Otaku and Strazar: A New Revolution

What is Otaku? I hope I can make this post as short and as understandable as possible. Written as おたく (Hiragana) or オタク (Katakana) and pronounced as "oo-TAH-koo", the Wikipedia has done a good job to explain this term. But, there is one thing that often ignored by common people:

[Otaku] is not just a term to describe extreme fan for anime or manga. "Otaku" itself can be interpreted as "someone who has a specific interest and puts a lot efforts to study then implements that interest in his/her daily life.

It's true. And for the sake to short my explaining, let's just skip the debates and listen to me: in English term, the closest term that can be an analogue for otaku is anorak, which can be explained as

a person, usually male, who has a very strong interest, perhaps obsessive, in niche subjects. This interest may be unacknowledged or not understood by the general public

Got it? So, if you love History lesson so much, you're a "History Otaku" and if you always interested by crocodiles, you're a "Crocodile Otaku." For my own case, I am a "human otaku" because I am interested by humans and will put a lot of efforts to watch and to study humans from many viewpoints and sciences.

But we know, "otaku" always depicted by common people as "geeks, disgusting shut-in, and NEETs". That is sad, because basically that isn't right, but in the other hand, when we see the common trend for "nowadays-otaku", it WAS right because almost all otaku (or, at least, people who claims themselves as otaku) now become a 2D-Japanese-Animanga geek.

I won't lie that I started my otakuism just the same like those nowadays-otaku. I love anime, manga, tokusatsu, dorama, and J-music (just googling or search in Wikipedia if you don't understand those terms) as much as other common otaku do, and I still love those stuffs until now. But, after be an animanga otaku for long times, I realized that this path of otaku has so many lacks and blind spots in it. I can ensure you: if in that time I still live as a common otaku, I will end as an useless anger geek which never see that world is beautiful (and ugly in the same time). I will not have girlfriend, have normal social relationship, or healthy body. And even worse, there was maybe a big chance that I'll die because of heavy dehydration *LOL*.

So, I decided to "throw away my common otakuism" for some periods of time. I change my interest to study humans because I want to know how human's relationship works and what are "we" for real. I also studied a little of human psychology, behaviorism, IT, martial arts, and even romance psychology. When I'm doing this, I realized that

not just common (normal) people who look down to otaku, but otaku also disgrace the normal's people's existence.

Well, that's a big shame! In my self-research, I found out that normal people has many fun and cool things to complement the otakuism. As normal people, we don't just watch anime and read manga, but we can also do a cool activities like fishing, swimming, going to beach, watch theater, hang out with friends, have nice girlfriend, etc - things which "rookie" otaku normally don't do.

So, I said "Eureka!" for myself. I remembered a nice metaphor that God creates everything in this world as pairs. Black and white, male and female, sun and moon, night and daylight, Yin and Yang - almost everything is a dualism. And in my practice of Chinese Kenpo (Gong Fu) I learn that we can complement the "hard" Bajiquan techniques with the softness of Baguazhang and Taichiquan moves. So, my purpose in that time was: let's assume that otakuism is the "hard" side, what can I do to complement it? What is the "soft" reagent to make otakuism perfect?

So I went home and hurried to watch my old otaku collections. And, for my surprise, the answer was already lie deep down in many animes/mangas! When I discover the answer, I feel that I have been enlightened by it and the sound of "click!" running through my brain.

That's it: if we combine "old otakuism" with "fun normal things, romance psychology, and sciences" we will get a mumbo-jumbo great solution! Our otakuism will change from a silver to a gold and even a platinum or a diamond! We will receive higher awareness than ever, the same experience as the concept of enlightenment in many religions ^^

But, if I want to create new main-stream or paradigm, I must erase or change its name so the "stigma" that received by old paradigm won't stay in the new one. And suddenly, the story became more and more interesting. I browsed the Internet for an hour - accompanied by my Cappuccino - then I find this term in a foreign Language:

Strazar

The origin of "strazar" comes from word "stražar" in the Croatian language which means "watcher, looker, or spectator." When I found this term, I said for myself this was perfect! An ancient Greek Philosopher, Empedocles, believes that we can see things in this world because there are "earth", "air", "water", and "fire" in both of our eyes. For example, how can you see a flower? From Empedocles viewpoint, you can see the flower because it consists from "earth" and "water" then the "earth" and the "water" in your eyes respond with the "earth" and the "water" in the flower, sense and interpret it then send the image of "flower" into your mind.

I love Empedocles viewpoint although it isn't relevant nowadays. I actually believe that in this world, many things was hidden from our eyes. I can't explain the clear reason for this yet, but I know the main reason that we can't find those hidden-but-useful things is because we always avert and close our eyes from new things. The otaku closes their eyes for fun activities that "common" people normally do and in the other hand, normal (non-otaku) people doesn't want to waste their time to understand the benefits for being an otaku. This gap wasn't closed yet and still won't for now or for the near future, I'm sure.

The only thing that I can do for now is to implement alchemist's way of creation: absorption-destruction-creation. I must "destroy" both of old otakuism and common viewpoints about them from "common" people, then I'll "absorb" the good elements from both of otakuism and "normal"-ism, and for the final dessert is to "create" new paradigm and path to implement them.

And the result for that process is "Strazarism" term for this path and "Strazar" term for the persons who decide to take Strazarism as the path of their life. Why "Strazar" (watcher)? Well, aside of the "Empedocles things" which I just explained before, I believe, personally, that all learning processes are first started by "watching" because our main sensing organ for receive and absorb informations are our eyes. We can walk because we watch our parents walk. We can swim because we watch other people swim (and must be followed by practice, I know). Of course I don't intent to forget other sensing organs like ears, skins, etc, but still, i believe that our eyes is the most important thing to receive and give any signals, from and into our environment and world.

So this is the final conclusion: Strazarism is

A new way of otakuism, which can be explained as a paradigm which combine the knowledges of otaku with the daring-and-practicable fun "common/non-otaku" lifestyles. The combination of both ways will guide people to a higher awaraness and consciousness in their life.

...or let's just take the easy way: