SELAMATKAN SATWA KEBUN BINATANG SURABAYA

http://www.change.org/petitions/menhut-segera-bertindak-selamatkan-satwa-kebun-binatang-surabaya

the fault in our stars

“There will come a time,” I said, “when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this”—I gestured encompassingly—“will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.”

--- 

After I finished, there was quite a long period of silence as I watched a smile spread all the way across Augustus’s face—not the little crooked smile of the boy trying to be sexy while he stared at me, but his real smile, too big for his face. “Goddamn,” Augustus said quietly. “Aren’t you something else. 

Hazel & Ausgustus - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Saya sangat menyukai karakter Hazel di novel ini. Hazel adalah seorang teenager berusia 16 tahun yang menderita kanker paru-paru. Ketika Hazel digambarkan tidak suka keluar rumah dan bergaul, Saya berpikir bahwa menderita kanker membuat ia menolak berinteraksi dengan orang lain. Ternyata, memang begitulah Hazel. Diam di dalam rumah, membaca buku yang sama berkali-kali, menonton acara American Next Top Model sambil sibuk berkomentar, adalah sebagian dari aktiftas sehari-hari yang membuat Saya jatuh cinta dengan karekter Hazel. Karena sedikit banyak mirip Saya, melakukan berbagai aktivitas yang menurut orang lain sepele dan tidak penting dengan serius dan bersungguh-sungguh. 

Hazel menolak permintaan Ibunya untuk datang ke support group penderita kanker karena tidak ingin ketinggalan menonton American Next Top Model. Setelah diperoleh kesepakatan bahwa acara tersebut bisa direkam untuk ditonton kemudian, Hazel bersedia datang.

Hazel bertemu Augustus ketika mengikuti support group, menurut Hazel Augustus benar-benar HOT. Setelah mengenal Augustus melalui kacamata Hazel, menurut Saya Augustus memang benar-benar HOT. 

Patrick said, “Augustus, perhaps you’d like to share your fears with the group.” 

“My fears?”

“Yes.”

“I fear oblivion,” he said without a moment’s pause.  “I fear it like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.”

“Too soon,” Isaac said, cracking a smile.

“Was that insensitive?” Augustus asked. “I can be pretty blind to other people’s feelings.”

Isaac was laughing, but Patrick raised a chastening finger and said, “Augustus, please. Let’s return to you and your struggles. You said you fear oblivion?”

“I did,” Augustus answered.

Hazel hanya membutuhkan waktu beberapa jam saja untuk memutuskan bersedia menonton film (V for Vendetta!) di rumah Augustus dan lagi-lagi meminta ibunya untuk merekam tayangan American Next Top Model! LOL.

I turned to the car. Tapped the window. It rolled down. “I’m going to a movie with Augustus Waters,” I said. “Please record the next several episodes of the ANTM marathon for me.”

Ada satu kalimat keren dari Hazel yang tidak bisa Saya lupakan ketika orang tua Augustus mengajak makan malam bersama.

“You’re joining us for dinner, I hope?” asked his mom. She was small and brunette and vaguely mousy. “I guess?” I said. “I have to be home by ten. Also I don’t, um, eat meat?” 

“No problem. We’ll vegetarianize some,” she said. “Animals are just too cute?” Gus asked. 

“I want to minimize the number of deaths I am responsible for,” I said. Gus opened his mouth to respond but then stopped himself. His mom filled the silence. “Well, I think that’s wonderful.”

Saya membaca novel ini tanpa jeda, karena hanya 180 halaman dan karena Saya tidak mampu berhenti. Saya belajar sesuatu tentang kematian, kehidupan, cinta, dan orang lain dari kacamata Hazel Grace Lancaster. Kemudian air mata berderai-derai waktu Saya membaca surat Augustus untuk Van Houten tentang Hazel. Mungkin waktu waktu membaca novel itu Saya hanya sedang melankolis saja. Atau..  karena pada suatu titik Saya menyadari banyak hal yang terjadi di novel itu yang tidak terbayangkan bisa terjadi di dunia nyata (tapi di suatu tempat pada seseorang, serupa tapi tak sama, hal seperti itu bisa saja terjadi). 

Van Houten, 

I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time—and from what I saw, you have plenty—I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. 

Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. 

I want to leave a mark. 

But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. 

(Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) 

We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless—epically useless in my current state—but I am an animal like any other. 

Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. 

People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. 

--- etc.