The virtue of being crazy

JAKARTA (JP): "You're crazy!"

That was the unanimous response of my friends when I told them that I would not be able to accompany them on an agreed excursion because I had to attend a court session over a recent traffic offense.

"Why didn't you just bribe the officer? Did you forget to take any money?" one asked.

"No, I didn't. but I'm not used to bribing people," I answered matter-of-factly.

His astonished eyes looked at me as if I were an alien.

"It's not, I think, a matter of conscience," another friend added, "but more of practicality. How can full-time employees like us waste three or four productive hours on such trivialities when a mere 20,000-rupiah banknote will solve the problem?"

"I must admit I wasn't being too practical," I said, "but the fact is I did fail to stop when the traffic light was red. And I'm determined to face the legal consequences. What's wrong with this?"

We soon engaged in a hot debate about the intricacies of the court system, the integrity of the police and the overall chaotic traffic conditions.

Concerning my traffic offense and decision to go to court, I could mostly refute my friends' arguments. However, at the end of our conversation, a girlfriend gave her comment, "Yeah, maybe you're right ... but still, you're crazy!" The others bowed their heads in agreement.

Life in present-day society is sometimes confusing. What is objectively right, honest and lawful is often regarded as crazy. On the contrary, something false, corrupt and against the law is frequently seen as normal, or worse, part of our way of life.

Except for me and a friend, the others involved in the above discussion are educational staff at a university. At least two of them actively write articles in newspapers and magazines, voicing opinions which are mostly not in tune with government policies. Some others, in their student days, were enthusiastic participants in student politics and demonstrations.

It is disheartening to see people, particularly the intelligentsia, regard bribery and many other anomalies as something to be taken for granted. How can the intellectuals (including government critics), who on certain occasions campaign zealously for truth, freedom and democratization, at other times show attitudes that evidently display a lack of integrity?

I remember a beautiful story from the world of the spiritual giants. A certain great mystic retold his spiritual journey. When still very young, he ardently struggled to change the world, which in his eyes was extremely corrupt. In middle age he worked laboriously to reform his immediate neighborhood. Then, in his old age, he realized that he had not done enough to transform himself.

Like the mystic, we are sometimes too busy struggling for political and economic reformation that we neglect our own personal transformation.

It's not that political and economic reformation are unnecessary and that all we need is spiritual and moral transformation. In our current economic collapse we need people who are brave enough to fight for the public, especially the poor.

However, we also need people who cultivate personal, intellectual and moral integrity. Without them we will have no models for our children to imitate. Without people of integrity, who we sometimes consider "abnormal", how can we have clean leaders and government. A few crazy people can't do any harm, though at times they might be a nuisance.

-- Valentinus Irawan