lottery

努力することは宝くじを買うことであって、当選することではない
Putting in some efforts is the same as buying a lottery ticket; you never know if you will win

-Takeshi Kitano（北野たけし）


When I was a high school student, I didn't like it when classmates told me they wished they were as smart as me.  In my opinion, I was not that smart, or at least it was clear (to me) that their wishes would come true as long as they studied as hard as I did.  Back then, I used to think everything depended on effort.

I still believe it's true to some extent.  Nothing can be achieved without hard work.  But not everything can be achieved through hard work.

Many people say your dreams will come true if you keep pursuing it.  Less people point out that that kind of belief can sometimes even be dangerous if that leads you to ignore things that are seemingly unrelated to your dream.

Natsuko Toda, who is probably the most successful translator in the field of subtitles says she always knew her dream (to work with subtitles) may never come true.  That was why she accepted every offer she got and did her best every time, even when it was unrelated to what she really wanted to do.  When she finally got her first subtitle offer, twenty years had passed, and it was through a job that she would've avoided if she could.

"I think it's important to face the reality while you work on what you like.  If you end up getting where you really want to be, that's really lucky, but if you don't, you can still live with a positive attitude,"  she says.

I wanted to be a writer for a long time -- since the day I got my first A in English class for creative writing.  It wasn't just that I was happy with my grade; I had enjoyed my English homework for the first time, and it was nice to know that someone else liked what I liked.  Time flew when I was writing; I forgot hunger, I forgot cold.

But I never had the guts to give up everything else and pursue the dream of becoming a professional writer.  Partly because you can become a professional writer without giving up everything else.  And partly because I feared putting too much effort into writing and dying without accomplishing anything.

It's easy to work hard when you know your efforts will pay off later on.  Buying a lottery ticket, on the other hand, takes a lot of courage.  But you can never win without buying.

the enlightenment generation

Today is Coming of Age Day in Japan -- a celebration day for young adults turning twenty (this is the age in Japan when you're given legal rights as an adult), and a nice day off for people who aren't twenty.

Apparently, the generation of the new adults are called 悟り世代 (the enlightenment generation) in that they know what it is to be satisfied with (what they have) now （足るを知る）; they don't ask for much, and they are happy with ordinary lives -- never controlled by desires.

Some people, mainly those who lived the age of economic growth after the war have misgivings about the future of Japan when they see "the enlightenment generation".  The older generations think the younger ones lack the motivation to bring further prosperity to Japan.

This might be very true.  In a way, it's simply sad that these young people have reached enlightenment at their age -- enlightenments are for old people.  Young people are supposed to be ambitious; they should stay hungry and foolish.  It's shocking that there are less and less Japanese students willing to study abroad.  It's sickening that young people are locking themselves up in a warm cocoon.  And it does seem like a big problem if they are really losing interest in the rest of the world.  Because a country like Japan with so little natural resource can not live on its own, and it's simply sad (again) to lock yourself away from this beautiful world when there's so much left to see.

But is that really a problem?

When the bubble popped in the early 1990s, the Japanese were forced to change their sense of value.  Putting too much emphasis on material wealth soon was something to be criticized.  Spiritual richness and health of the mind began to matter more.  It is no coincidence that the young generation has reached enlightenment at such a young age.

If the enlightenment generation is happy (they should be by definition), and if each individual is truly happy, what is the problem?  At least for the time being?  Is it so bad that Japan has given up its position as the second economic power?

I don't know much about Bhutan, but they are by no means counted as an economic power (and they have a high divorce rate), and yet it's said that more than 95% of their people are "happy".  It's an enlightenment country.  And books with titles like "how to learn the way of happiness from Bhutan" sell like bibles in Japan, only to tell us that the Bhutanese think very much like the Japanese enlightenment generation.

So if national prosperity and individual happiness contradict one another (since happy people apparently lack the motivation to make their country richer), which should come first?

idea

This is an essay on science I found interesting written by Junichiro Hashimoto（橋元淳一郎）:

Science obviously has a practical side.  It has brought material wealth into human civilization.  The true purpose of science, however, is not the pursuit of material wealth.  It is to seek what truly exists, and it derives from the ancient Greek philosophy.

Plato tells us a very intriguing story in his book The Republic:  In a long narrow cave, there are some prisoners who have been locked in a pillory since birth.  Because of the pillory, they can only see the wall of the cave; they have never seen the world behind their back.  Behind them, there is a little stage where a puppet show goes on.  Even further behind the stage near the entrance of the cave is a bonfire.  The shadows of the puppet reflect on the walls.

The prisoners who have only seen the walls their entire life, believe that the moving shadows are the only existence in the world.  To them, the only reality is the shadows.  However, if one of the prisoners were unlocked from the pillory and was allowed to look behind, he will see the puppets on the stage and probably be astonished.  The scene would be unbelievable to him, but if he hasn't lost his reason, he would realize that what he had believed was reality had only been the shadows of the puppets.  He will know that the puppets they could not see up until then was true existence, and that what they always saw had only been an illusion.

After telling us the story, Plato says that the prisoners are nothing but us humans, and that what we see in everyday life is only the shadows of what truly exists.

