I was busy even before the internet.

Yesterday I was talking with a couple of book editors and writers in the heart of Tokyo. One of them, a writer who helped me author several books, casually mentioned how the advance of the new technologies has made us all busier.

"You know, we get all these e-mails, we search for more information on the web, and we are constantly getting busy. Do you think the advance of technology is a good thing?"

Well, I am certainly have heard it said many times, but my genuine puzzlement is whether the internet and other technologies have really made us "busier".

For sure, the quality and sheer volume of things that you can do within, say, 10 minutes have dramatically improved by the advent of internet. Nowadays, when in a conference, I can simultaneously talk and make notes and search for information and read papers and send and read e-mails and tweet and even ustream on my laptop. Yesterdays, I used to just listen and perhaps draw some doodles on my notebook. That's a fact. However, I wonder if we can say that we have become categorically busier nowadays.

When I was a kid, computers and internet were not here with us. And yet, I was quite occupied, from morning till night. I chased butterflies in the field. I read books, sometimes several in an afternoon. I "invented" various games which I played alone, like the "pachinko ball and pencil" baseball games which I hugely enjoyed playing. I painted in oil, I swam, I played baseball (the real thing), I talked with my friends, with my parents, with passers-by. I dreamed, I sighed, I reached, I stumbled.
I think I was busy even before the internet.

"Never say busy!" I said to the writer. "The internet is not the villain!"

She just smiled enigmatically. Because I did not explain in detail my childhood days, I suspect that she thought I was just being diplomatic there.

Towards a more open-ended English education.

Towards a more open-ended English education.

Ken Mogi
Sony Computer Science Laboratories
kenmogi@qualia-manifesto.com

It is a widely recognized fact that the Japanese people are not particularly good at expressing themselves in English. To some observers, this is a genuine puzzle, considering the many hours of study that the Japanese typically put towards the acquisition of English skills.
Here, based on the general view of the human brain being elucidated in the neurosciences, I put forward some ideas towards the improvement of English learning process of the Japanese. These concepts are not necessarily limited to the Japanese phenomenon per se, but could be applied elsewhere in the world.

(1) Open-endedness. Natural language is an essentially open-ended system of communication. Given the sheer number of possible word combinations, it is quite conceivable that an non-negligible part of phrases we use in our daily conversation are spoken and heard effectively once in a lifetime. A person with a mature linguistic ability will be able to comprehend what is being said on the first hearing. Even when an unknown word is included, the listener is often able to make a fairly good guess as to its meaning. Parents and other mature speakers rarely restrict their vocabulary when conversing among themselves in the presence of children. Thus, open-endedness seems to be an essential component of the linguistic ability and its learning process.
Considering the properties of the linguistic system above, it may appear that the current teaching guideline ("shido youryou") put forward by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, Science and Education might be too restrictive in its scope for vocabulary. It suggests that during the three years of English education at the junior high school, about 900 hundred essential English words should be acquired [1]. While it is a good idea to start from the easy pieces, too much restriction on the words to be used in the school texts would inevitably lead to an impoverishment of its contents and a suffocation of the intellect of the curious low-teens, who might be otherwise able to assimilate knowledge at a formidable speed.

(2)　Context of language acquisition. The human brain is very sensitive to the context in which it executes and develops its functions. Cognitive processes supported by the neural circuits including the orbitofrontal cortex identify the context in which the agent interacts with other agents, and coupled with the brain's reward system, reinforces the relevant circuits of functionality [2].
From this perspective, it may appear that the present system of English education in Japan is putting too much emphasis on doing well in examinations, rather than encouraging the pupils to express their views in an open and free environment, where the grammatical correctness and scoring are not necessarily the primary concerns. A change in the context of English learning would be necessary to improve the situation.

(3) Power of volume. It is no hidden secret that the dexterity of language abilities increases monotonously as exposure increases. From this perspective, it may appear that the "volume" of English language materials which an average pupil is exposed to in Japan is simply too small, which, again, is related to the vocabulary restriction problem referred to above.
The brain's memory system extracts semantic significances from the multitudes of episodic memories stored in its circuits. The flexible way in which the various words are employed in the English language simply cannot be acquired by referring to a "lookup table" in the style of a dictionary. The appropriateness of the usage of a particular word in a given context could be judged in a robust manner based on a rich accumulation of episodic memories in the brain. From this perspective, the current English education policy in Japan might be simply lacking in volumes of material. The child's brain is naturally ready to absorb more. It is too patronizing for the educators to restrict the number of texts and spoken materials in the education process.

