Today I Was So Awesome

Back in my Junior year of school I took an Introduction to Japan class, and one of the books we read was Tsurezuregusa, known in English as Essays on Idleness.  It’s a really good book.  It’s a collection of short little essays, ranging from a few lines to a few pages, about just various things and thoughts that popped into Kenko’s head.  It’s a great way to spend the day, just reading in the sun, I really recommend the book.

Anyways, the book inspired me to do my own little Tsurezuregusa.  I haven’t worked on it in forever, but I thought I’d share a few of the better entries from it.

I

            I do not know why drumming should always inspire me with feelings of the sea.  Perhaps it is because both of them represent to me untamed power.  When She drums, she seems to me a goddess of the sea, fierce and terrible.  Will personified.  I can imagine that if I had such energy and desire I could do anything, but for all my gifts, I lack will in any amount and I consider it my greatest fault.

VIII

            All divisions are artificial.  Once one realizes this, there are two possibilities.  Either one will ignore all such divisions, or one will acknowledge all of them.  I myself have done the latter, and I believe that Heracleitus was the first of men to do the same.  He saw that nothing is constant and everything changes, and this is so.  From moment to moment, who we are changes, and a man may become unrecognizable to himself within a few hours.

            Perhaps the area where it would be most instructive for people to realize the infinitude of divisions is in language.  There is no English language.  Rather, there are several hundred thousand languages that we call English for the sake of simplicity.  My words have different meaning from person to person.  This should be obvious to all, and yet very few people ever realize it.  This is why dictionaries are so important.  Without a guide as to what words symbolize, it would be impossible for us to communicate properly.  Even with dictionaries, how often does it occur that someone says one thing, but their interlocutor hears something entirely different?

            It is for the above reasons that I cannot understand the importance placed upon the exact text of sacred writings.  Even if the manuscript has never been altered since its creation, which I sincerely doubt, the meanings of the words have still changed.  What once meant one thing now means something else.  Denotations and connotations change from day to day.  It is foolish to pretend otherwise.  Words have no intrinsic meaning or power; they are simply symbols.  So long as the meaning is the same, what does it matter if the words change?  Is it not better that words are changed rather than meaning?  If it were truly so that words were most important, no one would ever translate anything.  I should rather have the precise meaning of Livius’s history than the precise text.

            The greatest attention should be paid to diction in order to ensure the best meaning is created by the writer.

IX

            I wonder why people are so contentious concerning love.  How often is one told that one is not truly in love?  How often does a total outsider believe that they know more about our emotions than we do and feels qualified to make a judgment?  If I were to claim happiness while existing in circumstances that others would not consider to be happy, almost no one would tell me that I was not happy, and anyone who did would be considered rude by others.  To say that I am in love after catching a glimpse of a beautiful girl, however, is to invite everyone to question the authenticity of my emotions, to doubt my feelings, to consider me ignorant of what true love is.

            I believe part of the problem to lie within English itself.  What a violent culture we must have had!  Imagine all of the words that mean to physically strike someone in order to hurt them, and then compare that to the words that mean to be romantically interested in someone.  There is no comparison.  And the words girlfriend and boyfriend!  Products of a society that saw no reason for one to have friends outside of one’s gender unless marriage or sex were desired.  Simply put, the tongue of Shakespeare needs more words for love.  There are so many facets that can only be described with unnecessarily ungainly adjectives that stumble forth from our lips.  Such ugliness in speech should be avoided when speaking of such a noble subject. 

XII

There are two types of beliefs in this world.  The first is optionless beliefs.  Drilled into our heads from birth, imbibed with our mothers’ milk, or simply taught to us in so authoritative a manner that we can accept no alternative, these beliefs rarely suffer rivals and can last for years, even centuries, without being examined by their owners.

            The other type is choosable beliefs, and these are by far the more interesting to examine, for these are hand-picked by their owners and reveal much about them.  It is a fallacy to assume that people believe things for their veracity.  In reality, it is my experience that the vast majority of beliefs held by people are chosen because it is to the benefit of the believer that they be true.  For instance, the common man will believe that democracy is best while the king will believe that monarchy is best, simply because each belief, if true, is best for the believer.

            Once we have realized this, it becomes much easier to understand others whose beliefs seem odd to us.  We should not think that those who believe in silly and stupid things are completely illogical, but merely that their personality and self are such that they have something to gain if their beliefs were true.  While these profits are sometimes obvious, they can also be quite subtle, for it is in one’s interest that their worldview survives each day unscathed, and thus it is natural for one’s new beliefs to match their own.  Someone already dedicated to the idea that their nation is superior to all others will inevitably believe the best about his country and the worst of its rivals in order to maintain his worldview.  It is for this reason that children should be raised most carefully, and ideally, they should be taught their own ignorance instead of orthodoxies.  A child who believes that they are ignorant of much will be more easily able and more willing to assimilate new beliefs into themselves than a child who believes that they already know the truth of the world.

            Do not judge the beliefs of others immediately.  Rather, examine the belief and the believer and understand what they have to gain from their belief’s potential veracity.

