jumping in and out of my shots. They managed to stay still long enough to grab this quick picture.

I like how they are staring off at the new developments being built. I was told this place used to be an open field less than a decade ago. Now, it’s developed just enough to have all the modern amenities one would need, but still has space for a bit of nature. I imagine that, in a few years' time, it will be like any other place in Jakarta.

✏️ La Cuna

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:56:43 +0700

“A twinge of sadness that there’s no frontier left."

I wish I had a portal gun like in Rick and Morty. I’d open a portal to a version of the world where humans never existed. We could start anew with abundant resources. We would make better decisions this time around.

Then again, would we?

There’s a term alcoholics have called “geographing”, where you move to a new location to start a new life because you burned all the bridges in your current area. Of course, being an alcoholic, you end up bringing the same problems with you to your new home.

That’s how I feel about moving to a new Earth: have we really learned our lesson or are we just alcoholics running away from a problem that has been inside us all along.

✏️ Exulansis

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 09:53:31 +0700

“The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it."

This is me with aromanticism. Whenever I try to explain to people that I don’t feel romantic love, people either stare at me blankly, or worse, suggest that I just haven’t found “The One” yet. Sometimes, people even look at me like I’m a soon-to-be serial killer.

I do care about people, I do have emotions and feelings. It’s just that all-encompassing, “She is my world, I want to spend the rest of my life with her” type of love that I’ve never felt.

I’ve also never felt a strong desire to build a life with someone. I’m actually quite content being alone, to be honest. Co-habitation and marriage always felt like something I had to do, rather than wanted to do.

My plan for next month is to finally sit down on a psychologist’s couch and sort out what this all means for me and future relationships. Living in a more conservative country, I’m already anticipating their blank stares and cocked heads, bracing for the inevitable “Maybe you just haven’t found The One yet”.

✏️ Fitzcarraldo

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 12:37:24 +0700

A random image that becomes lodged deep in your brain.

I used to have this reoccurring dream when I was young. It would just be me standing in the yard of some elementary school. Even though I had never seen this school before I just knew it had to be in my hometown judging from the surrounding neighbourhood that looked so familiar. The problem is that, I had explored virtually every corner of my small town. So, to have an entire school in my neighbourhood be unbeknownst to me was unfathomable. And yet, these dreams persisted.

If wasn’t until my last year of high school, while I was skateboarding around my area, that I took a left instead of my usual right. Lo and behold, there was the school - exactly as I imagined it. Not only was it real, but it was embarrassingly close to me this whole time.

It’s amazing how much is hidden from us by nothing more than a simple lack of curiosity.

✏️ Licotic

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 10:14:27 +0700

“Anxiously excited to introduce a friend to something you think is amazing."

Recently, I’ve been rediscovering and sharing old songs from my youth. I mostly listen to lo-fi music these days, but I used to be obsessed with song lyrics. My favourite lyricist is John K. Samson from The Weakerthans. His lyrics are a perfect blend of emotion mixed with the most hilariously-banal Canadiana. He brilliantly uses curling as a metaphor for indecisiveness in a relationship, and a commuter bus line to reminisce about said relationship ending.

Sharing his lyrics with my friend is easy - not so much for other artists I used to love. Looking back on some of my favourite lines with 20+ years of experience, I’m anxious that some of the words might ring a bit … shallow. There are a lot of pop punk songs about yearning to escape a small town, or the horrors of your parents not-completely understanding you, or the most standard of break-ups. These songs meant so much to me back then, but now I’m not sure if they will hit the same with someone who had a radically different life than me.

Then again, I could be wrong. The desire to escape, to be seen, to express loss - they are pretty universal no matter where in the world you grew up.

📷Warung

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:50:48 +0700

A photo of some of the food stalls around my apartment complex. I didn’t realize I had left on the green filter and color blur settings of my camera when I took this photo.

I’m glad I forgot because I really like how the shadows turned out.

✏️ Volander

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 10:16:02 +0700

“The ethereal feeling of looking down at the world through an airplane window."

I remember flying over Siberia once. I remember being in awe of the sheer nothingness below me, just a vast expanse of … unhumanness. Stretches of land that no feet has ever tread on.

There’s something about being physically in nature that taints the experience a bit in my mind. If I can exist there, then, to some degree, it was an experience designed for me. There was some infrastructure in place to take me there and ensure my survival, if only for awhile. But to see pure nature, rocks and trees that have never known a human before, was absolutely fascinating.