Plato called this true existence 'idea（イデア）'.  He says that idea is never to be seen, but without it, this world (which is its shadows) will not exist.  This can never be proved and thus, Plato's idea is nothing but an armchair theory.  If you can not prove it, it is not science.

However, to regard that only perceptible or verifiable things are the truth only brings us down to being one of the prisoners locked in a pillory.  This universe is not as simple as it seems.  It is natural to think that the truth lies beyond human experience and comprehension.

Lately it is said that this world is not three but ten dimentional, which means we can not "see" seven dimentions.  It is also said that 96% of space is an unknown existence, namely dark matter and dark energy.

The true purpose of science is not only to explain the mechanism of what we can see, but to unlock the pillory we tend to lock oursleves in without knowing it.

(Translated and edited by me)

because everyone says

世の中で事実とされていることは、反証されていない仮説の集まりに過ぎない。
What are regarded as facts in this world are merely a collection of hypothesises that haven't been proved wrong.


When I was a child, I used to use the word "everyone" to explain a lot of things: "Because everyone has it."  "Because everyone says so."  "Because everyone's going."  Every time, my mother asked me who "everyone" was, why "everyone" mattered so much, and finally, not what "everyone" thought but what I thought.

When I met up with my best friend O from high school on Christmas Day, we took a couple of pictures in front of some pretty decorations.  O led me to a popular shooting spot where we found many people standing in line.  I chose a decorated tree right next to us instead and said it looked pretty enough for a picture.  After we were done with our selfie, O asked if I really didn't care for a shot at the popular shooting spot.  I said I didn't want a picture that so many people had.  "Everyone has it; look at that line."

"You're going to be a difficult customer if you ever came to our store."  O sells TVs as a living (though her dream is to work with people in the screens).  She explained that there was a line that worked magic when she said it at the right timing, namely when a customer was just one step away from deciding to actually buy the product.  "Everyone buys this."

I looked around at the people swarming on the streets and at the department store we went into.  The Japanese economy is surely on the rise but I assumed that some of the people shopping there probably hadn't gotten a raise themselves but shopped nonetheless just because "everyone" shopped.

Because everyone's wallet was getting heavier, so were theirs.  Because everyone wants it, so do they.  It's the same with stocks; "everyone" buys and then everyone buys.  Until the bubble pops.

komachi

Last Tuesday, I was talking with my father on the phone when he excitedly told me that he had found an interesting post on Online Yomiuri.  It was about a sixteen year old female Shiba dog named Komachi.  She had died this year on New Year's Day, and the post was written by the adult son of the owner family, showing his thanks to Komachi (you can read the original post here).

Now we have a very close family friend (the H family) who has a female Shiba dog named Komachi who happens to be around fifteen.  Last time my mother met Mrs. H, she had told my mother that Komachi had become very old and weak.

"What do you think?"  My father asked from the other end.  I said it must be one of the sons in the family that had written the post.  "But it can't be M; H is too busy; it must be Y!"  We talked over how we should comfort them and discussed what would be the best way to inform the poster that we knew him.  "Maybe we could post a response by the name Y!"

In the end, my mother decided to call Mrs. H.  My father told my mother that she should be careful with her words since Mrs. H must be in deep grief.  They talked about how to start the conversation and how to bring the topic up.  "You shouldn't have to bring it up; she would be bursting into tears the moment she hears your voice."

When my mother finally called Mrs. H, she answered with her usual cheery voice.  My mother instantly knew it wasn't their Komachi that had died.  And this was the message we got:

Broccoli家の皆様
To the Broccoli Family

あけましておめでとうございます。
昨年は家族がお世話になりました。
私こまちはヨボヨボしながらもこのように元気にしています。
今年は百歳目指してがんばりますのでよろしくお願いします。
素敵な一年になりますように。

Happy New Year!

I always really appreciate your kindness for my family.

I've been doddering but am still doing well.

I'm looking forward to becoming 100 years old this year.

I wish you a wonderful New Year.

こまち
Komachi

So we wrote back:

こまち様
Dear Komachi

あけましておめでとうございます。
今朝はとんでもない犬違いをしてすみませんでした。
お元気そうで何よりです。あなたの穏やかな表情を見て安心しました。
ご家族にたくさんの愛情を注がれて素敵なおばあちゃんになられたのですね。
百歳までお元気で長生きしてください。
Happy New Year!
We're sorry to have awfully mistaken you for another dog.
We're glad you're doing well.  It's very nice to see the peaceful look on your face.
Your family must have loved you a lot; you seem to have grown to be a very charming grandma.
Please be well and live until 100 (and hopefully longer).

Broccoli家
The Broccoli Family

mom's great ideas

My mother is a great mom.  By which I don't mean we always get along well.  In fact, we still argue sometimes.  But I'm very grateful to her to have always been honest to me.  She has always tried her best to be a perfect mom, and yet she has been brave enough to show me that she is just another human being with many flaws and weaknesses.  I'll probably get into this deeper some other time -- today, I want to write about some of my mother's great ideas that I recalled lately when I was back home.

