Mistaking milk for coca cola

One day I was watching a film, sitting on a sofa in my room. The film was quite exciting, and I was deeply absorbed in it.

Occasionally, almost unconsciously, I sipped coca cola from the glass on the table. All my attention was directed towards the movie, so I was not aware of the qualia that accompany the act of drinking coca cola, namely the bubbling on the tongue and the tickling on the throat, the smooth black color, and the sweet aftertaste on the palate. I was not paying attention to these qualia of coca cola. All the same, I unconsciously recognized that the drink I occasionally sipped was nothing other than coca cola.

I was drinking the liquid like that, when I suddenly felt a strange, unknown taste in my mouth. I could not tell what it was, and I almost panicked. The human brain is configured in such away that when one has something unfathomable in the mouth, a rejecting reaction is incurred. As it would be possibly disastrous to take in a alien material unnoticed, this is a natural reaction. I felt a strong urge to spit out the unrecognizable liquid in my mouth.

Within the time course of a few seconds, I slowly became aware that the strange taste and flavor that I was feeling in my mouth was actually that of milk. The panic subdued, as I became confident that I had actually drank the familiar milk, and nothing else. It was just that I incidentally reached for the milk glass which happened to be beside the coca cola glass.

(Discussion on the distinction between sensory and intentional qualia follows)

(Excerpt from Ken Mogi's "Introduction to Qualia", Chikuma Gakugei Bunko (2006). Originally published as "When the mind feels the brain" from Kodansha (1999). Translation from Japanese by the author)


The cover of "Introduction to Qualia"

Alligator night

I have been to the Amazon once. It was an exciting time. As I flew from Sao Paulo towards Manaus, I was watching the scenery below. The green area went on and on, without any break, no artificial constructs in sight. I was an awe-inspiring experience. I wonder how much of that green vastness has been destroyed, but there must be pretty much still left.

In the city of Manaus I visited the famous opera house and the market. In the market, I had a mixed fruit juice the like of which I had never tasted, and had not encountered ever since. It is somehow hard to describe the qualia, but you felt that there were "molecules of vitality" in every sip you took from the glass.

I stayed in Manaus area for only two nights. On the second day, I went on a river tour. A boat took me to a floating house on the shore of the Amazon river. I slept on the hammock and looked at butterflies and it was almost like a dreamtime. As a kid, I always wanted to go to the Amazon. It was my precious dreams-come-true experience.

The highlight of this very small Amazon venture, at that particular visit, was the "hunting of alligators" in the middle of the night. As night fell, there was complete darkness, as no artificial light source was around. We were put on a small boat and set on a cruise on the great river. There was no sound to be heard except for the engine. We went into one of the branch flows, and the engine was cut off. There was complete silence, and the boat cruised on very smoothly by momentum.

The tour guide took out a flashlight, and directed it to the shores. After some searching, he spotted it. There were this barely discernible pair of "gleaming round pebbles" on the shore. As the boat silently approached, the gleaming became increasingly strong, and before you knew it, the guide stretched out his arms and the next moment, a small alligator was hung by the tail in his hands. We helpless people from the north applauded, secretly admiring the swiftness of the guide's actions, which looked almost miraculous and done by what appeared to us wild instinct, enjoying from the depth of heart the whole experience.

As the boat made its way back to the floating house, a feeling of bliss surged inside me. We were buried in the soft darkness, and when I looked up, I could see the sky-filling stars. I discovered then that the phrase "becoming one with nature" was a very accurate and literal expression of what actually happens under certain circumstances.

That was then, this is now. I am stuck in the megalopolis of Tokyo. I haven't been to Amazonia for more than 10 years.

The chasm and qualia

When I was an undergraduate student studying Physics in Tokyo, I took a particular joy in the calculation of complex mathematical formula. I remember sitting for hours in the lecture room of the Physics department and deciphering the universe of special functions, oblivious of what was going on in the outside world.

When I was done with the calculations, I would sometimes walk through the Ueno park and go to a concert in the Tokyo Cultural Center, and listen to my favorite music. As I listened to the beautiful sound of the violin or a soprano, I could tell that I was moving into a completely different state of mind.