An entire world completely indifferent to humanity and our silly affairs.

✏️ Ameneurosis

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 11:00:06 +0700

“The half-forlorn, half-escapist ache of a train whistle calling in the distance at night."

I think I can understand the feeling that, somewhere in the distance, someone is going somewhere in life. An escape from whatever you want to escape from being just over there. A solution within reach if only you were brave enough, or desperate enough, to take it.

But you never take it. You let the sound fade into the distance and tell yourself it’s fine.

There will always be another train, after all.

✏️ Astrophe

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:52:03 +0700

“The feeling of being stuck on Earth."

People like to wax on about the Fermi Paradox, but I think it has a really simple solution: space is big.

Like, really big.

Like, even bigger than you’re thinking right now - which I’m sure is very big, but still not even remotely close to the truth.

I feel like the term “lightyear” gets downplayed a lot. It’s the fastest thing in the known universe, traveling unimpeded, 24/7, for an entire year. The edge of the observable universe is 46 billion lightyears away. Even if we somehow managed to master lightspeed travel, we could spend the equivalent of our entire human civilization up to now zooming across the cosmos and we’d have barely scratched the surface. In fact, it would be more accurate to stay we explored 0% of the universe than 1%.

I get the feeling of astrophe, man. It’s almost maddening to know that 100% of the universe will be forever out of our reach.

✏️ the Till

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 10:47:29 +0700

“The reservoir of all possible opportunities still available to you at this point in your life."

I’ve been an English teacher for most of my adult life. I wouldn’t say I’m the best, but I work damn hard to do my best. However, I lack some of the formal education needed to move up to the more prestigious and better-paying schools. Acquiring those accreditations would require time and money I simply just don’t have. It’s fine, though: my current job pays well enough and allows me the freedom to create the best learning environment for my students.

As for relationships, I’m approaching forty and might be coming out of an eight-year relationship soon. The prospect of dating again in my forties doesn’t exactly thrill me as people tend to have very rigid lives at this age. Families, careers, and other obligations can quickly nullify what might otherwise be a genuine connection. I often wonder how many romances were left to wither simply because of scheduling conflicts. My life, too, has become rigid now with a nice job in a nice area within walking distance of my nice apartment. Heartache aside, my life has become rather nice after so many years of struggle and I’m not in a rush to start rolling the dice again.

Well, that’s not quite true: there is one person in my life right now that might inspire me to pick up the dice again, like she’s inspired me to do so many other things. But that’s a question that doesn’t need to be answered now. I still have some time to enjoy what is without worrying about what will be.

My reservoir of possibilities still has a few drops left in it.

✏️ Elsewise

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:37:50 +0700

“Struck by the poignant strangeness of other people’s homes."

I remember visiting the homes of neighbourhood kids and being awash in the alienness of them. Specifically, I remember being put-off by their strange smells, which, now that I think about it, might just be an autism thing. I’m sure my childhood home, with its menagerie of pets, had quite a pungent smell itself. But it was MY smelly house.

I remember being a small child and sitting on my friend’s couch. I remember not being completely at ease - not because the couch was uncomfortable, but because it wasn’t MY couch. It felt like the couch was gently reminding me that I was only a guest on it and that I shouldn’t get too comfortable.

✏️ Slipfast

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:57:17 +0700

“Longing to disappear completely; to melt into a crowd and become invisible, so you can take in the world without having to take part in it."

I’ve always been fascinated with liminal space - even before I knew there was a name for it. I used to wander streets aimlessly until I ended up in strange neighborhoods at strange times of the day just to watch what the world did when we were all at work. I would hang out in cafes and just watch people walk by the window, wondering why they were out and about at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday. I loved the feeling of being invisible, to see the world as I was never meant to see it.

A behind-the-scenes look at life, which, while looking exactly the same otherwise, felt completely alien somehow.

✏️ Plata Rasa

Sat, 30 May 2026 20:46:07 +0700

“The lulling sound of a running dishwasher."

This one I don’t really get: I’ve never found the sound of a dishwasher to be particularly soothing or deeply meaningful. If I had to guess, it’s the satisfaction that something needing to be done is being done, and there’s nothing to do but give it time to be done.

✏️ Jouska

Fri, 29 May 2026 09:50:55 +0700

“A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head."

