Lesson from Pak Darma

I had a meeting with Pak Darma at Merlo cafe this afternoon. I was consulting about the difficulties of writing "the context of Indonesia".
He is not only a great journalist but also a high intelectual schoolar.
What lesson I have got from this discussion?

1. Writing is about selecting ideas. It is true, I have so much ideas, so much information, then the difficult thing is to select the ideas. What is the most important to tell the readers.
2. My difficulty is about selecting the most important. For other people, something is not important but for me, it really important.
3. The analogy from Pak Darma was excellent. For example, I planned to go to the city. But befor I went there, I visited Mba Trina at St Lucia. Before going to Mba Trina's house, I went to the shop to buy just, to bring to Mba Trina. Before I left my house, let say I met pak darma and he asked me: Where I am going to go? For this question, I certainly just need to say, I am going to the city. I do not need to tell abou my plan to go to Mba Trina. But if Pak darma said that I want join you to to the city, I neet to tell him that I am going to go to Trina's house, snd so on.
4. The meaning then, that I need to need to fokus and re focus to the the question.
5. Another important thing, that I need to consider the number of pages. For example, Chapter 6, how many pages for Chapter 6? Pak Darma said that each Chapter maksimum 25 pages, or just 20 pages.
6. Back to the context of Indonesia, how many pages then? let me see later
7. Pak Darma gave several examples of general statement, that no need to go to the detail.

I think, it is time to not see the data too closely. It is time to practice to make an abstraction.