MY SELF*

*This piece was written as an introduction note for the students of Master of Science in Population Studies in Population Research Centre, University of Groningen. It was published in the informal journal of PRC, ISSUES. This was not published on the PRC website because they only put the 'academic' articles.
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It’s a tradition, I found, for the new students in PRC, to write something about them selves. So, as a new student, I have to do it, haven’t I? It’s very difficult for me to write “the truth about me” from my point of view, my own perception: ‘the real me’. I’ll need thousands of pages, otherwise, many people will misperceive, I’m quite sure about that.

But, I’ll start anyway, with the easiest stuff: I was born as a female human being, 25 years ago. My hobbies are singing, arranging songs, writing poems/short stories/scripts, reading something challenging, playing table tennis, swimming, enjoying the beauty of Mother Nature—it can be a small green leaf or a wind blow—and…understanding human beings. See? It becomes a little bit complicated now.

However, if I have to explain why I decided to study demography, perhaps my last hobby is one of the reasons. I want to understand why people behave as they do, and I don’t mind using any tools that are available, whether it is theoretical or empirical ones. You may speak about demography, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, even philosophy and theology, and also one new interesting terminology that I found: ethnography; as long as it helps me to understand human behavior, it is interesting for me.

Why is that so, you may ask. OK, I’ll explain it quite further. I have my own life basic research question: Why should I live? Why, should I born as a female human being named Elda in Pardede family, in Indonesia, 25 years ago? For what purpose? Only to be born, entering stages of education, having jobs, earning money, having partner/s, having children, and living happily with the pension fund in my old age, then, to DIE?? So, what is the meaning of my life then? How can it be different to others that also have to face those stages?

See? It becomes too difficult now, I guess. But, I found that, from my life experience, in order to answer my own big research question, I have to know myself: “Who am I?”, and the best way to know my self, is to see my own reflection in other people’s behaviors. Now, you can see how it is related to my study decision. I realized that some of people behaviors that we labeled as “bad” or “wrong” or even “crazy” (and these can be different in different contexts, of course!) is reflection of a part of our selves.

You may disagree with me, of course. It’s up to you. You’re the reader of this big nonsense that I am talking about. But that’s me, that’s what I consider as myself. If I just explain: “I want to study demography because it is an interesting subject for me”, you may not capture the real “big” reason. You may not perceive that statement as I do. To get to this point, you will need a real “in depth-interview”.

And now, you don’t need it anyway!

Groningen, 7 October 2002, 23:24.