I will finish by citing two anecdotes. People sometimes have the notion that education at an early age is necessary for the efficient acquisition of English. The life history of Joseph Conrad, who was exposed to the English language only after he was over twenty years old, and yet went on to write masterpieces in English literature such as "Heart of Darkness" is a good counterexample to this notion. Hidekazu Yoshida, a famous and respected Japanese music critic, once told me that in the education system of "Kyusei Kouko" (senior high schools in the prewar Japanese education system), the foreign language education was rather "savage". Mr. Yoshida said that when they learned German, on the first day they were taught the ABC (in German pronunciations) and rudimentary grammar, and on the second day they were made to read an essay of Friedrich Nietzsche on the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer!
These two anecdotes, I hope, will remind those concerned with English education in Japan of the dynamic range in the learning potentials of the human brain. Findings from the current studies in the brain sciences would also suggest the validity of a more open-ended and dynamic English education system, away from the suffocation of too much standardization and an pre-occupation with scores.
There are lots of things that a proper usage of the emergent information technologies can help towards an more open-ended English education. The availability of Michael Sandel's lectures at Harvard [3] is a good example. It is not a far-fetched idea to expose the low-teens to such lectures at some rather early stages of their English learning, in view of the open-endedness of language acquisition.


References
[1] Teaching guidelines given on The Ministry of Culture, Sports, Science and Education webpage (in Japanese) at http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shuppan/sonota/990301/03122602/010.htm
[2] Rolls, E.T. The orbitofrontal cortex and reward. Cerebral Cortex 10, 284-294 (2000)
[3] Harvard University's "Justice" with Michael Sandel, provided free of charge at http://www.justiceharvard.org.

(Abstract for a conference talk by Ken Mogi at LET 50 )

Poetry meets modern technology in Hayabusa reentry.

It was heartening to observe the overwhelming response to the news of Hayabusa reentry yesterday.

Hayabusa, an unmanned space mission to return a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa, made a successful reentry into the Earth's atmosphere last night. It is not known at present whether the capsule, which apparently landed on an Australian soil, contains a sample of the Asteroid. If successful, the material taken back to the earth would reveal important information about the origin of the solar system.

As I monitored the tweets of my friends here in Japan on twitter, some of them scientists, others writers and artists, there was definitely something qualitatively different from the reactions to other science and technology news. I suspect that the very idea of the Hayabusa devise ending its life of service to science in a display of glowing visual apparition stroke a chord in many hearts.

Traditionally, Japanese culture appreciated very highly the transience and fragility of life. Hojoki ("An account of my Hut"), an essay written by Kamo no Chomei (1153-1216) famously begins thus:

Though the river's current never fails, the water passing, moment by moment, is never the same. Where the current pools, bubbles form on the surface, bursting and disappearing as others rise to replace them, none lasting long. In this world, people and their dwelling places are like that, always changing.

(Translation by Robert N. Lawson given on The Washburn College webpage

I suspect that for many of my compatriots, the burning of Hayabusa in the earth's atmosphere was beautiful and moving, because it reminded us of our own immortality, and the very enigma of the passing of time.

Last night, in the public's reception of the news of the Hayabusa reentry, poetry and modern technology met in a deep and unexpected resonance.


The hayabusa reentry. From the Orbiter-Forum.com webpage.

They have in mind a vivid description of almost algorithmic rigor as regards how to move around.

There are certain things that restrict the realization our potentials. The most harm is done when the restriction is imposed on each of us as a system of implicit and often unfathomable constraints.

Although the phenomenon is quite universal, we can start from specific examples. The social enclosure of challenged people, for example.

Recently, I had a chance to converse with a few people who are without vision by birth or through medical conditions, as part of a research for a book project. I found, or should I say rediscovered, that the brains of the visually challenged people are used in a different manner from us. As a consequence, they have developed a unique set of abilities which are a marvel for those "cursed" with visual abilities.

