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We Should Love Math

So, this year should be the year that I go to Japan to watch Tokyo Olympic~ But then 2020 teaches me to be patient and to be grateful for what we have. Anyway…

A little bit contemplation won’t hurt, right?

Living in Japan myself I know that Japanese is more religious than the person that have religion (I need to spell this in Indonesia, “lebih islami daripada orang islam”).

Sometimes I wonder… What makes the Japanese treat the environment, the neighborhoods, and even inanimate objects with such consideration and care? Is it their belief about God that is watching us? Is it their belief about karma?

I somehow think that this relates to their strong appreciation of math (yes, you read that right, MATH). The theory of probability to be exact.

They just could not believe in God or Karma. But they fully understand that we should never take things for granted.

They appreciate all beings, be it human or nonhuman. Because all the good and beautiful things may perish, disappear. As a consequence, our children would never feel it, never see it, never know it anymore. Who knows, someday the abundance of oxygen that we always overlook may not be available anymore. This earth provides us with too many, and also…… have too many random probabilities that could harm us.

If only we understand that gratitude is a matter of understanding uncertainty and probability.

We as Indonesian, know it the best. That this kind of simple logic is failed to be diffused through institutional religions. Sometimes being religious today makes us even further stray away from God.

My mom is one of the lucky people, that understand the logic and happened to be, well, religious.

There is a time when I am home, I asked my mom,

"Mom why sometimes when I go to sleep, suddenly I have so many things come to mind… feelings, thoughts, regrets. It makes me feel restless. I could not fall asleep. in a better scenario, I did sleep, but when I wake up... I feel like “why am I wake up?”  You know like you already tired just for being alive" 😭 😭 😭

My mom responded, “When you go to sleep, do you say, “God thanks for today, and please let me wake up tomorrow”? Because some people sleep and never wake up. Also when you just wake up, you should change your mindset into saying “Let me make today becomes the day I learn, I contribute, I grow, and I am being happy.” How you start your day will affect your entire day and how you end the day will affect how you start your next day.”

My mom is right. We could die at any moment.

Again. Gratitude is a matter of understanding uncertainty and probability.



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