At that time, one thing was puzzling and worrying me. From my childhood I was interested mainly in two things, science and the arts. In addition to listening to the music and looking at paintings, I was fond of reading novels. As a raging youth, I was very envious of the novelists. Here is the reason why.

As you grow up, you experience things. Love triangles, farewells, encounters, regrets, etc. I was puzzled and worried why all these incidents in life did not have anything to do with the professional life of a Physicist as I understood it at that time.
If you are a novelist, you could reflect your real life experiences in your work. If you have a hard time in a love triangle, you can write about it in your work and have some justification at least. A lot of achieved Japanese novelists had actually done just that in the genre of the so-called "private novels".

When you are a Physicist, on the other hand, you cannot really make a professional use of what you experience in your private life. A clumsy translation from the real life into physics theory or vice versa usually ends in tears and disappointments. It is laughable to try to account for the complexity of what happens in a love triangle in terms of three-body equations. There was this deep perceived chasm between what a Physicist experiences in the private life and what he or she is professionally supposed to do.

As I was walking through the Ueno park to go to the concert, I was experiencing a transformation from the objective to the subjective. At that time, it seemed that there was no means of bridging this particular gap, the wide open "valley of death" between the spiritual and the materialistic. So it came as a personal redemption as well as a complete rewriting of my world view as a scientist when I realized in a moment of flash the problem of qualia as I was riding on a train on my way back from the research institute one cold night in February 1994.

A cappella man

The Qualia Show video release

A man dances to the a cappella music performed by a girls chorus on a street in Osaka

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw5WXb9VsFY　

Dreaming of Godzilla

In life, it often so happens that the origins of things are concealed, even when they are important. The underlying reason is often psychological. However disheartening to the perceiving and the would-be-perceiving, this strange lack of sight is actually consistent with the general principles of life. We are happily oblivious of many things that eventually led to the "status quo" of life. We are not usually aware that we developed from a pair of sperm and egg. This misty idea about the origin of humanity is still not only theologically but also psychologically very true.

When I was a kid, I often dreamed of the Godzilla. It would suddenly emerge from the mountains, and would come, in that famous Godzilla manner, meters and meters closer to where I was hiding. The radio would be broadcasting news about the appearance of the monster, and I would try to conceal myself under a table or behind a chair, hoping the monster would leave me alone and go away. I was literally horrified in my dream, and I think the little me was sweating.

As a kid I enjoyed the Godzilla films, but was not aware of the origin of the monster. Even when it was mentioned in passing by the actors in the film, the preteen boy did not take it seriously, nor did he suspect that anything was concealed behind the monstrous figure.

As a matter of fact, of course, the monster was conceived in the shadow of the atomic age. I was born in 1962, and the cold war was on the full throttle. My home country experienced two atomic bombs in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first such atrocities in human history and hopefully the last. The event that triggered the Godzilla creators' imagination directly was the Fukuryu-maru incident in 1954, when the radio-active material released from a U.S. atomic bomb experiment in the Marshall islands fell on the ship crew. All of them developed radiation sickness, resulting in one death.

As a kid, I was not aware that in the fictional story it was so conceived that Godzilla was born by a mutation through the radiation released from the atomic bomb. The immature child was not aware of the suffering of the people in the two atomized cities or the fear of the destruction of the entire globe lurking in people's heart under the shadow of the nuclear missiles directed to each other by the two superpowers, all these circumstances that fueled the creation of this famous monster.

Though I did not consciously recognize the origins of the Godzilla phenomenon, I think I might have been unconsciously affected by it, dreaming of the Godzilla attack and hiding myself behind the furniture in the greatest fear imaginable for a child, hoping the monster would somehow go away. Luck had it that I haven't experienced a war in my life time so far. But I think it is quite likely that in my childhood dreams the experiences of the war which had ended less than 20 years before my birth was somehow echoed. I did not actually realize this possibility until recently, when I was thinking about concealed origins while walking on a Tokyo street. In a sense, the origin of the Godzilla was collectively and unconsciously mirrored in my infancy. That is probably how cultural influence is propagated through the generations. The Godzilla phenomenon is still here and alive at the subconscious level.

The butterfly paradise.

When I was a junior high school student, I was elected the President of the Student's Union. The election result itself was a surprise. I drew up a candidate's statement and read it aloud in front of the whole school assembled in the gym. The other candidates included some very handsome guys, who were insanely popular among girls. I was not that popular, and consequently did not have much hope. To date I don't know why I was elected president. I n the election speech, I said something like "please believe in my passion" in a vehement way. Maybe the words worked.

The politics to execute as a president-elect seems laughable and sheer child's play from a grown-up's eye but we as pupils were serious enough. My greatest achievement was the loosening of the school law, which was very strict in those days. In the chapters clearly printed in the student's small identity booklets, it was stated that there was to be only "one line" in the socks. We thought that was ridiculously strict and negotiated to be allowed up to a three-liner. I was a small hero when we succeeded in coaxing this small but important concession from the teachers. I learned then that politics is about small changes. Like making it possible to wear three-liner socks to school.

As the president, I could organize the program in the annual school festival in any way I liked. So I slid in a small event which I proudly named "The butterfly paradise". The plan was as follows. I would go and catch a collection of butterflies (I was a butterfly kid and studied them in an amateur scientific way) and release them in a classroom. Then these butterflies would fly around, just like in a field full of flowers. One of my immature fantasies at that time was to walk hand-in-hand with my favorite girl in such a wild field. I thought I could make my fantasy into a reality in the school festival.

So I went out with the best friend of mine then, Toshikazu Shimamura, and caught all these wonderful butterflies. At the same time, I drew up this special invitation card, and put it in the shoe box of my secret love. "Secret" here meaning I did not confess to her or anything, I just held her dear in my heart. Needless to say, I did not tell Toshikazu about the secret invitation.

On the day of the school festival, we were all set. There were about 30 butterflies in the soft cage, and Toshikazu played "Sky High" by Jigsaw aloud on the cassette, which was the theme tune for the professional wrestler Mil Mascaras, very popular among Japanese boys these days.

How did my small enterprise go? Well, two rather unexpected things happened.

One, the girl did not show up. I din't know what she thought. A boy, the president of the student's union, sending an hand-drawn invitation card saying "please come to the butterflies paradise". Obviously she thought I was childish. In the sweet but difficult ages of low-teens, girls tend to have more mature minds than the boys. Maybe she thought I was simply weird. Her absence let me deep down and I was very ashamed.

Two, the butterflies did not fly around in the classroom as I imagined. The moment these tiny ones were released into the classroom, they went straight to the window. When you look back, that was the only natural thing to do for the butterflies. The room was dark, and there was sunshine coming from the windows. So it was the obvious possible route for escape to make it to the windows. I was damn foolish not to foresee that. I was rather hoping that the butterflies would be evenly distributed in the classroom space, but there was this huge bias in the distribution.

So there I was, alone with Toshikazu Shimamura, my beloved girl nowhere in sight, and the butterflies winging vehemently against the windowpanes. It was a total disaster.

The butterfly paradise turned out to be an utter failure. That was probably one of the most ridiculous thing that I ever did. I was miserable. But when you look back, it is strange that you rather like the misery.

Managing insanity in a proper way.

When I think of the difficult conceptual problems still rampant in the world, I feel as if only a properly managed insanity can lead to a breakthrough. When I say conceptual problems, I am referring to the enigmas of consciousness, measurement problem in quantum mechanics, the second law of thermodynamics, the foundations of the semantics, all these intriguing but seemingly intractable (and possibly related) problems that have ridiculed all the effort that the humanity has made so far.

When I was an undergraduate, I made friends with Ken Shiotani, now a "philosopher-at-large", (meaning, in this particular usage, that he does not belong to any university, institution, etc.; he is not paid for his "phisolophizing"). I and Shiotani would discuss these difficult things walking along the Sumida river, drinking beer, persevering a cold night air in a park. At that time, we were quite young and ignorant, but our aspirations were astronomical.

One day, Shiotani drew up a metaphor. He would like to be the "protoamphibian" who "put his leg out of water" for the first time in history. There are heaps of things that the human mind has not had access to yet, and he would like to be the first one to do it. After many years of dormancy, I think he is still aspiring to that.

Another Shiotani quote stayed with me. I think it was one of these days when I was wont to hang out with him in Tokyo bars and Izakayas. After speaking wishfully of his friends who was "climbing the ladders" smoothly and becoming authors and associate professors, Shiotani sighed and said thus.

"I don't want to be a star myself. I would rather like to be the dark void in which all these constellations shine".

He is that kind of person. Practical things are too small for him (not in a physical sense, although is quite massive!)

A few years ago, I went to Taketomi Island off Ishigaki island in the southern Okinawa district with Shiotani and other friends, where we discussed things for many hours. Another soul mate of mine, Takashi Ikegami was with us. We wanted to be teenagers in our thoughts and hearts again, basically.

Here's a shot of Shiotani (lying like a whale in the front) and Ikegami (in a pondering posture in the back) on the beach.



Ken Shiotani (front) and Takashi Ikegami (back) on the beach in Taketomi Island.

We haven't given up yet. We would like to manage insanity in a proper way somehow.

Feeling as if eternal

Feeling as if eternal

The Origin of Consciousness blog

2nd January 2007

http://origin-of-consciousness.blogspot.com/　

Japanese New Year

The Japanese New Year is strongly touched with a sense of renewal. The idea is that everything is renewed and acquire a new face, refreshed on the surface as well as from within.

As one grows up in a culture, many things are taken for granted. Respected cultural anthropologist and historian Kyoji Watanabe once mentioned to me that the essence of a particular society becomes clear only when seen from the eye of an outsider. Watanabe is the author of "Impressions of a foregone world" (Yukishi Yo no Omokage), which relied on the diaries of foreigners who visited Japan at the end of the Edo era to depict the essence of Japanese society at that time. It is a beautiful book, and testifies the truth of Watanabe's thesis, the discovery and confirmation of a society's essence through an outsider's eye.

That reminds me of one incident. When I was fifteen, I home stayed in Vancouver. Verna was the host mother. Ever since then, we have been exchanging letters, e-mails later.

One year, Verna sent me a Christmas card. It so happened the envelope arrived at the beginning of December. I wrote back to Verna, joking, "what on earth made you send the Christmas card so early?" Verna answered back, and I could sense that she was slightly offended. "I don't know. Maybe some whimsical spirit has taken possession of me", she wrote.

Although I was not aware at that time, I was without knowing being influenced by the way season's greetings are taken and handled in this country. In Japan, new year's greetings (Nengajo) is delivered by the postman on the New Year's day. There can be no delivery of these specially designed postcards earlier than that. For a Japanese, new year's greetings should be delivered after the new year has actually come, and not before that. There is something almost sacred in the delivery timing.
Mind you the post office takes a great pain to realize this "strictly on time" service. They employ a lot of student part time workers every year to deliver literally hundreds of post cards to each home on the New Year's day. These postcards are given special treatment, and not a single card is delivered before the New Year's day, although many of the cards are posted well before the New Year's eve.

So Verna was annoyed as a result of a typical cultural misunderstanding. In the western society, as I later learned, it is customary to receive Christmas Cards well before Christmas. I actually visited Verna in Vancouver once in the middle of December. The cards had already arrived, and Verna was displaying these cards on top of the fireplace. That was a beautiful sight in itself. It is only that in Japan, the new year's greetings are not displayed before the time.

Misunderstanding has led to a better appreciation of the unique value of each culture. The spirit of refreshment and renewal that comes with the Japanese New Year's greetings, and the hope and expectancy conjured up at the sight of Christmas cards in western society. It is a pity though I have not told Verna why and how the misunderstanding occurred so long time ago.

Maybe I should clarify in my next e-mail.

An Ode to the Potentially Infinite

Earlier this year, the famed composer Tetsuji Emura has kindly suggested that I collaborate with him for his composition commissioned by the Suntory Music Foundation.

After some discussions in the library of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, the Ueno Park, and over a lucheon laden with glasses of wine, it has been tentatively agreed upon that I write a text first. Tetsuji would then compose the music.
The text is not going to be woven into the music as a lyric. I would most probably recite it as adjacent to Tetsuji's music.
Tetsuji composed "The Qualian Horizon" for orchestra (2005), and we have resonance in what we think and feel.

The premier for the composition is going to be on the 26th May 2007 in Osaka.



Tetsuji Emura (left) and Ken Mogi (right) in conversation in Ueno park, Tokyo.