I’ve been doing this all week. I have a difficult conversation coming up tomorrow and I’ve been workshopping the right words in my head. Normally, I’m quite good at talking my way out of difficult situations - too good if my dating history is any indication. However, this time it feels different.

The possible outcomes of this conversation are thankfully limited, with all of them leading to a better life … eventually. Maybe, it’s just the pain that comes with self-growth that I’m avoiding. The fear of finding out that a big piece of your life turned out to be just a comforting lie that you now have to let go. It’s a small mercy that, regardless of the outcome, I’ll be able to express a more authentic version of myself.

I’m set on what I want, and I don’t want to negotiate. However, I do have to come to terms with the possibility that the other person might not agree, and I will have to respect their decision.

Growth does not come without some sacrifice, I suppose.

✏️ Looseleft

Thu, 28 May 2026 10:50:54 +0700

“Feeling a sense of loss upon finishing a good book."

This was me finishing “House of Leaves”, the best / worst horror novel I’ve ever read. I wouldn’t even call it a horror novel so much as a horror experience. The book actively resists you reading it, like it’s warning you - or challenging you. The book quite literally warns you on the first page that it is “not for you”, before proceeding to simultaneously bore and gaslight you while quietly whittling away your sense of reality in the background.

This book was a goal I set out for myself when I first moved to Jakarta. There’s a popular cafe chain here called Fore, which has a playlist that could only be described as “Music to Disassociate to”. It sounds like generic ambient lo-fi, but just slightly off-key - the uncanny valley of music. I would spend my weekends reading the book there, the unsettling music enhancing the horror experience. I could feel parts of my sanity slowly slipping away as I struggled to read each page.

It was grueling, but I did manage to reach the end of this accursed book, closing it and just staring into the middle space for what felt like forever. I didn’t even know what to make of the book, the ending, or even my own reality at that point. I just put the book back on my shelf where it has sat for over two years untouched.

Every now and then, I think about returning to it. I miss the satisfaction of conquering the book, but not the psychological pain it inflicted. Would I even get the same feelings again? I’m not entirely sure I want to find out. I think it’s one of those experiences you’re forever scared to revisit, because you might discover that, despite what your memories tell you, it wasn’t all that profound in the first place.

✏️ Vemödalen

Wed, 27 May 2026 10:02:35 +0700

“The fear that originality is no longer possible."

Is that really a bad thing? My style of photography has been done to death, but that doesn’t mean it’s not special to me. It’s special, not because it’s unique, but because I made it. I tried to create something beautiful. And if anyone enjoys my work, it’s because it reveals small facet of me, not because it’s original.

I’m not an artist, but I do like to express myself. And I think more people should create things, especially in these gloomy times. To me, art is not about originality; it’s about appreciating the world around you.

✏️ Occhiolism

Tue, 26 May 2026 10:00:40 +0700

“The awareness of how fundamentally limited your senses are."

As an autistic person, it always feels like I’m never quite in-sync with the rest of the world. It’s like playing a game that you only know most of the rules to, but not all. My emotional range always feeling like it’s missing the latest patch. A pretty-good-but-not-quite human.

It’s especially true when people tell me that they love me. I can see the depth of devotion in their eyes; I just can’t quite wrap my head around it. There are people I care deeply for emotionally - possibly bordering on romantically - but never this fiery, all-encompassing, all-consuming passion for one person and one person alone.

I once read about impossible colours: frequencies of light that sit just outside our visual spectrum. Normally, we can’t see them, but with some visual trickery, we can momentarily glitch our brains into processing them. They aren’t the true shades of those colours, though - just our brain desperately trying to make sense of stimuli it can’t understand.

That’s how I feel about the traditional form of romantic love: I can understand it and even get glimpses of it from time to time. But I know what I feel isn’t the true thing, just my heart trying to make sense of stimuli it can’t quite understand.

✏️ Scabulous

Mon, 25 May 2026 10:47:23 +0700

“Proud of a certain scar on your body."

This will be an easy one. I don’t have too many mental or physical scars (see my previous post about having quite a fortunate life). The ones I do have don’t carry much meaning if I had to be completely honest.

My left arm has a huge surgical scar running along the whole length of it. I was skateboarding at a skatepark and fell on my arm. For a brief moment, I believe I touched my own armpit. The break ended up being a rather complicated one with the healing process taking over a year, requiring metal plates, screws, grafted bone from my hips, and a ton of physiotherapy.

