RICHEST GUY IN THE UNIVERSE

It is not he or she who is with the money that rules.

The good news is you are rich. The bad news, you just do not know it. Let me awaken you that you are.

1. You are healthy. Go to hospital and you will meet those who pay for the oxygen they breathe. You are not gonna say they are richer just because they are able to pay for it, are you? Or, are you going to crybaby because paralyzed guy can afford a wheelchair made of gold while you just go around here and there on your feet because you can not buy one? I don’t think so.
Keep looking and you can not miss being grateful for this.

2. You are a free person. Deciding over everything is a sign of freedom, a privilege a poor guy does not have. I am talking about these: I know someone who makes his fortune by working for a cigarette company and he knows there is nothing right about selling the puff but maintains he does it because he has no choice. The fact that he can not leave the job, though he knows he should, shows that he is not free (and I am not too harsh to say that he is enslaved in any kind). I too can tell you about Fitri, a doctor I know, who shows the world her freedom; she left her job as a doctor for a big hospital, saying that if she stayed there, there would be too many a practice she would have to compromise and it is all wrong and against her conscience. She was talking about “improper” deals she could not have avoided with the hospital’s management and pharmaceuticals. This freedom cuts deep on her income as she now practices in her own small clinic.
I can go on with my recollection on those others who demonstrate their richness in their ability to make a decision that paralyzes them financially but they still get on with the decision and as a result they make themselves rich in a way money can not buy.
If a rich man never worries with the money, are you not rich already because you are not worried with it?

3. You are a giver. So you still think one who makes Rp. 100 million a day is richer than you? Or one who lives in a big house in Pondok Indah? Look, they do not make any difference to those who are in need. One million Rupiahs spent by one guy for a plate of lunch does not drive away the hunger in another man’s stomach. But give this hungry man Rp. 1000, it will surely appease the hunger to some degree and it means the world to him. One guy who might have spent one billion Rupiahs for his bedroom does not make a homeless fellow sleep tight. But contribute any amount for an organization that shelters the homeless, you will have helped reduce their number on the street.
It is not how much you have, but it is how much you give that counts.

Even King Solomon would envy me..

VOTERS WAKE UP

You are seeing all these banners practically defacing the already city streets and what you can do is thinking "Not again..!"

The General Election is coming and those politicians have been trying to excite us with something of no substance. In here, promises are just constructed words to complete the election. You will surely hear ALL of them say such as "I will lower oil price and liberate education so everyone will taste the prosperity".

And these promises will go together with out-of this-world encouragement with some saying "if you are a good Moslem, you must choose me", or "Let us pray that the enemy of Allah, the rest of them, will see our victory in this Election".

People enjoy these noises and hocus pocus for some reasons. Some just can not afford entertainment anymore as their existence does not allow them even to spend a dime on anything except their very survival and some are just too ignorant and stupid to admit that it is not (one) religion words that shape their better future, so they keep living with the idea that if it is not us who leads this nation then it is never them. It is neither empty promises that make everything all right when the election is over but well proposed programs of theirs they will be held accountable.

Hidup SBY!

TIREN: MATI (tidak) KEREN (banget)

Have not watched Indonesian movies for the past two years? I want to tell you that you have not missed anything since all of them are all the same settings: ghosts, spirits, evils and the like.

Having promised to myself that Korea’s version Grudge was my last horror film to watch because it scared me to death, I broke my promise and decided to watch some of these above, hoping I would be scared all over again. Instead, after doing so, I got irritated, confused and asked “how come I wasted my time watching these lousy films??!”

I’m referring all these Babi Ngepet, Pocong, Kuntilanak, Jalangkung, Suster Nngesot, Pulau Hantu, etc. As if difficulties in life like skyrocketing prices, almost-impossible admission to good schools were not scary enough, these films have failed to do their jobs to scare us. But to yourr dismay, you keep seeing the same theme but only with different titles showing and it leaves you wondering “Who are the sitting ducks? and “Who are responsible for all these, anyway?”

They (and their wannabes) would not have been made into production if they had not attracted a number of crowds enough to cover production costs and produce some profit. And to be scared cheaply and still ignorant of how mediocre they are, must surely take uneducated people, the sitting ducks, to watch. Of course, you would not watch them because your being educated defies any logics to do so. That’s why the movies have always been popular among the uneducated (who unfortunately make up most of our population). What is supposed to be one way to educate through viewings is the way to un-educate (them).

