Even the Heavens Conspire Against Those who Suffer

There is a settlement next to our compound. The poor who live there have never received governmental permission to construct and reside in their humble dwellings. So the government is tearing down their houses and removing them one by one. 

No one seems to know what will be done with the land once it is cleared. One rumor I have heard is that it will be turned into a cemetery as Jakarta has run out of space for the newly-dead in this dreadful year where death has ruled so thoroughly.  No rumors have I heard about the fate of the displaced.



And now the rainy season has added its voice to the proceedings. Today massive sheets of water have been drenching Jakarta relentlessly.  The settlement has been saturated and a flood of water, mud, and debris from the destruction process is rising at an alarming rate. Lightning strikes and thunder are roaring all around, raging at the unprotected.  I wonder if indifference is the most powerful force in the universe as most of us on earth and even the rain pouring from the heavens seem to conspire tacitly against those who suffer; indifference can have a greater impact on the fate of some of us than love or hate or any other forces to whom we usually ascribe great power. And though I am observing, I do nothing but write a post, while guarding my health fervently from my secure and dry 17th Floor lookout.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Erik's Book Club: November Selections

Image
I experienced another wonderful month of reading, six books in all.  Five of them were quite magnificent. The Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi was probably my favorite.  It's a novel that was a finalist for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction. It's a philosophical novel of family, religious faith, identity, and science and one women's struggle to understand them all as they apply to her tragic life. It would take a 1000-word review to do the book justice;  I would simply say that I highly recommend it and it's a book worth seeking out. Very different, but as good as Gyasi's novel is: When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, a finalist for the 2021 Booker Prize. It sounds peculiar: it's a hybrid history/novel retelling the story of crucial discoveries in quantum physics. It's a book that disorients the reader in that, for the first half, it is extremely difficult to determine where fact ends and fiction begins. Ultimately it is a caution
Read more

Erik's Book Club: September Selections

Image
I was bogged down in August, but I've roared back in September, reading five books during the month.  Even better is the fact that all five books were fantastic and worth reading. First one I read is a book a dear friend recommended quite some time ago and I found an old copy that I brought with me to Indonesia.  Finally, I read it: Blink, by the prolific Malcolm Gladwell. Though it's one of his older works, it still resonates today. In a nutshell, Gladwell utilizes lessons from psychology and neuroscience to teach us how to make better decisions using our ability to focus extremely quickly on a few essential details. Highly recommended, though it was sad to read the chapter on the Amadou Diallo case.  15 years ago Gladwell provided a blueprint on how police could be better trained so they could avoid cases of accidental police killings of minorities, such as in the Diallo case, by training police to recognize bias and modify their policing. Of course, in the thoroughly unprogr
Read more

Erik's Book Club: August Selections

Image
Didn't get much reading accomplished in August. Partly because it was my busy season of New Student Orientation and the start of the academic year, but also because I got bogged down with the main book I read. The book that bogged me down was The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. Earlier this year, I read his newest work, Klara and the Sun, which I zipped through and enjoyed immensely.  However, The Buried Giant, while it is a well-written and profound work, really was a book that didn't speak to me and I had trouble getting through more than about 15 pages a day.  The novel is a fable telling the tale of an elderly couple trying to find their long-lost son as they hike alone through the stark English landscape.  The story is set in the darkness of Post-Arthurian England and mixes realism with the exploits of dragons and knights. If you like Ishiguro, you might enjoy this book, but I found it tedious and I would strongly recommend reading Klara and the Sun instead. I also read a
Read more