Sugarcoating Phenomenon

Once upon a time, I attended a writing workshop held in Cultural Studies Faculty, UGM. It was refreshing to learn something other than engineering, haha. The key speakers were Windy Ariestanty and Seno Gumira Ajidarma. Just my two favorite writers ever!

The theme was Sastra Perjalanan or Travel Literature (gosh, it’s not easy to find the english term for that). Sastra term here is not just the one in book form, but also in ‘status update’, ‘tweets’, and ‘photo caption’ in social media. Those two writers were concern about the recent phenomenon.

The most annoying phenomenon nowadays (in literature) is that people tend to sugarcoat everything. People are competing to be the happiest person.

“The real writers don’t sugarcoat. They are able to turn awful experience into an interesting topic,”  Windy said.

We don’t have to sugarcoat everything. Isn’t it weird when you rated A+ for every place you visit?  How many of us feel disappointed when the place we visit is not as beautiful as we were told?

I agree with that statement. Also, I adore people who bravely admit that they are angry or sad in social media as long as they do it elegantly. I respect genuine people.

In the next session, Seno gave us examples. He told us his awful experiences. One of them is his journey in Egypt. The poor villagers and the windy desserts. “When you pee in dessert, you won’t be able to see your urine. They are carried away by the wind before you know it,” he said. Laughter filled the air.

Everyone should be free to be the complete version of themselves. Everyone should be free to express their true emotion. Nobody should force happy feeling, just let it comes naturally.

Embrace every feeling~