As an instance, when we move around the city, we rely on the visual information so much that our navigation is executed relying on the incessant sensori-motor interaction supported by vision. So when questioned out of location, one has only a very fuzzy idea of the nature of the actual route taken. A blind person, on the other hand, plans and remembers the journey in a very explicit and rule based way, so that they have in mind a vivid description of almost algorithmic rigor as regards how to move around.

Thus, one finds a more logically robust and dense set of abilities in a visually challenged person. There are accompanying difficulties naturally, but if we can find a way to overcome these obstacles, a visually challenged person has a great chance of flourishing in a unique way. Sadly, because of the assumptions and prejudices about what one may do in society, these great capabilities are not tapped to the full yet.

Similar cases of untapped talent resources are rampant in society. Glass ceilings are broken constantly as society progresses.

The real problem is that in many cases we don't even realize the existence of the glass ceiling, and suffocate without knowing the reason why.

Place of the highest concentration of uncertainty.

I went to the Keio University Hiyoshi campus for our "Brain Club" meeting and lecture giving.

It is always so interesting to go to a University campus. There are people with lots of uncertainties in life, who wander on the earth, with their faces full of expectations and anxieties. The sheer ambience of these immature souls are such a joy to observe.
In a society in which on graduation many people search jobs expecting a life employment, the university campus continues to be the place of the highest concentration of uncertainty. Once in the society, there are categorically less uncertainty. Which is a good thing in terms of security, but is also suffocating for the soul.

My personal wish is that the Japanese society in general would become more of a University type place of uncertainty rather than the present system built on an increasingly unsustainable security. After all, uncertainties in life cannot be avoided, and the false presumption of a fictitious security rampant in society does more harm than good to its members.

Penrose does not usually look up what people have already done.

Greg left a very interesting comment on my last entry "The secret is to hide your sources".

Greg: It sounds reasonable that new discoveries emerge from sources that we may not be able to trace directly. However, there appears to be some tension with this idea and the underlying philosophy for academic writing where authors are expected to move from known scholarship to new inferences and discoveries. There is the impression that scholarship moves incrementally from the known to unmask the unknown through sound reasoning, observation, and experimentation. Perhaps, this is an ideal as well and that what happens is something between the two ideas.

Yes, indeed! Thank you for making this good point, Greg!

Academic paper writing is all about continuity and incremental knowledge building. Therefore, when you write the paper, it is necessary to cite all the relevant references, and state clearly what new things your present work is bringing into the field.
(Having said that, it is a fact that the Einstein paper in 1905 did not cite a single paper. I wonder if that was an acceptable mode of writing in that era.)

I remember a chat that I had with Sir Roger Penrose some years ago in Oxford. When I asked where his ideas came from, Penrose answered that it came from nowhere. Penrose does not usually look up what people have already done. He just does whatever he likes, and checks only afterwards whether any others have done similar things before. The order of things is actually opposite to what is normal in academic paper writing. I suspect that it is the case with quite a few people, especially those with originality.

The secret is to hide your sources.

Albert Einstein once remarked to the effect that the secret of creativity is to hide your sources.

Here, the great physicist is showing again his great intuition about the psychology of creativity. Mysterious though the workings of the brain may appear to us at present, one thing is clear. Nothing comes from nothing. When one has a moment of inspiration, one might have the feeling that the new idea came out of the air, without a trace of precursors and origins. And yet, the breakthrough is in fact the result of a continuous experiment of associations and links within the cortical network, where various information obtained through experience and thinking is thrown into the "crucible" and fused.

In reality, when there is a new idea, say X, popping into the mind, there should be an unspecified set of information, say A, B, C, D, ....., that amounted to the forging of X. The intriguing fact is that we are not always, and indeed most of the time not aware of the sources A, B, C, D, ...... Hence the rather surprising nature of the moment of insipiration.

Thus, as Albert Einstein said, the secret of creativity is to be found in a process where the sources are hidden, and the human brain is very capable of such a process.

The ENIAC photos

While in Ann Arbor, there was one thing that I would very much like to see.

ENIAC.

ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, and was the world's first electronic computer. ENIAC was constructed in University of Pennsylvania by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, and was completed in 1946. It was then operational until 1955. ENIAC conducted 5000 cycles of operations per second.

Four of the original panels are now displayed in the entrance hall of Computer Science and Engineering Building at 2260 Hayward, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Standing in front of the legendary machine filled me with awe and inspiration. To think that the evolution of modern computers started here, all the way to the wondrous machines that we so casually use today, including the one I use to type these words, infuses one with respect for the pioneers.

Here's some photos of the legendary machine. Thanks to University of Michigan for preserving and displaying this significant bit of history.



















Ken Mogi (h=172 cm) is standing in front of the ENIAC as a scale bar.

Driving to Ann Arbor, I felt that I was coming back to the United States afresh and with a vengeance, albeit in a different context than yesterday's.

My travel in the United States continues.

A 30 minutes drive from the Detroit airport brought me to Ann Arbor. As the car approached the academic city, memories swelled in my heart.

In the summer of 1986, I participated the 38th Japan America Student Conference. This conference was my first exposure to the American culture. As part of the itinerary, we visited the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

We stayed at the student dorm on campus, and talked late into the night. As the conference was finished for the day in the evening, we strolled into the streets. As I recall, I realize that was one of the prime times of my life.

At that time, I was seriously considering of moving out of Japan and going to the United States. I don't know what made me walk away from that adventure eventually. Possibly, it was a fear of losing my own roots.

At that time, as is the case today, America was a huge crucible in which things got mixed and then melted and fused. I think I was unconsciously afraid of being lost in a ocean of constantly moving trends of miscellaneous unknowns.

At the time of my visit to Ann Arbor, I did not know Yasujiro Ozu, had not visited the Ise Shrine, and had not rediscovered Hideo Kobayashi. Perhaps I was not confident enough in my own cultural tradition to set out to the vast of ocean of contingencies in the United States.

Shortly after the conference, I made a decision to go to the graduate school in Tokyo. My first long-term residence in a foreign soil was then to be the postdoctoral years in Cambridge University, U.K. In this era, my heart was rather remote from the things U.S. To this day, I do not know if I made the correct decision.

Driving to Ann Arbor, I felt that I was coming back to the United States afresh and with a vengeance, albeit in a different context than yesterday's.

Once in the city, I suddenly remembered that there was an Ice Cream place called Steve's. Nostalgia made me curious if that was still there. Memories of the conference in 1986. The walks we took to the Steve's Ice Cream, smiles of my friends, arguing which flavor was best, making jokes, bursting laughter, patting on the shoulder, tasting each other's, exchanging remarks, outreaching of cultures...

When I checked the web in the hotel room, I learned that the precious Steve's is gone. An entry from "Ann Arbor's lost eateries" reads:

Steve's Ice Cream, corner of William and State, now a Jimmy John's; 80s ice cream mix-ins.


So a gem in my past is no more. Gone too is the young I who aspired to be a global citizen, not knowing exactly why or, more importantly, how.

Time flows and flew, and here I am in Ann Arbor again, looking at the phenomenon which is the United States with renewed vigor and bits of educated bewilderments.

Ohio!

I arrived in Columbus, Ohio, and moved to Athens, Ohio, on the road.

We dropped by a roadside restaurant. I got into talking with John. John majored in film studies at University. He said he saw many works by the Japanese masters, Kurosawa, Ozu, and Mizoguchi.

This morning, as I greeted him on the hotel corridor, John yelled to me "Ohio!" I asked him if he meant "good morning" in Japanese (the Japanese word for good morning, "Ohayo", is very similar in pronunciation to "Ohio", and saying "Ohio" in the sense of "good morning" is a relatively well-known bi-cultural joke). John said "yes". "There was a Japanese movie with that title".

"Oh, you mean Ozu?" I said. "Ozu has a lovely piece with that title". "Well, I don't remember exactly," John said.

Back in the room, I started to muse that there might probably be two roads to the universal from the local. One is the internet way, and another is the Ozu way. Before I have time to type down the thoughts however, I realize that it is now time for me to leave to face up to today's missions.

Qualia Journal celebrates one year of continuous entries.

I started writing this blog on 29th October, 2004.

