I have been away for more than a week in Indonesia and India. Before you get jealous, let me underline these were work trips with minimal free time and hardly any sleep: I have said before that my job is intense and I’m not joking. This doesn’t change the fact that being able to travel to the other side of the world as part of one’s job is a huge privilege – not just because it’s interesting to see other places (and it’s warm), but because it expands your mind.

What struck me in particular this time, enough to write it up for the blog, is the immense complexity of the world we live in. I was reading a book on Indonesian history before going and while it was an easy, beginner’s book, I had to read it slowly: the country is so vast and diverse and so much has happened in the course of its history that even absorbing the basic facts is no small feat. Especially if one’s understanding of Indonesian history is rather lacking in the first place.

The trip itself only intensified this feeling of richness. I had the chance to visit Bali (where the G20 energy ministers met), Kalimantan/Borneo and Java. All three are completely different from each other – Bali with its beaches and flowers and fruit, Kalimantan’s jungle, oil palms and mines and Jakarta’s smoggy urbanism. I imagine that Sulawesi and Sumatra and Papua/New Guinea are entirely different again. There are more than 17 000 islands, 275 million people and 700 languages. Even flora and fauna do not unite the entire archipelago, divided as they are by the Wallace line.

And then I travelled on to Delhi and India is of course no easier to grasp. With its more than billion people in one big peninsula, it may seem more uniform than the Indonesian islands, but this is deceiving. Indian states vary widely in terms of language, geography and culture. The internal politics as well as geopolitical relations are extremely complex and the history has layers upon layers, often further complicated by ideology.

I know this isn’t news to anyone and the above is not meant to be a lecture, but context to the point (such as it is) of my post. During the trip, I kept wondering how I’m ever going to have even the most basic understanding of other places? As I read A Brief History of Indonesia, as well as Ancient India: Culture of Contradictions and The Loss of Hindustan, I felt that I barely scratchung the surface. That was particularly true of Indonesia, as I had a slightly better knowledge of Indian history going in. But there are about 200 countries in the world and many of them I know much worse than Indonesia.

So how is it possible to be informed about anything, ever? Even if I spend all my time reading and learning about other cultures, I will never get there. And sure, not knowing the history of Honduras isn’t likely to ruin my life or anyone else’s, it just makes me feel bad. But the same question applies also more broadly. How does one form opinions on things happening in the world while being largely ignorant of, frankly, everything? Or professionally, how does one advocate for, say, global clean energy transition without really understanding the economic, social, environmental, technological, political and psychological implications?

I wonder if me struggling with these things so much is impacted by the fact that I come originally from a country of 1.3 million people. While our history and present aren’t without complexity and nuances, it is ultimately graspable and manageable. Or perhaps it’s just the way I’mmmade. Or it’s the result of living in a global, interconnected world saturated with information.

In any case, the trip left me with a strange mood – on one hand exhilerated by new experiences and knowledge, on the other depressed by my own inadequacy. Do you ever get this feeling? Or am I just being silly?

The cover picture is taken in a hotel in Bali. The image below is from an open-pit coal mine in Kalimantan.