“My life is rich with literature, mythology, classical music, well-known painters, Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Marseillaise – national anthem of France; and all you know is your Doraemon comic book collection” – MOM, 2016

I always spend time with mom on weekends. We usually find places to go (mostly malls, duh) but this time I decided to try something new which was to see a piano recital of Debussy, played by Jean-Louis Haguenauer. As a part of Printemps Français 2016 held by Institut Français d’Indonésie.

The idea came out of nowhere. I saw the ad, I immediately remembered my unfinished french language lesson, I remembered my mom loves piano and classical music, I didn’t know who Debussy is but I don’t care, I know that he was a pianist and composer because mom once mentioned his name looong time ago, so I bought the ticket.

Here we are. At Soehana Hall. Sitting comfortably in a strategic chair so that we can get a clear look at the stage. As soon as the lights came off, the combination of air-con + my full stomach + piano music made my eyes heavy. “This is acceptable”, said I. “Music is supposed to be heard, not seen”, said I again. So there it begins. My eyelids were fighting with gravity. I drowned deep into the beauty of the music.

I fell asleep.

In the first session, I fell asleep a few times. As much as I tried to open my eyes, I failed like I fail in my math, physics, and chemistry lessons back in school. I tried sooo hard to be awake because I didn’t wanna get caught in a camera who then reported to Jean-Louis that, “This girl dare to sleep during your epic melody” :’)

Then I tried to analyse it, Debussy doesn’t feel like other classical music composers that I know. Well, OBVIOUSLY, because Debussy is Debussy. Each has its own characteristic. Debussy’s feels like a witty, sarcastic, cheeky kid; jumping around with a combination of happy, romantic, sad melody. My ear was confused because I didn’t get used to it. As a late 1800’s composer, I can’t compare him with Mozart for example, who was in the late 1700s.

Second session was better. I was wide awake & the music has more power (enough to wake me up) & ended with the famous Clair de Lune.

So, why did i decided to share this story? What’s the takeout out of it? Thanks to my mom, she started it.

The moment made me realize that I know very little about anything but my Doraemon comic books collection. Meaning that my knowledge is not helping me to run as fast as I want it to be.

Every day in my life, mom always implicitly suggest that I should know at least a bit about everything. As a person who is still active in filling crosswords & sudoku, she has a rich knowledge of history, music, art, geography, world issue, mythology, literature; I mean, many things!

After the session ended, mom, whose very stingy with words, was like,

“You can hear very little portion of La Marseillaise in the last session. Also La Mer, and Puck, Oberon, the characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare. Pity you know nothing about those. You only love your Doraemon comics.”

You only love your Doraemon comics

your Doraemon comics

PS: this is Doraemon. My childhood idol character (until now). This is the comics

I was like:

It kinda shows that the willingness to be curious is not in me. To dig more information, to know the background of everything, to appreciate where all these (things!) came from, is.not.in.me. And it disturbs me. The I-dont-know-dont-wanna-know-dont-care disturb me. It disturbs me because I care about people’s points of view, people’s feelings, and it’s about time that I should care about myself. About how can I enrich, invest myself with knowledge, more than Doraemon’s amazing tools in comic number15.

Thus, I should thank Debussy. My mom, Jean-Louis Haguenauer too (sorry for remembering Jean-Paul Gaultier and Jean Claude Van Damme every time I tried to remember your name).

I shared my concern about myself to mom:

• Me: Mom, thank you for spending time with me
• Mom: No, thank you.
• Me: You made me think.
• Mom: What? Doraemon?
• Me: Yea, how I know very little about those kinds of thing. But why do you think that it is important to know that?
• Mom: Because it’s a general knowledge. And you should never neglect it (history, art, literature). Besides, it has to be equal. Art and science has to be equal.
• Me: But I know less about art and my science is terrible.
• Mom:

Well, thanks, mom.