            Similarly, to convert another to your own beliefs, it is folly to use logic unless the logic is so sound that it admits no alternative and makes the belief optionless.  It is simpler to show your opponent the benefits of your own beliefs so that he will choose them of his own accord.

XIII

There is nothing more sweetly attractive than to be taught a foreign language by a beautiful woman.  Why this should be so I cannot say, but nevertheless I believe it to be true.  Perhaps it is the time that must be spent and the patience that she must show as she educates you, perhaps it is the inevitable association one must make between one’s learnings and her lips, but if anyone were to ask me for advice on seduction, I would tell them to teach their beloved a language.

XIV

            I believe that the world would be better if children were ignorant of their parents and their parents were ignorant of them.  Imagine the benefits to be gained if children were raised by the state instead of their parents.  All children would have equal access to education, whether borne of a rich family or a poor one, and those children who excelled most would be able to find their calling.  It would be more efficient, since there would be but a few large households rather than myriad small ones.  Foolish sons would no longer inherit from their wealthy fathers, since no one would know who his son was.  Instead, an heir would be more likely to be chosen based on their own talents.

            If only it were possible to have a polis upon which I could experiment!  I greatly desire to see this idea put into practice, for I have no doubt it would be beneficial to society.

XV

            It is important to always keep in mind someone’s natural inclinations when judging them.  Someone whose instincts drive him to give money away does not deserve to be given much praise, for he is only doing what we would do anyway.  He is not generous, but diseased; his mania is to give.  Many whose vices and addictions are perceived by others to be virtues and hobbies are also praised meaninglessly, for even if their actions were the basest of sins, they would still do them.

            Instead, he who deserves the greatest respect is he who acts against his natural inclinations for the greater good.  The miser who gives to charity, the misanthrope who nevertheless helps others when they need it, the addict who deprives himself of his pleasure to give his family bread: these are they who should be praised. 

XVII

I think there is nothing in this world that I enjoy seeing in people as much as enthusiasm.  Perhaps it is because I myself am so apathetic, but to see someone performing a task with happiness and eagerness in their face warms my heart.  Even if someone does something that I dislike or disagree with, if they are sincerely enthusiastic about it, it tends to mollify my harsh feelings somewhat.  Unfortunately, my opinion is not shared by many of my friends.  And yet is not enthusiasm a part of much greater things?  How many scholars and researchers accomplished their deeds because of their enthusiasm for their work?  If only everyone were enthusiastic about their job, I believe many problems in the world would be lessened.

XVIII

They say that death is the great equalizer.  That it is fair.  More fair than anything in life ever is.  Perhaps that is why it seems so unjust to me.  In stories, the hero cannot be killed by his inferior.  He will not die in bed of asphyxiation because some moron left a stove on.  He will not get hit by a car and killed crossing the road.  These things can happen to anyone, and I hate it.  I hate that anyone can kill anyone.  That Julius Caesar can be stabbed and killed by mediocre senators.  That Socrates can be forced to commit suicide by a fearful, little, miserable town.

I want something more.  I want a guarantee that my death will equal my life.  I want something from it.  I don’t want to die a miserable death out of ignorance or by accident.  I don’t even especially fear death.  I just don’t want to stop living.  Everything about life is so wonderful, and every day I love it anew.  I hope my life is long.

XIX

            The world seems very Polycratic to me.  By this I mean that bad luck must necessarily follow good.  Whenever my look has been good for too long, I fear, for I believe that misfortune is coming.  For this reason I do not mind small misfortunes, for they keep at bay even greater ones.  If I wish for something to happen, I throw away something small, such as a penny, in hopes that by inducing a small bit of bad luck I must receive greater good luck soon.

            Imagine a volcano.  While dormant, one has good luck, while erupting, bad.  The longer one has good luck, the larger the eruption of bad luck will be, while if bad luck happens often, it tends to be smaller.  This is the world as I see it.

XX

            When determining why something is done, one must examine the causes, auxilia and pretexts.  The cause is that which induces the person to do the deed.  Auxilia are those things that make the deed seem like a better idea, but are learned after the cause and thus after the decision to do the deed has been made.  If the cause is later invalidated, then auxilia may be sufficient for the actor to continue his deed, but not always.  For instance, a man decides to go to the store to buy bread.  His desire for bread is thus the cause of his excursion.  After deciding to go to the store, he realizes he would also like cheese and wine.  These desires are auxilia, for although they make the case to go to the store more compelling, they themselves were not the cause of it.  If the man later learns that no more bread exists at the store, these desires may be strong enough that he will go anyway, but it is impossible to tell.

            Pretexts are different from both of these in that they are what the actor says, either to himself or others, is responsible for his deed.  Although one’s pretexts may be the same as one’s causes and auxilia, it does not have to be the case.  If the man is embarrassed of his desire for bread, cheese and wine, he may tell others that he is going to the store for fruit, and that would be his pretext for his trip to the store.  One may even hide true causes from oneself behind pretexts, and this should be avoided, for lying to oneself gains one nothing.

Well, that was longer than I was expecting.  Hopefully it was too annoying.  It gives you sort of an idea of how Tsurezuregusa is set up, though.  I recommend trying out doing your own little Essays on Idleness; it’s rather enjoyable and pleasant.

-Matthew