Warm Takes

Saya Orang Indonesia?

Xu Xi

Born an Indonesian citizen but raised in Hong Kong, a transnational writer with a hyphenated identity reflects on language, inheritance and the complicated question of what it means to call a country home.

Warm Takes

Gang’s all here

Sheena Suparman

Eleven years after college, six friends reunite for a wedding in Greece. Amid the dancing and laughter, one woman confronts the invisible grief, and unexpected gifts, of being chronically single.

Warm Takes

Why we run

Jet Damazo

From bucket list goals to Sunday morning long runs, a runner unpacks the strange appeal of voluntarily doing something so difficult again and again … and again.

Warm Takes

The way we live

Maggie Tiojakin

A personal reflection on Jakarta’s contradictions and unfinished ambitions — and why, despite all its failings, the city continues to ground us.

Warm Takes

Jakarta: A city of stations, a city of selves

Lutfiya Tussifah

Jakarta's train stations don't just take you places, they make you someone different at each stop.

Warm Takes

On leaving and returning: The map of a divided heart

Dedari Arane Wibowo

Living in more than one place means loving more than one home, and becoming more than one self.

Warm Takes

Every time I say I study journalism, people ask me ‘why?’

Kezia Laurencia

A journalism student reflects on newsroom pressure, public scrutiny, and the uncertain future of the media industry.

Warm Takes

Confessions of a quasi-nepo baby

Josa Lukman

As it turns out, not all nepo babies are created equal.

Warm Takes

'Friends' doesn’t prepare you for adulthood. 'Ally McBeal' does

Felix Martua

Rewatching two defining shows from the late ‘90s as a thirtysomething, it turns out one is far more honest about adulthood than the other. (Spoiler: It's not the one about friends.)

Warm Takes

Linked in to left behind

Kezia Laurencia

The pressure to have a personal brand before you have a career is real. On LinkedIn, being young and still figuring it out can feel like a public failure.

Warm Takes

The age of overlapping careers: Yes, side jobs are now necessary to survive

Tia Monica Sihotang

One full-time job, two freelance gigs and the gnawing feeling that it still might not be enough. This is what stability looks like now.

Warm Takes

When a gift is never just a gift

Michelle Anindya

We exchange gifts thinking it's a showcase of care. But somewhere between the ribbon and the Instagram story, it can become a form of debt.

Warm Takes

Performing hunger: Notes from behind the café curtain

Josa Lukman

Is restraint without intent inherently noble in the eyes of the divine, or are we just hungry for the optics?

Warm Takes

Sorry for eating: The month of restraint and our urge to control

Lutfiya Tussifah

Ramadan asks us to practice restraint. But somewhere along the way, we started asking everyone else to practice it too.

Warm Takes

A pick-me girl: The woman who wasn’t like other girls

Siti Syafania Kose

How do you learn to pick yourself when you’ve spent your whole life performing for someone else’s approval?