There were 11 entries in the year 2004, 44 in 2005, 29 in 2006, 68 in 2007, 11 in 2008.

The statistics indicate that my entry into the journal was rather random and sparse for the first 5 years.
Then, on 6th June 2009, I made a resolution.

I thought that I would keep the diary continuously, without any breaks, from that day.

Today, The Qualia Journal celebrates one year of continuous entry. Some of the entries have been short, some of them fairly extensive, some written in my native town of Tokyo, some abroad, most of them typed down in the morning (local time), some on the airplane, but here, it seems that I have successfully kept my resolution.

Hooray!

My deep felt thanks for all readers of this humble blog. In particular, I am grateful for those who have left a comment on my entry. Some of them have had the generosity to come back repeatedly to my blog, and left several comments. I enjoy reading the comments, and have learned a lot from them.

So here I make yet another resolution, to keep The Qualia Journal every day indefinitely. May your days be happy, and let us hope that this tiny celebration of the emerging global culture might be sustained in the years to come.

It will take time to restore chaos.

Yesterday evening, we were in a Denver steakhouse, and I and Mas Kondo and Nathan were discussing American politics.
Mas referred to the immortal George Bush blunder of saying "You know, it will take time to restore chaos", referring to the situation in Iraq.

Watch George say it.



Mas, being a liberal man, threw it at us as a demonstration of good old George's low intelligence. Another liberal that is I, while enjoying Mas's jokes, went into a pensive mode from which it took a few minutes to come back.

Needless to say, what Mr. Bush really meant to say was that "it will take time to restore order". But Freudian slips (if that was indeed a Freudian slip) reveal some truths in human psyche.

Maybe it will indeed take time to restore chaos. And that could be very important in life.

When we were born, everything was in chaos. You see, babies even don't know the boundaries of their body. Then, order comes to gradually, and you lose your rather precious chaos. As you grow older, things start to appear quite orderly, and you start to assume many things.

Those become your own prejudice, and restrain the freedom of your actions.

Being creative often means and requires restoring some chaos in your life. Breaking the status quo requires a fresh start. Chaos brings about the much needed unbounded air in which we can freely breathe at last.

I am not claiming that when Mr. Bush said "it will take time to restore chaos", he was dropping a word of wisdom. What the heck. Sometimes we can learn things from those people who might not have the slightest idea what the deep significances might be. That's the beauty of (mis)communication.

Obama is YOUR president as well.

All day, I was moving around South Dakota and Wyoming. Peter and Tony was with me, among other people.

As we were driving the country road surrounded by green hills and small rivers, Peter and Tony started to talk about American politics. It was interesting to listen to their conversation.

Tony served in the Marines, and has been stationed in Okinawa and Iraq.

Peter is a paleontologist, and is an expert on dinosaurs.

Tony said that he did not want to call Mr. Obama "President of the United States". "For me, Obama is just Obama", Tony said.
Peter said, "you're wrong! Obama is our president. You may not like his policy, but the majority of American people chose Obama as our president. So Obama is YOUR president as well. I did not like George Bush, but since he was democratically elected by the majority of American people, Bush was my President, too"

Tony was not convinced. "It is not that I don't like Obama as a person, I just don't buy his policies. I signed up for the Marines at the age of 17. At that time, I did not go well with my mother. The country that I bowed to serve at that time, however, is not here any more. America has changed. It has changed for the worse. There is too much government intervention and red tapes. Obama is making America more bureaucratic."

"Well," Peter said, "I do think that there are cases where you do need government regulations. Look at the BP oil spill. That is a worst consequence of deregulation."

The conversation went on. It was fascinating to see how two people of polar political allegiances exchanged views in a frank and direct way. Both Peter and Tony did not back up. There was "collision" in that sense. The view of a person is formed over many years, and does not get changed overnight. It was like two massive mountains pushing each other. However, they were friendly all the same, "agreeing to disagree" .

Oh, my, that was a beautiful scene. I was moved, almost to tears.

Pouring red wine into the emptied white wine glass.

Every nation has its good and bad points, and most often they co-exist.

Whenever I come to the United States, I am always impressed by the beauty of their casual culture. I mean, they don't care whatever you do, as long as you keep a certain degree of decency.