The answer to the question “Who is responsible?” lies, unsurprisingly, in the hands of the educated for what is happening. The clever here are those who know very well that what they are doing is driven by nothing but money. We are talking about the producer who knows too well that his funding will not go back for nothing, no matter how poor the film is; a director who knows that the movie he made is very bad (but very lucrative) by any standard but chooses to reason that what he made is karya seni; and some guys who claim they are actors and actress but do not know how to act (but keep saying they are pekerja seni), and even do not know what the film they are in is all about (I read in a paper that most of them did not read the whole script except for their parts and was handed it as they arrived on the location, but these pekerja seni opted to be in the films as they were paid handsomely,. You know, Karenina said she would not have acted in her first and only film for she had always known she was never a good actress).

Money money money ....

RIDWAN HUTASOIT WRITES BLOGS: GIRLS ONLY: WHITENINGS

RIDWAN HUTASOIT WRITES BLOGS: GIRLS ONLY: WHITENINGS

DOCTOR, WHERE ART THOU?

If what we are doing is driven by nothing but money, then I do not think there is reason why we are here.

Would there be any other jobs greater than this one? A banker may brag he can make Rp. 2 billion every month and a manager for an FMCG company is said to fetch Rp. 150 million monthly or a journalist who writes her minds and travel journals. But neither beats a doctor. A doctor saves, revitalizes life; even the very life of the accountant, the manager, and the journalist breathe. A doctor is there to constantly remind us of that, that without life you could not make your dime, let alone your millions; without life you could not enjoy writing your mind if there were one who fixes the constant tremors in your fingers. No job would be greater than this one...

And that is the reason, I think, this man (or woman of course) in white should not worry about the money, about the car, about the anything he can make out of his profession. A doctor living in a small humble house or going to work by angkot because he can not afford a car has always made the job the most rewarding, something those other jobs can not claim though they come in a bundle with a grand house, expensive vacations, or a SUV. By any measure the life saving by this job is incomparable.

And it is really saddening that those things coming in second places are allowed to make their positions to the first and ruthlessly set aside the life Numero Uno. Gunawan, a very good (and man, he is terribly smart!) doctor whom I know well shared with me that one doctor without any shame in his practice works like a salesman, with poor selling skills, for an MLM product; he makes patients buy this multivitamin or medicine (they do not need the stuff). Another horrid recollection is that one student of mine saw oftentimes how this doctor ignored a patient’s critical condition because he was busy dealing with a pharmaceutical rep on his cut if he recommended the drugs. The list can go on with things like unnecessary (mandatory) additional visits, prescriptions and even operations (thanks to such hospital policies turning doctors into puppets). This job has seemed to haplessly lower its divine position to such one boringly low game in which people are fighting for WHO GETS THE MOST TOYS WINS.


Socrates, raise up.



this writing is dedicated to GUNAWAN (a young doctor on his inevitable journey to be a great one) and the bunch of UMJ medical students, Novi, Anis, Mayang, Tika, Nila, and all sitting pretty in our class

HATE TO LOVE

Does it take or give freedom to know how much one loves another? I know one who shows his love to his special one by allowing her to go out with anyone she wants and at the same time too I know one who demonstrates his care by not permitting his girl even to talk with any boy except him. Either, it has its own opponents and supporters and nothing is more amusing than one a good friend of mine at the Faculty of Medicine of UMJ shared with me.

She told me how her boyfriend, because well, he said he loved her, made everything so perfect for her(or for him?); he always calls her to make sure if she has had lunch or dinner; if she has prepared next day’s lesson; and if she has bought her groceries. The attention goes on further than what she could think of.

Not very long did she realize that all the attention turned into the inquiry, a checklist of don’ts and do’s and she has been there only to oblige. This means he has to know with whom she has lunch,what time and what to eat (this is something huge to me, knowing that she knows about health very, very well); . This boy even further said that doing Friendster, was no good for her as he knew it was a waste of her time

The real kicker is when with out of this world authority, he commanded her not to study English with a guy like me..
Nov, I have never felt so good-looking!