With Compassion Comes Courage

"Kenji Goh" cover

I just read my old favorite comic book, "Kenji Goh". Its about young boy that learn about kung fu and travel all around China. In the last chapter, I found amazing word by one of Kenji kung fu teacher, "with compassion comes courage". Its very amazing word that describe how compassion and love give us courage  to do something.

Kenji laoshi (teacher) told him about true courage

After I googled it, this words came from Lao Tse, one of famous Chinese philosopher. This english translation I took from "The Te of Piglet". Here is the complete poem from Lao Tse.

I have three treasures,

Which I guard and keep.

        The first is compassion.

        The second is economy.

        The third is humility.

From compassion comes courage.

From economy comes

       the means to be generous.

  From humility comes

        responsibility leadership.

          Today, men have discarded compassion

In order to be bold.

               They have abandoned economy

               In order to be big spenders.

                      They have rejected humility

                       In order to be first.

                            This is the road to death.

-Lao Tse-

I am no expert in Chinese philosophy but I found it amazing and still relevant today.


With compassion comes courage, life is about choices after all. We choose between what we love and what we love more. Sometimes choices comes with sacrifice, and in order to take the one that you love more you need courage to choose and move on. No matter its compassion towards other individuals, things, or even your dream.

From economy comes generosity. Of course we can't help other if we have not enough for our self. Its also teach us to not become greedy person. Greedy person will never feel enough. They will looking for more fortune, money or something else. But if we already felt that we had enough, it will open our heart and lead to generosity. Generosity about anything, not  only about money. Maybe its food, clothes or even intangible things like knowledge. 

From humility comes responsibility leadership. With humility we will treat other like we treat our self, no dictatorship and we will have responsibility leadership. Sometime, some people want be the first and become more and more superior, even sacrificing others for that. With humility, hopefully we can avoid that.

Compassion teach us about courage and sacrifice for others.

Economy teach us to become thankful and generous.

Humility teach us to acknowledge people and treat others as we treat our self.

Canting Electric

Last Saturday, I went to my previous senior high school because I invited  by one of its extracurricular, Youth Science Club or Kelompok Ilmiah Remaja (KIR) in bahasa. They asked me to teach them about how to make canting electric. Canting is a traditional tool to make batik. We use canting to draw the pattern on the cloth before we soak the cloth in dye. We draw the pattern with hot wax so the one with hot wax pattern on it will not colored by the dye.

Canting and Wax

Stove to Make Hot Wax

In the traditional way, we need to boil the wax to become hot liquid wax and then we scoop it with canting before we can draw the pattern. This traditional way can be harmful to the batik artist because they will repeatedly inhale the gas from hot wax. That can cause the plaque in lungs. Moreover, the power source for the stove that used to make hot wax usually use kerosene. That will be expensive and not energy efficient. So, at the end of 2010 my friends and I participated in competition held by Directorate General of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Justice & Human Rights Indonesia with Canting Electric as a topic. We became finalist and the only team come from undergraduate student in Electronic Section. We competed against older people even some of them have PhD, and we lost :P

Scooping Hot Wax With Canting

Drawing The Pattern

I told the story to Youth Science Club in my senior high and they asked me to teach them. I taught them last Saturday with more simple version of canting electric based on Jogajakarta student's prototype. Its very simple, we used metal bottle of vitamin C, we disassembled solder as a heater, and chopstick for the canting handle. We put it together with iron wire.

Making Canting Electric Together

When I taught them, and explain how its works, they looks like full of curiosity. They asked many questions, something that we think simple and need to explain it in simple words. I realized, its feels amazing how we can inspire younger generation and make them more interested in science and engineering. I think I want to came by again and teach them something next time :))