Now that I think of it, I actually have good memories of walking to physiotherapy after school, trudging through gray snow and gray skies, my headphones blasting whatever album I fancied at the time. It was like a little slice of adult life: keeping my appointments, finding my own way to the hospital, and being responsible for my own recovery.

I guess that scar is scabulous after all.

✏️ Kairosclerosis

Sun, 24 May 2026 09:23:09 +0700

“The moment you look around and realize that you’re currently happy."

Oh boy, this is a particularly apt writing prompt today. I have lived an unusually blessed life - everything I’ve ever asked for, I’ve received. It’s never when I wanted it or exactly how I imagined it, but my wishes have always been granted sooner or later.

I have a job that I’m passionate about, I live in a nice area, I don’t have any major debts or obligations tying me down. I’m surrounded by hyperfixations, deep thought, and love. And it’s the last one that seems to be causing me the most trouble at the moment.

I consider myself aromantic in that I don’t feel romantic love the way it’s portrayed in movies and songs. Deep friendship and romance feel more or less the same to me - a strong connection to someone. If there’s a sexual connection, even better! To this day, I still battle guilt regarding my more heteronormative partner. She’s been very supportive and open-minded, but this was definitely not the experience she signed up for.

Just recently, I’ve acknowledged feelings for a friend of mine. Not love, mind you, but a deep connection with a sexual element too. It’s not the same connection I feel with my partner, but it’s still meaningful in its own way. I’ve been struggling to come to terms with this new feeling: First, trying to rationalize or quantify the feelings away and then trying to mold my current partner to better match my new flame. The former failed obviously because you can’t logic away feelings and the latter was just disrespectful and erased the reasons I liked my partner in the first place. Let’s also not forget the pressure from society to accept the standard “only one love at time” policy.

I never got it - why do we have to limit love? Why does it always need a clean label? Why does one person have to fulfill every need we have? Why must love always be a zero-sum game? I feel more alive and human when I have more connections to people - whether emotionally naked or just plain naked.

The reason I chose “kairosclerosis” for this prompt is because, in addition to all the other blessings, I’m happy that I get to love two people for different reasons and in their own unique ways. This feels way more natural and fulfilling to me and I’m tired of pretending that it’s not.

I know that eventually this might cost me one or both partners. It’s a thought that saddens me and it still something that I’m still coming to terms with. But in this moment, I appreciate that I can mean so much two people and that they can mean so much to me.

✏️ Trumspringa

Sat, 23 May 2026 09:15:01 +0700

“The longing to wander off your career track in pursuit of a simple life."

I’ve stumbled upon a few homesteading videos on YouTube before and I’ll admit: there is a small part of me that wishes I could just leave everything behind and just tend some land. I would have a big dog that I’d patrol the property with every morning. The weather would be cold, but not bitter; the sky gray but never raining. The only sound would be the wind against my ears.

I know my fantasy sounds quite dreary, but it gives me an odd sense of peace - the overcast weather and emptiness being a sort of liminal space. A storm forever looming on the horizon, but in that moment, I’m safe.

With nothing else to do except go for a walk with my dog.

✏️ Chrysalism

Thu, 21 May 2026 12:07:46 +0700

“The amniotic tranquility you feel when you are safely indoors while a storm, rain, or chaos rages outside."

I absolutely love watching storms. I’m one of the few people in Indonesia that gets genuinely excited whenever I see a lightning bolt shoot across the sky. I love the excited anticipation between the flash and the crack - imagining how far away it could have been based on time between them. I love that I’m fortunate enough live on floor high enough that I can watch the storm completely unobstructed.

I remember a few times in my life when I’ve had insomnia during a storm, and instead of my usual tossing and turning, I would go to my spare room with the best view of the city and just watch the bolts dance across the sky. It would feel like I was the only person awake in the world and this firework show was put on just for me.

✏️ A Hopeful Beginning

Thu, 21 May 2026 10:07:48 +0700

This is my very first blog post. It’s been ages since I started one of these.

For a long time, I felt like I’ve been languishing. Not suffering, but also not enjoying life - just existing. Then someone came into my life and reminded me that I used to love song lyrics, and prose, and photography. They reminded me that I liked creating stuff. And more than that, I liked sharing the stuff I made.

So that’s what this is: me sharing the tiny things that make my life a bit more colourful.

I’m a penguin and these are my shiny rocks. I hope you like them.