[Photographed by Wikan Anantabrata, April 2016.]

The first time  Unmasked Open Mic invited me to take their stage as a reader, they asked if I could provide a short bio. Part-nervous and part-attention-seeking, I was determined to point out that using words to express feelings—or embracing emotions at all—isn’t exactly what I get to practice on a daily basis, just so the audience would go easy on me. If anything, spoken word is the opposite of what I do as a research analyst.

This is what I came up with: Andhyta is a closeted romantic who makes love with numbers during the day and dances with words at night when nobody’s looking.

(Probably an overkill with the metaphors, but somewhat still the truth.)

Indeed, both involve writing—a lot of it—but the creative process behind this and this is so starkly different a layman wouldn’t think they were written by the same person. While the former (a poetry about Tendean Road) relies on exploiting a single event with humane analogies and potential relatebility,  the latter (an analysis on Indonesia’s climate action) requires careful data crunching and paper reading.

More often than not, excelling at one also means plummeting at the other. (Probably why yours truly is so mediocre at both. Hahaha.)

Just a fortnight ago, a colleague of mine—upon reading this sentimental post—asked if I wasn’t embarrassed sharing such personal details on a public domain. Furthermore, he commented on how it sounded so far removed from what he perceived as my reality and therefore it couldn’t be anything but pure fiction. Either that, or I’ve been faking my ‘office self’ the whole time.

It took me some time to form an answer that would make sense to him.

I started with explaining that I live in two worlds, each containing a half of what would make me whole. Ben in this brilliant essay divides his life into three areas (arts, intellectualism, and spirituality); I am trying to make the same case.

Because in all candor, there is a part of me that yearns to hike to the top of the mountain, save the world, contribute to a body of knowledge on environmental issues, become a policy maker, etc.—and another that wishes I could dive deep into the ocean floor, hone my sensitivity to learn better about just myself and my surrounding, and simply share these bits of life to those who need it.

Now as much as I cherish being an amphibian, one of these days the mammals living on the land would prefer one of their kind—fish who’d been friends with depth, apparently, could be seen as a freak (note that I’m only suggesting a possibility based on one trivial event).

This is probably why I try to keep my fish community away from my mammal fellows. As long as they do not meet each other, they would not identify me as the weird one. You who are reading this might not know me during the day, and for a good reason. The mind that came up with each of the sentences here, however, is the same one that happens to love writing and presenting about global emissions and reduction potentials.

Don’t think that I’m not familiar with the logic: one cannot be rational and emotional at the same time. Indeed, it is possible that sometimes my sensible self puts my sentiments in doubt and the other way around—but we used to accept that nomads have to move places, and maybe this is just what I am.