Here's the text that I wrote for Tetsuji's music to be.



An Ode to the Potentially Infinite

Ken Mogi
written for the music of Tetsuji Emura

31st December 2006


Humans by their nature are cognitively closed,
as consciousness can get to know only itself.
Intimacy is privileged, exclusive, and selective.
By loving, we close our eyes to the passers by.

Everything is seen through a foggy mapping
of shadows cast on one's inner cosmos.
Qualia mirror the essence of things just so,
reflecting one's own prejudices and dreams.

Yet we mortal souls are not entirely alone,
life's poignant collision kick-starting our lives.
Mother caring for baby, father doing the nightshift,
raindrops of fortune occasionally falling from the sky.

Meeting people, learning how to care,
we extend our horizon, however slowly.
In the twilight we learn to aspire far away,
knowing that the star is never reachable.

Ruby at dawn, emerald in high noon.
As long as there's a "next", life showers us with gems and things.
We breathe in that sweet air of potential infinities,
the material of all that is bright in life.

As mortal beings, we do not know the end,
terminality unforeseen converted to fragile blessings.
Spring is eternal, as we drink from the cup
oblivious of the fest's final moment.

So here's an ode to the potentially infinite,
a ray of sunbeam in our humble existence.
Freedom, hope, beauty and love
all good things come from that well.

And finally, through the mind's fog
we faintly hear the footsteps
of those who remained in silence all our lives,
the long forgotten passers by.

White herons

I grew up in a Tokyo suburb where there were still rice fields and forests. One day, when I was about 10 years old or so, I went on a small adventure. I got on my bike and went out of the usual activity zone into the unknown. Unknown to a child, that is. After crossing a large road, I "discovered" a forest and an adjacent pond. The forest was meandering in a shape of a snake in a wide rice field, and the pond nestled beside the forest, in an impressive state of tranquility I remember to this day.
The pond was full of white herons. As evening approached, literally hundreds of them came flying back to their nests. The trees were laden with white spots, quarking and calling to each other. It was an unbelievable sight. I thought I discovered a fantasy land. I named it "the white heron pond" with a secret pride.

I took one of my best fiends to the newly discovered sanctuary next weekend. He was sworn to secrecy. I did not want anybody with a rough heart to come near it. We cherished the treasure.

Day after day, we would go to the pond. There was a large fallen tree beside the pond, and we would sit on the bark and watch the herons fly by. My friend was fond of photography, carried a huge camera and took pictures. On my side, the mode of actions were rather obscure. I would just fool around, thinking of this, dreaming of that, halfway up into the eternal corridor of reveries, neither here nor there, just absorbed in the air I shared with the white herons.

Then one day, a catastrophe came. We were walking along the snake-shaped forest, when we heard gunshots. The hunting season started. We did not know if that was legal or not, but these "villains" were shooting the herons anyway. We were devastated, and rage surged inside us. We took some stones and threw them in the direction the gunfires were coming from, across and over the forest band. We kept throwing the gravels, and then these kids came running towards us. They were about the same age as we were.

"Hey, stop throwing the stones, idoit!"
they shouted.

"But they are shooting the herons!"
we shouted back.

"That's my father, fool!"
one of the boys said.

Near the forest and pond there were several farmhouses, and the shooting men were farmers. Although we thought the hunters were villains, the same persons were loving fathers to the boys. Although our rage had not subdued, the boy's word "that's my father" rather extinguished the fire in our heart. There was a moment of awkward silence.

Then we saw the farmers themselves, carrying the guns on their shoulder, saying something to the farm boys. The boys started to run in the direction of their parents. The situation suddenly became unbearable. We started to run in the opposite direction. We did not look back. We don't know what happened after that.

Although we did not realize it at that time, I now think that we were emotionally on the verge of crying out loud.

After the incident, we somehow felt shy of going in that area. When we somehow conjured up courage and revisited after a few winters, the pond was gone. The water had been buried over, and there were new houses being built on the new land. There was no white heron in sight.

It was a time of Japan's rapid economic growth, and the nature was destroyed everywhere everyday. Our rage against the shooting was totally out of context when seen from the whole picture.

