People, People, and.... People

Ok let me start with what I and my friends have been talking about recently: relationship (lol don't judge us, this topic just came out of nowhere). So basically we're talking about this and that and it eventually led us to our dream wedding and house. I, personally don't have so many specific details of my house for real, let it just be a house where I and my own family can live safely and happily. But, I do want to have a 'house', not in an apartment or condo or such, in the city. And in my dream-house-specification I want a house with a backyard (not because I like gardening but I just like the idea of having a large place where I can play outdoor with my children and husband) and a room designed like Teletubbies' house. A ROOM. A small replica. Not the whole house lol of course not. I think it'd be good as a study room or a play room...

...and then I stopped. Right there. Where could I find such a space for my dream house? I mean, I would've gotten it eight, maybe ten or fifteen years later but I don't think there would be another space for my house. I think it's gonna be hard enough to find a 'house' in the city, let alone a house with backyard. (wait, by city I mean a big city like Jakarta or Bandung, because I want to linger around there)

This thought coming back last night, when I, Mom, and lil bro were going back from Mall Taman Anggrek. Just across the mall, there's a brand new luxury apartment. The building is nice and clean, and the position looks strategic because it's just across a freeway, protocol street, and one big mall. But despite all of those, just in front of the apartment, lies a river. And not a pretty river. It's a river which would be flooding when it's raining hard. The river is dirty; brown in color, trashes everywhere, and stinky.

I thought there wouldn't be many people interested to buy. But I was wrong. The building process was very fast, and it means there are many people rent/buy it already. But why? Why... there?

And my surprise wasn't stopped there; it's getting bigger when I just figured out last night that just around 100 meters away from that apartment, there's another apartment in the making. Smaller, not as lux (it's definitely cheaper), but still a decent place. This second building is also located just across that river.

I expressed my curiosity to my Mom and then she explained. As I heard from her, what's important for people right now is easy access. There are a lot of businessmen linger around and they need to find a place to live, and it's not easy to find one in Jakarta. Developers find it as an opportunity and of course they wouldn't miss it. Build one here, build some there. Those who need a living place pick one which suit their needs the best. So this is why those units are sold out fast...

This discussion extended quite long and my Mom ended it with "Soon, there would be more -if not all- vertical houses in Jakarta." 

Grid of housing and office towers in Seoul, South Korea. (Photograph by Leon Chew for National Geographic)

My wish of having my dream house crashed straight away lmao. 

But still, I find the location of those two new apartments is so weird. It's better if it's built as a small park or something (to prevent the flood!). There are too many buildings in Jakarta right now. Jakarta is packed with buildings, vehicles, aaaand people. People, people, people everywhere. Then I thought maybe if there weren't so many people, there wouldn't be so many buildings, so many vehicles, traffic jams, crimes... Are people the problem?

Nope.

People solve the problems. Right?

Or they (we) don't? We do solve problems, but mostly our problems. Our current problems, to be exact. Some visionaries have thought (and have been thinking) about how should we live our life to achieve sustainability, but most of us haven't. Sometimes I think we're too focusing in our life that we forget our life also depends on how people around us live their life.

There are approximately 7 billion human on Earth right now. And this number is believed to continue increasing every year. In Java, there's this proverb: more children bring more luck. But is it true? 

I believe having more children can give you more laughter and happiness in life. I understand people who want to have many children so they won't ever feel lonely because I don't want to feel lonely too. But in larger perspective, having more children means more human on Earth. Means there are more people to feed, more money needed to be able to feed, more lands needed for a place to live, and so on. Back in the past, years ago, maybe these weren't big problems because there were still a lot of food supplies, empty lands, and such...

But now is a completely different situation. Sometimes we forget that we might run out foods. Not only foods though, we might run out everything that we have now. It's a public secret that our current main energy resources -fuels- might no longer exist in the near future. All of this happened because the amount we take is more than the available amount or what we give back. And this will go on as more people need to live and somehow we just don't know how to control it. Not to control the way or how people should live, but to cut the destruction chain. Yep, destruction chain. Sometimes we don't realize that we might be a part of the chain by doing our everyday routines. (Including me)

So people are really a problem?

Nah. Maybe, if there are less people, this world wouldn't be so crowded. Less crimes, less problems. People could find some better places to live instead of living beside a dirty river. Or maybe they could live there comfortably because the river wasn't dirty. 

But thinking in that way, we're being so ungrateful. So ungrateful that we blame lives. Because maybe, if there are less people, those good things wouldn't also happen. Again, we don't realize that maybe it's ourselves who created these problems. We don't realize that maybe it's because we just can't control it. We don't realize that more people could bring more ideas to live a better life. I think, if we think positively and determine to do it, no matter how large the human population is, we can control the sustainability of this Earth to support our (and other populations') livings.

Well, that's my dream.

But it's not easy. It's very difficult. Back to smaller perspective, in reality, sometimes I can't even control my life. And so are other people. I understand that sometimes people forget about bigger things, because I also forget. So how could we remember? What can we do?

And I feel a little bit ashamed that I know some of the problems in this world that need to be fixed and writing it down here but I still don't know what to do. And I'm a bit sad (but I don't know what to do) because I know there are a lot of people who sort of realize what's the problems and what can we do theoretically but still few actions. Like me. People say that we should start from the small things first to achieve something big. It's so hard, but we gotta try. 

I wish I can do more than just writing and do real actions. Well, I must.

Note:

As I stated first, I write this post because of that silly (but serious lol) random talk about relationship with my friends. But waay before, I've read National Geographic Magazine 7 billion series. I was so taken aback with all the facts, assumptions, opinions regarding this issue. Thank you for the NGM writers for working hard delivering these big information for us and enlighten my mind! Read more about this issue on the magazine or via their website here.