Pada awal Mei 2015 Pionir Books, lewat Twitter, menulis surat terbuka yang ditujukan kepada musisi legendaris W. Axl Rose asal Amerika Serikat sebagai tanggapan dan juga ucapan terima kasih atas surat terbuka dia kepada Presiden Joko Widodo yang isinya menentang eksekusi sejumlah terpidana mati narkotik. Dalam surat ini Pionir Books sekaligus menyiarkan filosofi yang melandasi sepak terjang Pionir Books, yang kami namai #FilosofiGroundhogDay. Akan tetapi, filosofi ini sesuatu yang bernapas dan bernyawa sehingga sewaktu-waktu dapat tumbuh berkembang menjadi sesuatu yang perlu kami namai dengan sebutan lain. Hal itu juga konsekuensi dari dan sejalan dengan dasar tuntunan hidup Pionir Books: buka pikiran, pertanyakan segalanya.
Berikut surat terbuka kami tersebut.
Open Letter to @axlrose
May 4, 2015
Mr W. Axl Rose,
I am writing in response to your open letter to Indonesian President Joko Widodo regarding the then impending executions of Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran, and Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso. The letter I am referring to is this one here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/guns-n-roses/axl-roses-letter-to-indonesian-president/10153791661983222
I am no one and because of that I don't have a personal Twitter account as I have nothing to say personally, but I do have a very, very modest publishing project under which I publish translations of Dutch fiction and non-fiction to Indonesian readers and for which I do have a Twitter account, which I am using now to send you this letter.
Evil and negativity seem to appear ever more prevalent, you say. I don't know, perhaps the world has always been like this. I mean, it has got to be.
The world we experience is a reflection of us mankind and a vast majority of people making up mankind -- to an extent that it is mankind -- is egoistic. So let's talk a little bit about the egoistic human being, the egoistic man.
The egoistic man concerns itself with desires, and these desires it fulfills by taking things -- i.e. as opposed to bestowing things.
At first the egoistic man is confronted with animalistic needs. Food, shelter, sex. It must have these. Once satisfied the egoistic man looks to amass wealth, i.e. to secure its animalistic needs and to therefore not having to worry about them anymore, but it then only finds itself wanting to exercise control over other people's wealth by way of... power.
The egoistic man doesn't stop there, however, as it has one final desire to fulfill: knowledge. Art, science, philosophy, religion... Existential questions suddenly abound and they demand answers, answers the power he has now in its hands cannot address: Why am I here? What's the purpose of life? Is there life after death?
In short, the egoistic man grows out from one desire into another:
1. Animalistic needs
2. Wealth
3. Power
4. Knowledge
Each desire assimilates the one going before it. This growth is the natural order of things and therefore perfectly normal. It’s not wrong nor is it evil. However, a vast majority of people making up mankind -- to an extent that it is mankind -- is unaware of this process, which happens to be the root cause of mankind's troubles. This... ignorance.
Let's imagine four receptacles, each one being larger than the one going before it and let's arrange them from small to large. The smallest one, Receptacle #1, contains 'Animalistic Needs'. The next one, Receptacle #2 contains 'Wealth', Receptacle #3 'Power', and Receptacle #4 'Knowledge'. Now let's imagine the content of each receptacle to be a force shaped not unlike a vortex rotating at great speeds. In we go inside Receptacle #1 where we at once are picked up by the force raging in it. Round and round we go until, completely at the mercy of the force's operations, we move away from its center and are slingshot to the next receptacle: Receptacle #2. We experience there the same treatment. Boom!: #3. Until we eventually stumble upon Receptacle #4.
We stumble from one receptacle to another, ignorantly. We're slingshot from one force into another and move about not unlike pebbles in a game of ducks and drakes, experiencing in the process tremendous pain and suffering, without knowing why we experience these and for what purpose they serve, believing each time that the prevailing force is all that is and will be.
Well, it's not. None of these forces are an end; they are but a means to an end. But we believe that they are ends. We believe that being an egoistic man is all there is to it, that its fate is to wallow in these forces, experiencing tremendous pain and suffering as it is being tossed about like a rag doll in the vortexes. Well, it's not.
The fate of the egoistic man is to evolve into the altruistic man, i.e. to transform from a being that takes into a being that bestows. Standing in between these two qualities is a veil, which must be pulled apart. The tremendous pain and suffering the egoistic man undergoes serve exactly to do that: to tear the veil. A vast majority is ignorant of this. I can only wonder what the world would be like if people were aware of this and, instead of being at the mercy of the forces, recognize them, embrace them and make a purposeful beeline for the veil.
I don't mean to come down on people's ignorance on this. The altruistic man is after all a hidden quality, an Easter egg almost, to use an Information Age parlance. And it is hidden behind this veil. Meanwhile, knowledge imparted through the education system and other institutions of learning has been rigged, so to speak, to ensure things stay this way. But I know that we deserve better.
The movie Groundhog Day (1993) starring Bill Murray does a better job at explaining all the above.
Axl, I'm writing because, as a Guns fan, I wish to thank you for your open letter. Someone once wrote that Guns' diehard fans were misfits who'd made their outcast status their stance. Even at my age today that axiom still rings true for me, but with the difference that now I want everyone to be outcasts. Your letter? Penned in true outcast form.
There's another nineties movie I want to bring your attention to: Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Specifically, I'd like to point your attention to a scene involving John Connor and the Terminator, who have just met and are trying to get acquainted with each other:
John Connor: You just can't go around killing people.
The Terminator: Why?
JC: Whadda you mean why? 'Cause you can't.
TT: Why?
JC: Because you just can't, okay. Trust me on this.
That snippet of dialog is telling the same message I'm trying to say, only more succinctly. Taking the lives of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, or of anyone else's for that matter, is wrong. Period. Trust me on this.
Take care, Axl.
Sincerely,
Laurens Sipahelut
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