We had entered the junior high school at the time of the pond's disappearance. Our boyhood had gone with the white herons.

I wonder where the herons are flying now.



A white heron.

The Qualia Show

I opened my channel "The Qualia Show" in youtube.

The mission statement submitted said:

Mainly funny things that came my way.
Promoting the metacognition of the comic for the betterment of the world we live in.

As the first video, I uploaded "Gunji Karaoke", an awesome performance at Japan's best loved night pasttime by one of my best friends. The description at youtube reads:

My fellow scientist Prof. Yukio Peggio Gunji of Kobe University has a go at his favorite song.

Here's the video URL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVa96KoukHo　

The Qualia Show will be mainly devoted to comedy. Please stay tuned.

Sony Design Key Person Interview

Sony Design

Key Person Interview

December 2006

http://www.sony.net/Fun/design/activity/interview/mogi_01.html/

Aha! experience on Play Station Portable.

This year, I helped Sega create two games on Sony Play Station Portable based on the phenomenon of change blindness. Here's a few of the reviews (in English) of the game.

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/06/aha_taiken_spots_the_differenc.php

http://psp.ign.com/objects/820/820930.html

On the game packages and the press releases, my name is spelt as "Kenichiro Mogi". That is my formal name. Ken is an abbreviation. All my friends call me Ken.

One of the reasons why I helped develop this particular game was because I wanted to promote public awareness of what a creative organ the brain is. There is too much emphasis on drilling the brain to do arithmetic etc., in which function the computer is far better anyway. I would like people from all walks of life to realize the potentials inherent in themselves.

Here's my earlier essay on the significance of the Aha! experience.

Onceness and the philosopher's walk

(Now available as a chapter in "The Future of Learning")


"The game package"

Beyond this linguistic closure

Some time ago, aneta made a comment on my earlier entry and asked how I divided the topics between my English and Japanese blogs.

My blog in Japanese has been running for 7 years now, starting on the 12th of November, 2006. It is fairly well established in its style and readership. The entries during the period of 2004 to 2005 has been edited into a book (Yawaraka-nou, or "The flexible brain"), published from Tokuma-shoten.
My English blog, on the other hand, is far from being established and is in the process of experimentation.

Actually, expressing oneself in English, while living in Tokyo and being absorbed more or less in the Japanese cultural environment, is a difficult task. It is related to the context in which the Japanese people and culture are thrown into in the modern age.

Since the Meiji revolution, Japan has been playing the game of a catch up. It has been customary for the intellectuals to "import" ideas developed in Europe and the States, and the same process is basically happening even today. I am not saying that no original ideas have been nurtured in this country. I am just pointing out that the product of Japanese intellectuals have failed to find its market outside Japan. Although Japanese sub-culture (Manga, Anime, Otaku) are getting popular in the world market, many intellectuals (university professors etc.) in Japan remain in a "domestic" existence.

Japan as a nation has a tendency to be closed and self-contained, mainly because of the language. Once you write something in Japanese, it is almost certain that the majority of the readership will be Japanese citizens. I have published ~20 books in Japanese, and I well know that my readership will be effectively limited to this island country as long as I keep publishing in my native tongue.

I think this linguistic closure is bad for me personally and for people in general living in Japan. There is a nationalistic trend rampant recently, and I am personally worried. A sense of universal liberty and a tolerance towards people from different backgrounds can only come from an effort to meet the unknown, to communicate, however clumsily, with people who literally speak a different language.

My English blog is in a totally different context from the Japanese blog, and I enjoy the contextual departure. When I write something in English, my imagined readership is not necessarily people from countries where the native tongue is English. Although I do much appreciate people from U.K., the United States, Canada, Australia, to read my blog, I would at the same time very much like people from regions of minority languages, whose only means of opening oneself to the wider world is by adapting to the English language, to access my humble blog.

I do not know where this experimentation is leading me. I will keep writing any way.

Idiot Train

There are some books that I read again and again. Hyakken Uchida (1889-1971)'s "Idiot Train" (Aho Ressha) is one of my all time favorites. It is a humorous writing on Uchida's own beloved past-time, riding on the train for pleasure. In the Idiot Train essay series, he goes all over Japan trying to satisfy somehow his insatiable desire for train rides. It is no ordinary travel essay, though. Uchida does not want any of that distraction or enlightenment people normally expect from getting to see things in a new land. He just wants to travel on the train, drinking sake and having an interesting conversation, and that's that.

