Man in the Arena

It’s really tickling how a small moment turned a course of history. Had I not received an offer to become a full-time professional football broadcaster, I would not have been here right now. I would’ve been somewhere else, trying and chasing to be where I am now. 

The plan was never to have a career in football broadcasting. It’s supposed to be an extension of a hobby for a short while. It was meant to be a fill-in-the-gap before I embarked on grad school journey. It ended up being a career that lasted more than half a decade that came with lot of perks. I got paid to watch and talk about football. I got paid to do what other people would pay to do. Life is wild.

I should’ve been a scholar by now. Or at least a struggling student to be one. The intention was to be political theorist. The only reason for me to finish my undergrad study - which I abandoned after the third year because I realised I hadn’t learned anything - was because I needed one to enroll in grad school. I finished it, but when life gave me lemon, I mixed it with whisky and made a cocktail. I ended up not going to grad school*.

Because it’s not something that I envisioned doing for a long time, halfway into my football broadcasting tenure, I was already looking forward to the end of it. It’s all fun and game, but I always knew I didnt want to do this forever. I was meant to do something else and I kept that in mind. I’m forever grateful to my football broadcasting days. If I told you the details, you wouldn’t believe me. But I called it a day last year and that’s it. When it’s over, it’s over.

Sometimes I get asked why I didnt go to UK grad school like I always said I would back then. The answer is simply because I couldnt afford it. Not financially, but time-wise dan momentum-wise. They always said that I could only go for a year and in a flash, I would be back home and resume whatever I was doing before. I get where that kind of thinking came from, but as somebody who’s actually in the thick of it all, the reality was more complex than that.

I always think of myself as a man of ideas and those ideas need to be implemented. Ideas that are not implemented are like recipes on baking books. You have the ingredients and the know-how, but you still have to do it all to have an actual cake.

The process of implementing ideas requires rigorous efforts that’s not only draining energy, but also time-consuming. It involves a lot of trial and errors. It involves a lot of adjusting and adapting. An idea is only as good as its execution. And to perfect that execution technique and method, it will probably take a very long time. Or maybe forever.

What I’ve been building in the past few years is the manifestation of those ideas. I’m definitely not the only person in this world who has idealist views on how the society should work and behave, but I always wish to be among the people who want to try work on those views on the society.

To actually have skin in the game is quite different to being observer on the sideline. While being in either side could carry some weight in respective field, there are more variables in the equation if you run in a race compared to being cheerful spectator from distance.

I was reminded by the famous passage from Theodore Roosevelt about “The Man in the Arena”. He refered to The Man in the Arena as somebody that actually counts as opposed to critics on the side. Either in triumph or in failure, Teddy wrote that The Man in the Arena “….shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”.

I always wanted to be in the arena because only in the arena you can try implementing your ideas. You can learn the basics by shadowboxing, but it’s a whole different game when you get into the ring and there’s somebody who can throw actual punch to your face. 

All I was doing was paving my way up so I can get to the arena. Trailblazer. Pathfinder. Whatever you want to name it. But only by then that the greatness of an idea could be proven. Or maybe it’s not great at all and the idea turns out to be weak. But it has to be done in the arena.

I dont regret anything knowing that now I’m in the arena.

*)I actually enrolled in a grad school in Depok. I was attending classes for one week before I bailed out. The student card is still active and I used it a few times to get discount on parfaits at St. Marc’s Cafe. At least I collected the yellow jacket.