Universal of We
Bali,23.10.2026.Great day, i think so ,today I was remembering mylife for so long time ago...I have struggled to survive on the streets since I was a child. No one taught me how to endure; I simply knew I had to keep moving forward. School was never my focus I drifted in and out of it just as I wandered through alleyways, dropping out more than once. It wasn’t because I lacked intelligence, but because the hunger in my stomach often screamed louder than any textbook.
At twelve an age when most children are still too young to worry about the world I had no such luxury. I never truly experienced what it meant to be a child. For me, taking on odd jobs was a necessity: lifting, carrying, making offers, facing rejection, enduring insults and then trying all over again. Eventually, these small tasks ceased to be a burden; they became a hobby a hobby that has stayed with me to this day: the hobby of survival.
The year 1988 marked a turning point. That was when I first encountered newspapers not to be read over a morning cup of coffee like an office worker might, but as merchandise. My job was to hawk daily newspapers, both morning and evening editions. I would dart between cars at intersections, through bus terminals, and in front of roadside stalls newspapers clutched in both hands, my voice growing hoarse as I shouted out the headlines.
Yet, there was one duty not mandated by my boss, but one I imposed upon myself: I had to read every single story in every paper I sold. It was the most effective way to make a sale; how could I possibly offer something I knew nothing about? So, long before four in the morning while the rest of the world was still asleep I would sit beneath a streetlamp, reading. I read about politics, crime, and sports; I scanned the job listings and even glanced at the horoscopes though I never truly believed in them.
I wasn’t just selling paper. I was selling stories. I would approach people and say, "There’s interesting news today: an accident on the bypass, the price of chili peppers has gone up, the national team won." And people would stop. They didn’t buy out of pity; they bought because I knew what was inside every single day, without fail. Rain or shine, the newspapers had to be sold.
Years slipped by, one after another. Without me realizing it, that routine transformed me. From a seller, I became a reader. From a reader, I became an observer. I began to read not just the news, but the character of the writers themselves. This one was always angry; that one’s tone was melancholic; another liked to subtly mock those in power; yet another wrote in a style as dry as a police report. I came to recognize their individual styles just as well as I knew the faces of my regular customers.
From that, something began to grow: a desire to write. Not to write like them, but to write with my own voice the voice of a street kid who never finished school, yet knew the city streets better than any geography teacher. I started scribbling on unsold, discarded newspapers, on the paper used to wrap rice, even on walls. My sentences were short, raw, and honest straight to the point. That was my character, forged from the dust of the streets and the ink of the newspapers.
It has been a long journey. Now, at the age of 50 in this year of 2026, I look back and realize just how far I’ve come. There were so many challenges—too many to recount one by one. There were days with no rice to eat; days when my writing was mocked by the "educated" elite; days when I had to choose between buying ink or buying rice. Sacrifice after sacrifice. Friends drifted away, my family questioned my choices, and people thought I was strange for continuing to write when it brought in so little money.
But I held onto my conviction. A conviction that defies logic. I am certain that, one day, I will grasp the true meaning behind this entire life journey. Why did I have to drop out of school? Why did I have to become a newspaper hawker at the age of twelve? Why did I have to spend decades reading the news of others every single day? There must be a reason. It surely cannot be a mere coincidence.
And then, that feeling finally arrived. It didn’t come from a motivational book or a seminar. It emerged when I sat alone, in silence with a clear, peaceful state of mind. It was a sensation of being connected to the universe itself. It is difficult to put into words, but when it arrives, everything grows calm. The wind seems to speak; the trees seem to nod; the sky seems to listen. It is in moments like these that I write.
When I write an article now, I no longer think of anything else. I don’t worry about how many people will read it, nor do I concern myself with whether I will be praised or insulted. I simply feel that the universe is the one speaking; my hands are merely the conduit. Words flow like water from a mountain spring sometimes touching upon suffering, sometimes laughter, sometimes solitude yet everything feels unified. That is the essence of "we"a profound sense of togetherness. It is a feeling that tells me I have never truly been alone, not even back when I was all by myself on the streets.
After everything I have been through after the thousands of articles I have created some have been lost, some torn, and others exist only as memories. One night, I sat down and reread some of my old writings that still They have remained, even after all these years writings on scraps of old newspaper from the nineties, entries in yellowed notebooks, notes typed into a battered mobile phone.
It is truly extraordinary. I wept as I read them not because the writing itself was exceptional, but because I saw myself within those words. A twelve year old child running through an intersection; a teenager who dropped out of school yet never stopped reading; a young man selling newspapers, morning and evening; a man who managed to survive by clinging to his passions. It is all there, captured in those words.
Though life has been filled with profound suffering in so many ways, there is something strange about it: amidst all that hardship, life feels deeply meaningful not just for me, but for the universe itself. For all of us. Every wound, every pang of hunger, every rejection, every unsold newspaper—all of it served as fuel for this very deeply feeling.
This is feeling about universe of we ,the sense that personal suffering is a lesson from the universe. It is the realization that when I write honestly from the streets, someone out there feels a sense of companionship. It is the understanding that we are never truly apart. You, me, the morning paper, the streets, the wind of we are all part of the same story. This feeling teaches us that solitude is merely an illusion, and that every step taken on the scorching asphalt back then was, in truth, a journey toward this very point of convergence a point where writing becomes a prayer, and wounds transform into light. It is a point where a heavy life turns into a gift for the universe a gift for all of us who once felt lost, only to eventually find our way home and discover true meaning together.
And so, I continue to write that story to this day ceaselessly, with an upright heart and a sense of peace for all of us. For the universe is always waiting for such honest writing words born from our shared experience, an eternal connection that will endure forever.#mystoryteling life as journalist