Epicurus said one should never ever eat anything alone; it’s more important to have a simple meal with a special friend, than to eat all sorts of delicacies all by ourselves.

Sleep Deprived

As I sat on Karsa chair during GO exhibition days at Mall Kelapa Gading, I watched carefully as a continuous flow of people kept flooding to this booth selling latex pillows across my booth. There were random groups of people touching, asking, pretending to sleep on the pillows, trying to mimic their sleeping position at home.

I was wondering. Why do people love to buy pillows? Personally, I don't get the logic because I don't buy pillows (yet).

Those who came to the pillow booth were ranging from young executives still in their working attire, moms, dads, youngsters. But why, why do all these people were excited to buy pillows?

Let's relate pillow to sleeping. Sleeping is a stress relive, a fatigue remedy and a place to come home to. Imagine after a long day of work, after taking kids to their school or after continuous meetings during the day, the bed - or in this case the pillow - seems like a sense of reward. What wrong it is then to satisfy yourself with a decent reward by the end of the day. Pillow seems to be a perfect, a compact enough and impulsive buy to reward yourself at the end of the day.

That was probably one of the reasons why pillows are in fact a strange enough fast moving goods.

The Stoics

A rather brave approach towards life.

Honestly

Falling is easy.
Getting up is not.

Maintaining is hard.
Starting up is not.

Doubting is easy.
Trusting is not.

Commodity Curse

We are cursed to sell commodities.

Indonesia is one of the richest countries, comprising of more than 18,000 islands, surrounded by the vast ocean and soil full of resources. I don't think we had much suffering in the past. 

This mentality continues to thrive in our people until today. When mining is just a bubble, our land suffers and the people too. We kept selling commodities to enrich ourselves today, to elevate our relatives and to abuse what's there. It just never came across us that one day, we can't live just by selling the physical. 

Ideas have become scarce, stories are gone and values diminish. Sadly, these things are undervalued in the modern days in Indonesia, where in some other places, they highly adore exploration of ideas. 

Commodities can be measured, ideas don't have boundaries.

It can't be more clear that design should begin with clarity. Your idea matters and your design's relevancy to the present days is a must.

We can sell chairs, we know that.

We make them at the factory.

And sell them overseas.

Done.

But can we compete on another level? Where it's not just about standard commodities, price and quantity that speak. We need to step it up and roll our sleeves. We can't fight on a commodity level because there are too many good talents are wasted out there. 

Förvirrat

Generally,

Wood dust will fly
Water will flow

Happiness is non-eternal
Pain will go

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