☆ My first halloween costume
The second October we spent in New Zealand, I had my first halloween costume parade at school.  I actually don't know if it was my mother or my father that first came up with the idea, but they decided to dress me as Momotaro, literally translated as Peachboy.  In the famous Japanese fairy tale, he is born from a peach an old couple finds floating down the river, and grows up to go off on an adventure to fight the demons.

He wasn't my hero or anything; I didn't want to dress as a boy in the first place, and I did protest, but my parents were convinced that they had come up with the most awesome idea.  My mother picked up a brush and wrote "桃太郎(Momotaro)" proudly on a large white piece of paper so I could hold it as a flag just like Momotaro did in his story.  She dressed me in a small kimono I had worn two years before for shichigosan* and said my pink pajama pants would match perfectly.

So that was that.  I went to school the next day dressed as Momotaro.  Of course, no one knew who he was.  I looked around at my female classmates nicely dressed as Snow White, Cinderella, Tinkerbell... They all looked back at me as if to ask "Who are you?" but after all, I think everyone was too busy admiring themselves.

From then on, I never asked for help on halloween costumes.  A couple of years later when we were abroad again, I wore another kimono and dressed as something like Kaguyahime (another character in a Japanese fairy tale but not a boy), and when I was out of Japanese fairy tale characters, I chose a vegetable: a carrot.  And of course everyone knew what and who a carrot was.

☆ Fart art
When I was back from New Zealand, I once had to write a poem for Japanese class.  I didn't enjoy any form of writing back then.  Japanese class was a pain.  When my mother read what I had written for my homework, she didn't really like it -- it lacked uniqueness.  She picked up a collection of poems by Shuntaro Tanikawa, read me a couple of his works, and said I should write a poem about farts.  I don't think she said it like that, but that was what I ended up doing anyway.  I guess I thought it was a great idea too.

But very few third graders appreciate the art of fart.  Not many teachers have poetic sensibility like Tanizaki.  And most of all, not many eight-year-olds can be truly confident in what they've created -- especially when it's "controversial art".

At school the next day, a boy sitting next to me glanced at my open notebook and said we weren't allowed to write about dirty stuff like farts.  When the teacher asked me to read out my poem, I turned the page over and read a different one -- probably something boring and ordinary, but something that was not about farts.

*Shichigosan（七五三） is a celebration for three, five and seven year olds.  Back when the death rate of children was still high in Japan, they started celebrating the health and growth of children who managed to live up to these ages.  I guess nowadays in an age when parents expect a lot more from their children, it's a good occasion to remind them that a couple of years ago, before their kids were even born, they only wished they would be born healthy -- just that and nothing more.

missing bike

When Tokyo ran for the 2020 Olympics, the presenters emphasized that Japan was the safest country in the world -- that lost wallets were returned untouched.  One of my classmates got her bike "stolen" about a month ago, only to have it found on a random hill a month later.  The police called her the other day so she could pick it up.  The missing-bike incident reminded me of my own:

It was the summer before the last.  When I couldn't find my bike at our apartment building parking lot, I asked my mother if she had used it.  She said no.  The creepy part was that my bike was super old (unlike my friend's brand new one).  There were tons of new good looking bicycles in our parking area so I thought a stranger who was secretly in love with me had decided to take my bike.  Detective M (my mother)'s guess was that since my bike was from another area (it said so on the sticker), a group of Chinese men had come to steal it, thinking it would less likely be tracked down.  My mother made a big deal out of "the case" and asked the caretaker of the building to be careful about the bikes.  She also ended up making my father call the management company.

While the detective took a shower though, my father and I had a calm conversation, and he told me about an embarrassing incident: a few weeks before, he went to the station on his bike, went to work, came back, got on his bike, dropped by Matsuya to have a hamburg steak, and walked back home.  The next morning when his bike was missing, he told the caretaker that his bike had been stolen.  That was exactly when he remembered he had left it at Matsuya the night before.

So I tried to recall again about the last time I used my bike (which was about a week before).  I had gone to sell a bag of old clothes: I had gone up a long slope, walked 15 minutes under the burning sun, arrived at the store sweating like a hippo in heat, and got only 380 yen, which was more of a shock than a disappointment.  Of course I didn't forget to pick up my bike because otherwise, I would've had to use that 380yen to buy a train ticket.  So I tried to recall if I went anywhere after selling the clothes, and finally remembered that I had gone to the supermarket to buy some bread my mother had asked for.

Since it was around midnight, my father came with me to the supermarket to pick up my bike.  He half hoped the bike had really disappeared because he didn't think he could endure the embarrassement.  But my bike was surely there, alone under the moonlight.  What were we going to tell the caretaker?

Scenario1: just leave the bike where he would notice and have him call us the next morning (and I would keep acting like a victim)
Scenario2: I will say I found it at the supermarket -- that someone must have decided to ride my bike there and left it (and I would never say that was, in fact, me)
Scenario3: just apologize.

I took scenario3, but it wasn't that embarrassing after all.  The caretaker, in fact, didn't seem to be all that interested in my bike.

So anyway, "stolen" bikes do get found in Japan, one way or the other.