In the opening sentence of the first volume of the Idiot Train, Uchida confesses thus (translation from Japanese mine)

I call this trip idiot train because people would say so behind my back anyway. Needless to say, I myself do not consider this undertaking to be that of an idiot. To be honest, you don't need a reason to go somewhere. I don't have any reason in particular to do so, but I have made up my mind to go to Osaka on the train.
As I do not have any particular reason to make this trip, it is ridiculous to travel second or third class. Traveling first class is always the best. At the age of 50, I made up my mind to always travel first class. In spite of my determination, I might be obliged to travel third class when I have no money and yet have some specific reason to make the trip. But I would never travel second class, which is irritatingly ambiguous. I don't like the appearances of people traveling in a second class coach.

Uchida then goes on to consider how he might get the necessary money to travel first class from Tokyo to Osaka and back. Finally, he goes to see one of his friends.

"I would like to go to Osaka."
"Ah, that is a good idea."
"So I came to see you on this matter."
"Is it an urgent business?"
"No. I don't have any particular reason, but I think I will go any way."
"Are you going to stay there for some time?"
"No. I think I will return immediately. Depending on the circumstances, I might even come back on the night train as soon as I arrive at Osaka."
"What do you mean depending on the circumstances?"
"Depending on how much travel money I have. If I have sufficient money, I will come back immediately. If I don't have enough, I might stay in Osaka for one night."
"I don't quite understand you."
"On the contrary, everything is clear. I have considered the matter with great care."
"Is that so?"
"Anyway, can you lend me some money?"

The idiot train essays are full of irrelevant and self-conscious prose writings of the finest quality. It is impossible to convey all the subtle nuances embedded in the original Japanese text, but something is better than nothing.

Uchida's dry and witty wisdom teaches us that that life is not about some kind of dreamed-of achievements, but that rather the process of living along ultimately justifies itself.

Uchida is a disciple of the great novelist Soseki Natsume.



Humorist, novelist, essayist Hyakken Uchida

Related URL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natsume_Soseki

http://www.jlpp.jp/e_st05_uchida_h.html

Reflections on the ever-changing

The past is a vast stage for metamorphoses. The critic Hideo Kobayashi once remarked to Yasunari Kawabata, the author of "Snow Country".

"Not much can be expected out of a living human. What a man thinks, says, and does, is never reliably predictable, whether you speak of yourself or of others. It is next to impossible to make a living human the object of your appreciation or serious observation. On the other hand, the dead are quite admirable. Why is it that the impression and the whole character of a man become quite clear, once he is dead? It is quite probable that dead men are the only true human beings that we come to know in this world. Are we living humans only animals who gradually become true humans as we approach our mortal end?"
(Excerpt from "Reflections on the ever-changing", original Japanese text published in 1941. Translation mine)

What Kobayashi speaks of men here has a universal relevance. The past is never fixed, and the significance of a particular experience becomes clear only after some time has passed since its occurrence. Maturation requires the workings of time. A child is never a child as it happens. You can appreciate your own childhood in the true sense only after you become an adult, when you reflect on what happened so long ago.

One's past is a rich fountain of significant experience, just as the future is an arena for unpredictability. Only in the long-gone past can one find solace and the food for soul. With a will to recall and a freedom of imagination, the past becomes a realm of vivid close-to-heart.


Hideo Kobayashi (1902-1983)

White magic

Most of Wolfgang Amdeus Mozart's music are in major keys. His music represents optimism and belief in beauty and good. In an impressive moment in Die Zauberflote, Monostatos and the gang try to capture Papageno and Pamina. At the sound of the magic bell, they all begin to dance, singing Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schön! It is absurd, and is so movingly beautiful. Needless to say, Mozart as a man of the world must have known that human societies are not so simple as that villains forget their vicious wills and surrender to the power of beauty so easily. However, as a musical fantasy it is of the purest quality, and is tinged with sadness.

Around the time of his mother's death in Paris, Mozart composed the 31st Symphony ("Paris"). Although personally a time of anxiety and sadness, the symphony does not reveal any sign of negative emotions. The music is full of youthful joy, oblivious of life's woes and sadness.

