Mono no aware

"Mono no aware" (the pathos of things) is an important concept in understanding Japanese literature and way of seeing the world in general. It is an awareness of the vulnerabilities of life, the ever-changing faces of things, the non-permanence of human existence. It was famously employed as a critical tool by Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), the founder of Kokugaku (Japanology) in the Edo period.

Those who possess a sense of "mono no aware" are sensitive to the sufferings of the weak and underprivileged, as they know that they might fall into these misfortunes themselves. They are aware that nothing is permanent, love, social structure, human relationships, not to mention politics. They do not therefore take a "no-nonsense" approach in coming to terms with conditions of the outcasts and the estranged. They are full of compassion and commiseration.

In the Japanese society, there has always been an implicit conflict between the bureaucratic and hard-nosed and those with a soft heart for the "mono no aware". In the Heian period (749 to 1185), the ruling class prided themselves on having a feeling for "mono no aware", as exemplified in the beautiful story of Genji. The Japanese history had seen some periods where people insensitive to their own and others' vulnerabilities unfortunately found central positions in government.

I myself would like to live fully immersed in "mono no aware". I would like to expose myself to the vulnerabilities of life, both within and without, and constantly find a new self. It is the only way to grow spiritually.

Those were the thoughts as I walked through the forest of the Meiji Shrine in the heart of Tokyo, on my way to the NHK broadcast center one recent afternoon, with the sky above being cleared of clouds which brought rain earlier in the morning.



The torii (sacred gate) of the Meiji Shrine. I walk past this gate into the forest behind twice a week on my way to the NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) broadcast center.

"Emergence" originates in "emergency".

The present paradigm of neuroeconomics is too narrow in its conceptual setup in order to encompass all that is truly relevant and important in life. It starts from the assumption that the human beings are selfish and then goes on to study various anomalies (e.g. altruism) as something added to the fundamental assumptions. However, after some careful considerations it would appear that the fundamental assumptions themselves are very much restricted for the purpose of accounting for the development and maintenance of the self in the complex world that we find ourselves in.

Let's draw an analogy with the cycles of life here. In order to account for the fact that there are various forms of life on the earth, one needs to "doubt" the stability of existing life-forms and delve straight into the underlying vulnerabilities. If the life forms were not mortal, meeting their respective destinies in the struggle for life, there would not have been any evolution of the species.

The same can be said for the origin of the self. If the self does not "bleed" and "threatened" and even "destroyed" from time to time, it cannot really "evolve" in the course of an individual's life or over generations. "Emergence" originates in "emergency". Fury, envy, enchantment, bewilderment, hate, love, all these emotions that makes life such a complex and colourful experience is nothing more than reflections in one's psyche of the contingent processes that form the self in the interactions with the environment and other agencies.

Game theory, neuroeconomics, all these wonderful theories of the origin of human cognition and behavior are just scratches on the surface of the gigantic mass of mentality out of which our humble every day life is formed.

The Firefly

Two years after the end of the war, my mother passed away. Mother's death affected me very deeply. Compared to this sorrow, the great war, while shaking my flesh physically, did not move my spirit in any discernible way.

A few days after my mother's death, I had a strange experience. My house at that time was situated in the remote parts of the Ougigaya valley, where there was a brook running along the path. It was already twilight. As I went out of the gate, I saw a firefly floating through the air. Fireflies are something common in the region at their season. However, it was the very first sighting that particular year.

The firefly appeared large like I had never seen, the light in the dusk shining prominently. My mother has now become a firefly, the thought suddenly occurred to me. Strolling after the floating light, I could not let myself free from this strange idea any more.



Excerpt from the opening sentences of Hideo Kobayashi's unfinished work "Impressions", in which Kobayashi discussed at length the philosophy of Henri Bergson. The war Kobayashi refers to in the text is the Pacific War (1941-1945).

Translation by Ken Mogi.

Polar star in the night sky

When small things tend to let you down in life, it is useful to think of the really wonderful things.

In my case, I remember how wonderful the achievements of Newton and Einstein have been, what a sense of bewilderments the fruits of the strivings of these giants have given to humanity. I also ponder the beautiful moments in the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner. I remember the poignant depiction of the human condition in Yasujizo Ozu films.

Remembering all these wonderful things gives me a sense of value and goal in life. I would not dare call this perception absolute or Platonic without the modern "small prints". Whatever the nature, the remembrance of these wonderful things serves as the "polar" star in the night sky of my mentality, the immovable and guiding principle in life.

That is not to say that small things in life would go away. These troubles would still torture me from time to time. It is only that I can become immune to some extent, thanks to the smile and joy the remembrance of beautiful things brings to my soul.

On the ecological complexity of novels.

A few years ago, I was giving a joint talk with Masahiko Shimada, the famous Japanese novelist of my own generation, at the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo. We were discussing the nature of good literary works, and I happened to mention that the repetition of words was not necessarily a bad thing, although abhorred by editors in general. What I was trying to allude to at that time was the importance of repetitions in the spoken language, especially those that accompany dances and other rhythmic actions in daily life. Close to life in its nature, the liberation of repetition could broaden the universe of literal expression, I suggested

Masahiko then said something interesting that set me pondering. He said that any great novel is like a dictionary. To take an example from the Japanese literature, consider Soseki Natsume. The vocabulary that Natsume uses in his novels is quite vast, and it encompasses a large sea of words employed in the written and spoken forms of the Japanese language. A Natsume novel is a "dictionary" in effect structured along a storyline, covering and giving a lively list of virtually all the words that are used in the cosmos of our native tongue.

