Sila ke-6: Kreatif Sampai Mati - Wahyu Aditya

Aditya, Wahyu. 2013. Sila ke-6: Kreatif Sampai Mati. Yogyakarta: Penerbit Bentang.

Rating 5 stars
(review in Indonesian, click here)

I read since I can remember things. In fact, I have this photo of maybe 2-year old me, was sitting and reading a book, an upside-down book, but still, it’s like a sign that I will become a booknerd, right? I guess, booknerds always end up on wanting to write their own books. I do want to write my own book too, someday. In my elementary days, I used to write a bunch of short stories with no endings, a bundle of corny poems, and even some messy drama scripts. Almost all of them are never to be seen by other people’s eyes but mine. As I grew up, I became less and less productive in creating my ‘work’, although I always have it in my mind to write my own book, up until now. I have these fears and insecurities that make me hesitate and stop me from writing my own book. Then, this book came and slapped me with its to-the-point and simple words.

Fear is the biggest opponent of creativity.

Well, not really ‘slapped’, because this book is so so very very funny, I mean it in a kind way. The author, Wahyu Aditya a.k.a Wadit, delivers all his ideas in a hilarious informal way. There are lots of Wadit’s tips, although not earthshakingly new, still feel fresh and are told really well.

I personally really like one of the descriptions, the one about The Lizard Brain. Wadit also explains it with scientific elaboration, but I prefer the analogy. So, here’s the thing, every each one of us has this Lizard Brain who continuously scares us and put our confidence down whenever we are about to execute our ideas. This naughty Lizard can influences us to procrastinate, makes us obsessed with detail things, likes to criticize more than it should, creates anxiety, and clever in looking for reasons. And my initial thought about this was,

My lizard must be HUMONGOUS!

Because those things are really me! But, from Wadit’s explanation and his experience story, I try to be brave to fight my Lizard Brain more aggressively and start to change those creativity-killer habits.

This book is not just that self-help book that makes its reader to be braver becoming creative. This book touch our awareness to be caring to each others, ancestor heritages, art value from history remaining, environment surround us, and many more. And from his own experience stories that are told in this book, Wadit proves how important to have intention and to be in a process to make a successful work. Actually, I felt like reading the autobiography of Wahyu Aditya by this book, because around 75% part of this book is the life story and side information about the author himself. But it’s a good thing though, remembering Wadit has stick to the sixth principle from a very young age and we, readers, can learn a lot from his up-and-down experiences.

By the way, to fellow non-Indonesian reader out there. This book titled Sila ke-6: Kreatif Sampai Mati which can be translated to Principle 6: Creative to Death. Indonesia has these five moral principles called Pancasila as the nation’s guidance (or dogma for some people). And this book, (un)jokingly says that there should be the sixth principle, and that would be Creative to Death.

Sila ke-6: Kreatif Sampai Mati tries to flare up the consciousness of creativity in ourself and urge us to start creating our work, which it successfully did it. It brings warm and light positive energy, inspiration, and hope.

Truth is, I don’t know what to say anymore...

It’s hard for me to express how good this book is because it has so many different and interesting aspects and my point is really just this: everybody should read this book. It doesn’t matter if you usually just read comic book, or romance novel, or funny text message book, or even, you just don’t like reading. No matter what, read this one!

For you guys who had read this, did you also realize that Wadit slips moving cartoon in this book? It’s on the top right-left of the pages! It’s so cool! I was super excited the first time I noticed them.