Mozart's compositions are excellent examples of what I metaphorically call "white magic", an act of good will to bring about beauty and love into the world. It is an interesting fact that white magic in this sense derives its energy in part from negative emotions. An enigma of human psyche is that negative emotions can be turned into positive emotions somehow. This "alchemy of mind" is evident in some of the masters of expressive art, notably Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

The determination to use only "white magic" in one's life is a worth one. It is malicious for the self, not to mention for the society, to give a straight expression of one's negative emotions. "Black magic" brings only misfortunes and tragedy into the world. It is worth conscious and unconscious efforts to try to turn one's negative emotions into positive ones, to use only "white magic". It is possible to do so. Just Listen to Mozart's music and be touched.


Mozart the "white magician"

Found art.

Marcel Duchamp's "readymade" is different from conceptual art. When Duchamp signed "R. Mutt" on a urinal to turn it into a piece of art, it was not that any urinal would do. It must have been that particular urinal, with that particular shape and color.
The alternative term, "found art", should indicate a careful aesthetic search process to be a significant description of what is going on. Otherwise it loses legitimacy as a methodology of art.

For example, when a stone is used in a "found art" piece, it should not be any stone, just representing the concept of it. If you are given the instruction to "express yourself" with a stone, you could keep searching for years on end, without discovering the stone that just fits your sensitivity and intentionality. Uncovering a good found art object can be a very serious undertaking indeed.

The serendipitous discovery of a good "readymade" or "found art" object tests the artist's aesthetic senses, just as in the "created" pieces in the traditional sense. This is a worth remembering point when discussing this particular category of art.
Some part of the sense of bewilderment and wayward value the term "ready made" or "found art" conjectures in one's mind, however, might actually originate in the gray zone between illegitimacy and recognition. Refinement should not lead to an overkill of the original stigma.

My own favorite "found art" is the fossil of a nymph of a dragon fly. I discovered it in a fossil shop in the Kinokuniya bookstore in Tokyo. The shape is indicative of a fighting spirit. It is one of my treasured possessions.
I have not "signed" this readymade object yet, though.

Menuhin's Messiah

As Christmas approaches, I am fond of playing George Frideric Handel's Messiah while at work on a CD or DVD. I especially love the part on the last judgment.

At the senior high school in Tokyo, I had several good friends, with whom I would discuss literature and music and other things that would interest a "highbrow" teenager growing up in the capital. One day, I was discussing Handel with one of my most respected friends then and ever since, Akira Wani, now a professor of law at the University of Tokyo. Akira mentioned that he usually prefer German to English in a classical oral music. However, he said, Handel's Messiah was a rare exception. He definitely preferred hearing Messiah in English to ditto in German, namely the arrangement and translation by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

One of my cherished memories of classic music concerts concerns the time when I heard Messiah in the Royal Albert Hall in London. The conductor was Yehudi Menuhin. The timing is a little obscure, but it must have been the winter of 1996 to 1997, only a few years before Menuhin's death in 1999.

It was the first time I heard Messiah in a concert hall, and I was amused to see the audience stand up just before the "Hallelujah" chorus, in a tradition allegedly started by King George II, who was so moved by the music.

On that day, the moment of truth came at the very beginning, even before a single note was played. The audiences were seated, and the orchestra was finished with the tuning. Menuhin came to the podium, showered with an enthusiastic applause, and gently raised his hand to conduct. He was about to move the baton downwards, when there was a slight rustle in the auditorium. Menuhin stopped the baton just in time, and without moving his raised hand, turned his head to see a late audience made his way to the seat.

There I saw, still vivid in my memory, the great violist and conductor holding his action like a living statue, literary motionless, waiting for the late comer to be seated.

When the unfortunate violator finally found his seat, Menuhin moved down his baton, and the music started, as nothing had happened. A good part of a minute must have passed during the incident. All the while, it was as if conducting time was just held from proceeding until the nuisance was removed, and that was just that.

I sometimes remember Menuhin in that posture when I listen to Messiah. It is the image of a mature and inspiring spirituality encapsulated in a human flesh, revealed at the time of an embarrassment.