The Real Deal

Okay, so it's very annoying that I have to bend my neck every time I pass through a door, and that my bathroom mirror comes up to my chest if I stand normally. But honestly speaking, the practical inconveniences of Japan end right about there. In almost everything related to daily life, Japan is extremely convenient for anyone living here: public transport, public safety, supply of consumer goods (from apartments to second-hand clothes to electronics to books to 24/7 food), the cellphone system, etc.

Despite these luxuries, I am quite sure I won't live my whole life here. Of course my desire to see as many different corners of the world as possible is a major factor in that feeling. But there are other issues. And today, they seem quite heavy. So heavy, in fact, that it seems impossible to overcome them without sacrificing some things that lie quite close to the core of my being. On the other hand, I love a good challenge, and there will be goods and bads wherever you set foot in the world. Japan might not be that bad. For now, I'll leave things as they are and keep on living my life - a strategy which has proven itself often in times of philosophical impasse or other complicated situations. Personal conclusions and related important decisions are still a while away, and we will discuss the issues at hand many, many times before that, I'm sure.

So which issues, you ask? Here you go.

The above website gives a very good layout of what culture shock is like for most Western foreigners coming to Japan. In my first year in Japan (I had several parties this week to celebrate the one-year anniversary, by the way! You can look forward to the next blog entry), I've had to deal with many, but not all, of the issues the author describes, and it was a refreshing read for me; reminded me of where I'm standing right now. Though I doubt anyone can understand those issues without being in Japan for a long time, hopefully it'll help you to bring your (probably way-off) image of Japan a bit closer to reality. Hopefully it'll turn you on, rather than off, and stimulate your curiosity. Hopefully it'll motivate you to shake loose of the usual confinements of your world and stride into the wild universe out there.

To stimulate your curiosity even further, let me give you a teaser of what's to come on this blog. Just the other day, I mentioned I should start making a list of the small cultural differences between Japan and Holland so I can show it to people whenever they ask that dreaded question. Well, here it is! A beginning of the list of things that are strikingly different in Japan than in Holland (I keep using that country because I don't want to generalize to 'the Western world', though in many cases it might be just as appropriate...if I speak about languages the contrast is usually between Japanese and English, not Dutch). Compared to the being-'of-the-same-age'-if-you're-equally-old-on-April-1 quirk, the following things are kind of deep...but here goes!

• The meaning of love
• The rhythm and melody of language
• Music
• The concept of normality, or of absurdity
• The concept of quality
• Rationality
• Justice and its value
• Interpersonal relationships
  
• Sarcasm

Dear blog, dear readers: we have a lot to talk about.

A soul swims in the deep house of this life // an introductory glance at my corkscrews and loopholes

The past week has largely been about increasing my consciousness. I talked a lot with Tareq and Benkei about religion, politics, science, ethics, and philosophy. Nighttime online reading provides the comfort of knowing there are other people dealing with these issues on the same level. Not that I've been doing that much nighttime reading though, since I've been spending most of my nights with my girlfriend or out in the club.

I'm very happy to be studying cosmology, in "retrospect" (i.e. for reasons I didn't see coming that strongly before, though they were always important). In fact, the past 6 months of not studying physics have been very conducive to my motivation to continue with it. In fact, I can't wait, and I am really hoping my skill hasn't decreased that much in 6 months. I'm going to try really hard to reach a respectable level within a short amount of time anyway. Speaking of time, it's like I become more ambitious as it passes. I'm experiencing many new things - and experience is one of the criteria for a "meaningful life" in modern life, so that's cool in itself. But at the same time, the more I experience, the more I want to do, and I get caught up in a sort of roller coaster.

This roller coaster generates a very powerful feeling, which I've come to experience frequently but irregularly over the past couple of years. It's energizing, motivating, and satisfying. It is in fact the all-encompassing feeling that I call life. And to put it in a certain perspective, I am very satisfied with the idea that this all-encompassing feeling is the product of my brain, which is the product of many years of biological evolution. BUT !

More than before, I am exploring the limits of science. Not so much the theoretical limits at the moment, but the limits of science today. For example, I was reading a forum discussion about the probability of extraterrestrial life. And I came to realize that even though the universe is extremely huge beyond comprehension, abiogenesis (a word I learned this week) is actually far from scientifically understood. The Wikipedia article on Abiogenesis is inspiring; so many theories, so many experiments, I get the feeling that we will eventually come closer to understanding this extremely fascinating process. But at the moment, things are much vaguer than I had imagined. I am now entertaining the idea that the probability of extraterrestrial life might be much smaller than my astronomy and cosmology-inspired gut feeling has taught me so far. Let's see where I'm headed the next couple of years.

I don't believe in the afterlife. Strictly speaking, I have no idea what happens when I die, and I have no idea what is really happening in life at all. Of course I am living my daily life very clearly, and I really feel like I "know what I'm doing" to some extent in this way: I want to experience as much as I can, travel the world, make music, try drugs, EAT all the food in the world, get into the HEAD of the Japanese people and who knows what's next, be good to the people around me and continue walking the path of life I constantly feel like I am finding. But beyond that, I am completely in the dark, directly opposed to my friend Tareq who shares much of the same thoughts and feelings with me, but motivated directly by his belief that the God of the Qur'an exists and, most importantly, that there is an afterlife that provides meaning to this life on Earth (we're having some really good discussions - he sleeps with the light on, I like the bewilderment of total darkness). I am completely lacking his kind of convenient idea (I believe it is nothing more than that, at least in the form he believes in), and I am teaching myself to live with this absurd ignorance, to take away the absurdity and make it straightforward. I have accepted it to the extent that I am living a very dedicated and happy life even though "there is no point" as far as I know, and this is already really, really, really good.

To summarize what I am thinking about tonight, life, the universe and everything is REALLY extreme. Fact is stranger than fiction, by a HUGE margin. I am on a quest, I feel like I am going forward every day of my life, and sometimes I can't fall asleep because I am so excited to be alive.

.......................................

Golden Week is just over. I went clubbing, saw full-speed horseriding archers hitting and missing non-moving targets to the backdrop of one of the most famous Shinto shrines in Japan, visited Kobe (where I had a terrific evening with some friends of Benkei's, who are almost triple my age, crazy in the way that I hoped mature Japanese people could be, and paid for plentiful Japanese food and Scottish whisky), walked through thousands of red gates whose meaning is still obscured to me (I am really wondering what the average Japanese person knows of the fundamental elements of Shinto religion, because they are definitely not obvious to a stranger like me), and spent a couple of relaxed nights at Misa's place.

I love.