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How to Learn New Things: Faster, Smarter

We live in an age where everyone is expected to “pick up skills” like they’re packet nasi goreng from a warung. Quick, cheap, instantly satisfying. Bosses want you to “adapt quickly”, friends are “learning Web3 on the side”, and TikTok makes it look like you can become a violinist in a month if you just believe in yourself. Meanwhile, you’re Googling “what is Docker” for the fifteenth time. Here’s the truth. Learning new things is not magic. It’s science, psychology, and sweat. If you understand how your brain actually learns, you can stop fighting it. Two books give us the cheat codes: The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. One teaches you how to break learning into manageable chunks. The other explains how your brain makes decisions. Combine them and learning becomes a system instead of a headache. Let’s break it down.
Recent posts

MBTI: Your Corporate Pokemon (And Why I Think We Need to Stop Using It for Hiring)

The Introverted Broke Man The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has gained a curious kind of cultural immortality in the corporate world. Much like fans of Hogwarts boast about their house allegiance, professionals increasingly flaunt their MBTI personality types as badges of identity, sometimes even over and above their actual job titles. But while the MBTI might feel like a fun shortcut to understanding people, its widespread use as a serious hiring or promotion tool is deeply problematic. It’s time to look honestly at why MBTI shouldn’t guide workplace decisions and what to do instead.

Surviving 2025 Feels Like a Sick Joke

I’ll apologise in advance, but this is me in fed-up-with-life mode. Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash Let’s be honest. Surviving in post-pandemic 2025 feels like someone pressed hard mode on life and threw away the instruction manual. Every day I wake up thinking maybe today will be better. But no. The world insists on reminding me that I’m just a pawn in a badly coded simulation that’s still running on Windows XP. Jobs? They exist, technically. But trying to land one feels like squeezing into a TransJakarta bus during rush hour. Sweaty, humiliating, and you’ll probably get shoved out before the doors even close. Salaries are a joke. Inflation laughs like a drunk uncle at a wedding. My expenses sprint. My income crawls. And then there’s the Indonesian government. The less said, the better. If they found a way to tax oxygen, we’d all be bankrupt by tomorrow. Every time I think they’ve run out of creative ways to make life harder, they prove me wrong. S...

how I feel about writing

writ·ing ˈrīdiNG/ noun 1 . the activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text. "parents want schools to concentrate on reading, writing, and arithmetic" Hello everyone! (like anyone would read this anyway!). It has been a long time since I posted anything here. Man, I even forgot the URL for this! haha!. I think my writing skills also dropped a few levels. You see, I've been observing what has been happening all around me for the past two years. I even took a peek at some foreign issues ( I was only focusing on the Middle East back then, I now look at some things in Europe and US too). I peeked at some writings that are floating around the internet and printed materials (for my research on global issues), and found something interesting: Most of them are basing their sources on a rather unreliable source: blogs and opinion articles! So I did some research on the matter (obviously). What I found was even sho...

Opini...

Di musim kampanye, propaganda-propaganda mulai berseliweran. Mulai dari propaganda resmi yang dikeluarkan instansi pemerintah, parpol, capres, hingga propaganda gelap yang dilancarkan untuk menggiring opini publik sesuai yang diinginkan sang pembuat propaganda. Propaganda, menurut KBBI adalah : pro·pa·gan·da n 1 penerangan (paham, pendapat, dsb) yg benar atau salah yg dikembangkan dng tujuan meyakinkan orang agar menganut suatu aliran, sikap, atau arah tindakan tertentu: -- biasanya disertai dng janji yg muluk-muluk ; 2  reklame (spt menawarkan obat, barang dagangan, dsb): perusahaan itu giat melakukan -- produknya ; Jelas, propaganda adalah cara untuk melakukan doktrinasi kepada masyarakat ramai. Baik itu untuk hal-hal positif, ataupun tidak. Propaganda yang paling marak saat ini adalah penggiringan opini publik ke arah negatif, terutama ke lawan politik ataupun pemerintah. Beberapa isu propaganda negatif yang paling santer saat ini adalah isu mengenai Jasmev ...

(Ultra) Feminisme

Akhir-akhir ini di dunia maya aku sering melihat tren yang mengejutkan mengenai kesetaraan dan feminisme . Feminisme, adalah gerakan yang menuntut kesetaraan hak (dan seharusnya kewajiban juga) antara laki-laki dan perempuan. Istilah feminisme mulai digunakan pada tahun 1980-an mengikuti revolusi pemikiran anarkisme yang marak saat itu. Penganut feminisme saat ini menurutku terbagi atas dua kategori: (1) mereka yang benar-benar berjuang agar masyarakat (dan negara) mengakui adanya kesetaraan hak dan kewajiban antara laki-laki dan wanita sesuai dengan faktor-faktor objektif selain seksualitas; dan (2) mereka yang menuntut superioritas wanita di atas laki-laki. Aku menyebut kategori kedua ini sebagai ultra feminisme . Circumcision? You mean castration? Tipe kedua ini sama saja dengan fasisme modern. Kalau dulu fasisme berkaitan dengan ras - Jepang, Arya, Italia - saat ini, fasisme berusaha membagi-bagi gender. Memang, sebagai lelaki, harus aku akui, dulu fasisme semacam ini...

Novel Novel Trends...

Setelah beberapa waktu ini skimming  di Gramedia melihat-lihat buku yang belum tentu terbeli. Aku melihat sebuah tren menarik mengenai tema novel yang sedang laku saat ini. Di antara 10 novel dalam negeri yang aku perhatikan, ternyata semuanya berlatar luar negeri. Setengah di antaranya bahkan merupakan novel cinta yang 'religius'. Novel dari dulu memang umumnya bercerita tentang dua hal: cinta dan persahabatan. Akhir-akhir ini muncul tambahan baru untuk tema novel - religi - utamanya religi Islam. Mungkin dimulai dari Ayat-ayat cinta, tema novel religius ini semakin berkembang dan pada akhirnya mengalahkan kepopuleran tema novel lainnya. Ini terbukti dengan pilihan beberapa toko buku menyerahkan predikat buku "recommended" atau "top seller" kepada novel-novel semacam ini. Saat ini, ternyata sebuah pilihan setting baru menyusup kepada pilihan novel pembaca (dan pengarang). Yaitu - Luar Negeri. Sekitar 3-4 tahun yang lalu, cerita novel mulai merambah...