The initiation into the American culture on this trip started on the Delta Airlines fight from Narita. The flight attendant was a very nice lady, with a wide smile and a big heart.

At the meal time I was drinking white wine. As the meat was going to arrive, I asked her for a glass of red wine. Sure, she said, smiling like a sunshine. A moment later, she came back with a bottle of red wine in her hand. She then poured the red wine into the glass. That was fine. The "slight" problem was that the glass she poured the red wine into was the glass I was using for the white wine. And of course she herself poured that white wine into that glass, just a few minutes ago.

Now I started thinking. Gee. Surely, when I am drinking wine at home, or at a private party, I don't care if I use the same glass for the white wine and the red wine. Theoretically, the remnant white might mix with the red and affect the taste, but that would be quite negligible. But never, in my life, had I observed a flight attendant pour red wine into the emptied white wine glass. That kind of action would be inconceivable in the meticulously careful cabin of ANA (All Nippon Airways) or JAL (Japan Airlines). A veteran flight attendant of JAL might swoon and faint at the very idea!

Having said that, I rather liked the casual manner in which the emptied white wine glass was used for the red wine as well. Maybe it is good for the earth. Maybe we are making too much of a fuss about glasses and vintages and all that. Maybe we should forget about it all and just take it easy.

What I wanted to say, really, is that there might be a link between my flight attendant on the Delta flight and the American spirit of venture, as observed in Apple and Google, for example. By being casual one could presumably concentrate on new things, bring about changes, and move forward.

Perhaps.

What I have just said is just a thought, probably never to be proved theoretically or in practice, but this morning, after spending a night in the world's prime nation of casual manners, I rather like being released from the pressures of observing one's etiquettes.

Lining up at the Immigration in Minneapolis St. Paul airport, I was impressed by the sheer variety of people.

I arrived in the United States.

Lining up at the Immigration in Minneapolis St. Paul airport, I was impressed by the sheer variety of people waiting to be greeted by the immigration officer. People of African origin, Asians, Europeans, children, old people, young couples, fat people, slender people, bald people, people with hair, smiling people, people with sober faces, people with Amazon kindle (that's me!), people spending a precious few minutes of their lives lining up for immigration.

As the global village throbs, our life goes on and evolves. It is rewarding to see in physical reality the spectrum of people on earth today, well represented at the point of entry into the United States.

As I write this in the Wolfgang Puck restaurant sipping coffee, a wish swells in my bosom like a tidal wave in a great ocean. The wish to get connected to people. People from as different backgrounds as possible. To see a manifestation of the connections, and get immersed in it, both physically and metaphorically. To live a life of an earthling, in the true sense of the word.

That would be my wish.

My mother and the Buddhist family altar.

Translated from the original Japanese essay in Ken Mogi, "Ikite Shinu Watashi" ("I live, I die") published from Tokuma Shoten, Tokyo, 1998. Translation by the author.


One day, when I was a University student, I was doing small talks over supper with my father and mother. Intricate lines of talks led us to the topic of visiting the family tomb. I declared, when and if I die, there was no need to put my remains in the tomb. When we die, we become nothing, so there was no sense in putting one's remains in the tomb. Japan is a small country, and we are rather scarce on land. To designate a certain amount of land for the purpose of providing tomb spaces, and exclude other more useful purposes, was a nonsensical idea, I said. Just think of it, I went on. If all the dead Japanese people in history were to be buried in tombs, the nation would be overflowed with tomb spaces. Just as it was a nonsense to use a vast extension of land for golfing (which is my own prejudice), it was a nonsense to build and maintain tomb spaces, I said.

All of sudden, my mother started to cry. She cried like I have never seen her crying. She lay beside the hori-kotatsu (covered heater table), and cried without any regard to the onlookers. My father tried to console her, but she would not simply listen. It was as if the nerve for crying was set on fire and nothing could stop it, as is sometimes the case with babies.

My mother then said to me, sobbing.

"You are not going to put my remains in the tomb. You will not pay respect to my tomb, after I die."

The manner in which my mother cried was something quite out of the ordinary. There was no hesitation or restraint. I was deeply disturbed. The fact that my words made mother cry gave me a profound shock. I did not mean to make her cry. I did not expect her to react in such an exaggerated manner. That was my mistake.

