Of Love and National Geographic Indonesia

As a student I would frequent the local library for reading National Geographic magazines. Like a few people, I would be fascinated by the breathtaking beauties of their photos. An old copy was particularly special; it was one featuring tancho birds, a type long regarded by the Japanese as a symbol of fidelity. The photos and words were so exceptional I dont know which touched my soul more. But I know that the one of its kind magazine has since reigned in my heart.

On our way home one day my wife said she was deciding to subscribe to NGI, National Geographic Indonesia (it tried Indonesian readership early last year, while Playboy Indonesia will follow its path this year, if only with a mission that is far from educational). Youd probably guess it right: agreeing to itI mean the NGI--was almost too easy. Before we knew it, the first copy was delivered to our home, much to our delight. It was on the Chango, the rather mysterious and mystical tribe living in the rustic areas bordering Hungary and Romania. Then, again before we knew it, weve started collecting the yellow-covered publication.

To my chagrin, I have yet to find the pleasure of reading them. It is not because of the presentation in Indonesian, of which I remarked to my wife that we should wear tolerance. The problem is that every time I lay my fingers on it, it feels like I am being invited to the verge of nausea. It doesn't smell like paper; it stinks like cheap screen-printed plastic stickers.

According to my wife, the smell is quite palpable, though apparently not so strong enough to turn off her reading appetite. Maybe it hasn't. Or perhaps some noses, like mine, will become more sensitive after living for some time away from big cities. If, like they say, the nose knows, NGI should seriously overcome this problem.

***

Then, the February 2006 edition arrived home yesterday. Its title, printed in crimson against the black background photo of a young couple embracing each other, is Cinta, the Indonesian equivalent for that most important word: love. After Fromm's The Art of Loving and Peck's The Road Less Travelled, my instant blink commanded me to like it, which of course I succumbed to. I set my heart to go against my normal reaction (did I use normal already?). So, I finally did read it.

In this headlined article the writer tried to explain how love influences human brain and how science gradually comes to the forefront in explaining empirically how the emotional phenomenon reflects its empirical evidence.Well, in spite of what the article says, what is really there to say? Maybe one day this same science one day will try to what hormone is emitted in the brain when I am disgusted, or maybe it'll try to make photos of human souls.

The article quoted a 10-year research. According to the writer, this scientist has in the last ten years been "memperhatikan cinta dalam arti sesungguhnya, dengan pertolongan mesin MRI" ("observing love in its truest meaning, by using an MRI machine"). How absurd!

The serious problem with all this I guess started when the writer failed to define cinta in the first place. Love being a complex issue covering a wide range of emotions, there are soo... many kinds of it. For one, my love to my wife would not the same as that to my daughter. To me the most disturbing flaw that disturbed my reading is the way the article has confused sex, lust, infatuation, physical attraction, and passion with cinta despite the writers attempts to distinguish them by quoting various studies by anthropologists and psychiatrists.

***

Why do people seem to have a predisposition to like magazines like National Geographic? Well, we can think of some reasons: its superb photos of faraway lands? Great stories of exotic things? Intriguing accounts of otherwise unbeknown experiences?

I hold that the underlying reason has to do with escapism. It is closely linked to our personal concept of (dis)comfort. Most of us are confined to the (dis)comfort of modern living. Partly, it's either because we tend to wish to be elsewhere; or because it's often sufficient just to think that we know about something, a simulacrum instead of experiencing it ourselves. Of course, we can't do all the things we want. And there are certain things that we should not even wish to do.

I wonder whether a reading of the original text, in English, would've led me to this direction. This post is long enough already; for now daily chores are getting the better of all my need for escapism.