The discussion with Masahiko at that time prompted a wave of thoughts about the richness that complexity would generate, how it is related to the philosophy of life. In the Amazonian rainforest, it is known that the same species of vegetation thrives far apart from each other, a multitude of different kinds mixing and co-existing within a tightly woven ecological system. In such a system, the lack of repetition of the same element is a hallmark of the richness of complexity. An obvious analogy can be made between ecology and novels.

It is a worthy ambition for anybody interested in linguistic expression to author a "virtual-dictionary" type work of literature. Technical writings in science and mathematics often suffer from monoculture in words, for the very reason that certain expression and phrases needs to be eradicated to ascertain logical coherence. It is then by no accident that in the beloved literature of the world insanity and illogicality must sometimes surface, as these traits are admittedly major members in the universe of human spiritually, calling for appropriate corresponding expressions in the spoken and written language.

Englishness

Strolling around Grantchester Meadow, I do think that this is a very nice, relaxed environment. I am sitting now in the Red Lion pub in the open air backyard, with a pint of IPA and a pack of Walkers crisps, cheese and onion flavour.

This is the kind of thing I took for granted while I was in Cambridge. Indeed, I can even say that I kind of looked down on these typically English traits. I did not swell in it. I rather thought myself as being tired of it. I felt that the English is a rather boring and common species.

But now I realize that these environments have become an integral part of my mind and blood, this relaxed way of looking at things, this balance of the man and the nature. I got to know the central Cambridge area in and out. I can imagine myself walking through the streets of Cambridge without any problem. The Englishness has gone into my blood.

The warm reception of me by Horace and the lunch in the Trinity college had much to do with the change of my perspective of what is English in general.

(Excerpt from the diary written during a revisit to Cambridge in 1998. I stayed in Cambridge from 1995 to 1997.)

A Chimera between Einstein and Darwin

One thing that is lacking from the intellectual endeavors in today's world is that of synthetic creativity. With the advent of an attitude to quantify and compete in a specific context, the laudable tradition of going over the borders and come to grips with the essential problems that encompass all walks of men's intellectual activities is gone.

In some areas, the lack of an all-encompassing activities might not pose an urgent and serious problem. For example, when one tries to develop a new blue laser diode, knowledge in related areas might suffice.

For some themes, however, the absence of a synthetic effort can be fatal in the effort to achieve. In trying to understand the human brain, for example, it is necessary to attend to the various aspects of this complex system, from the molecular mechanisms of synaptic regulation to the whole-brain transient synchronization observed in the moment of one-shot learning.

In understanding and preserving ecology, it is necessary to appreciate the complexity of life-forms and the multi-faced interaction that exists between various species. In fields such as cognitive science, biology, sociology, etc., the awareness of the complexity of the whole system is a necessary ingredient of any successful and truly useful theory. The field of consciousness studies is clearly one where such a synthetic effort encompassing various fields is necessary.

On the other hand, a mere collection of miscellaneous facts is not sufficient to solve the enigma of consciousness. We need a sharp, focused intellect directly facing the most abstract and intractable conceptual problems concerning the mentality. Thus, we need a "Chimera between Einstein and Darwin", attending to the various aspects of a complex system with the greatest care and pertaining to cut into the heart of an abstract problem structure at the same time.

Lost on the way to Florence

Once I visited Pisa for a conference. I had a free afternoon, and decided to venture off to Florence. I took the train from the station, filled with anticipations for the great Renaissance city which I was visiting for the first time in my life.

After a while, I noticed that something was strange. I thought I had taken the express train, but actually it was stopping at every station. Evidently, I was on the wrong train.

I started to worry, being afraid that it would take many hours to make it to Florence. Maybe I would not be able to see the galleries. It might become dark. Uneasiness began to fill my heart.

I was traveling alone. Around me was a cheerful family and several students, all talking aloud in Italian. I don't know what it was that transfigured me at that time. Maybe it was the exasperation at having taken the wrong train, or the actual worry of arriving in Florence too late. Anyway, I started to feel as if I was to live in Italy for the rest of my life.

I would have to speak Italian, write Italian, listen to Italian always, day after day. There would be nothing else for me other than to work in Italian, somehow find a lover in Italian, have a family, raise kids, always immersed in the Italian language. As this illusion swelled in me, I felt as if I was being suffocated. It was as if there was now no escape from the world of the Italian people and language.

What happened was the result of the dynamics of a partially imagined context in which I found me. Before that incident, I was enjoying the context of being a traveler in a unknown land. A traveler has a home country to return, a native tongue to rely on, so speaking a foreign language is just a joy of acting a particular role temporarily, which one can leave after a few days.
Making a living in a foreign culture is a quite different thing all together. There is no escape. There is no joy of acting a particular context.

Because I was bombarded with a seemingly never-ending Italian conversation on the train in trying circumstances, my vivid imagination made me feel as if I was to stay and somehow make a living in an alien culture.

Fortunately, the train arrived in Florence after a few hours. The galleries were still open. I could see "The Birth of Venus" and other famous paintings. The joy of acting the role of a tourist gradually returned to me.

However, the insight gained from this small incident remained with me to this day.

The Dog and the violet

The Dog and the violet

The Origin of Consciousness blog

10th January 2007

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

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.