I spent the few days after the incident in a very strange and tranquil mood. Ill at ease, and yet somewhat warm. It was as if I uncovered a picture of my mother before she got married. I felt as if I have confirmed that my mother was a human being, in a strange mixture of dissonance and comfort. Needless to say, I have never physically struck my mother. And yet, a regret of having inflicted a "verbal violence" persisted in me. I never expected my words to have such a power to make my mother cry so hard.

Even today, I still think, in my own conventional wisdom, that after death I am reduced to nothing. In the passage of time, when it is for me to die, all the materialistic foundations that sustained me would be lost, and that would be the end of it. I don't believe in the existence of an afterlife. Needless to say, the world views of us humans are always open for revisions. It is quite possible that our understanding of the passage of time, in which the dramas of life and death are played out, would be deepened in the future. It is conceivable that our understanding of life as is expanded in time, in which there is birth, development, and then death, might turn out to be quite shallow, to be superseded by a new world view which is beyond the imagination of the human race today, and it may be one which incorporates the concept of after life.

However, unless a radical rewriting of the human perception of time, life and death takes place, "afterlife" would be conceived as the result of a wishful product of human imagination. I believe the truth of life and death to be more harsh than conventional religions tell us. More harsh, and yet, if you try to understand it, ultimately more rewarding both intellectually and emotionally. Only by coming to terms with such a harsh reality, would we be able to come to full terms with our own mortality. In this respect, how people would treat my remains in the event of my death might concern those who are left behind, but not a business of mine, who wouldn't be there to care about these things anyway. Had I explained these lines of thoughts to my mother, at length and with passion, she might have understood me. She might have taken my opinion at its face value, and might have come to terms with the idea that putting one's remains in a tomb is ultimately meaningless, however alien such a philosophy might be for her.

At any rate, such a reasoning had no significance under the situation in which my mother was crying bitterly in front of me. I did not know what to do, and just stared, unable to find a way to comfort her.

After that emotional breakdown, whenever I visited my parents' house, I made a point of giving senko stick incense to the Buddhist family altar. Since both my parents are still alive today, these ceremonial actions were meant for my deceased grandparents.

I don't know exactly why I am doing this. I do not have a solid religious belief of any kind. Part of me is enjoying the protocol, without any corresponding belief systems. What is certain is that I am doing it not only for commemorating my grandfather and grandmother, but also in consideration of the possibility that my mother and father might appreciate my action, especially my mother. In my heart, I still carry the burden of having made my mother cry bitterly on that evening. The image of my mother bending her body like a red boiled shrimp is still alive. I dedicate my senko stick incense to that image.

Some people say that deeds must be matched with thinking. If you don't believe in a particular system or religious belief, then it is not a good idea to perform the ceremonials, they claim. On the other hand, dedicating senko stick incense and visiting the Buddhist cemetery might be considered as something that belong to social customs, and can be performed within the secular context, with admittedly a certain level of religious connotations. The religious sayings of a Buddhist priest might be treated as a music to the ears, functioning quite respectively without its religious content or intent. Conceding to my mother this way can be regarded as a betrayal of my own world view, or as just following a convention which one can pursue with a clear conscience.

How to mourn for the deceased is both a matter of convention as well as a system of actions tightly coupled with the philosophy of life and death. In recent years, new ways of "disposing" of one's remains have emerged. For example, one may wish to have one's ashes taken into the space, propelled by a rocket. In co-existence with such trends of the new era, traditions continue to take strong holds, reflecting the momentum of history.

It is not just my mother. There are people who become quite serious concerning their own tombs. Things related to one's own death seem to occupy a special place in life. Human beings take special interests in one's way to look at life and death. I myself am naturally concerned with my own life and death. The thing is that it does not show as a concern about how I am to be buried.

We are all mortal. When faced with death, we all weep with the body bent like a red boiled shrimp, cry aloud, or get captured in a rage which one cannot really control.

The time may come when I weep without regard to the onlookers concerning my own death. On that poignant evening many years ago, such a moment visited my mother. My time might come any moment. We all die. Nobody is indifferent to the questions of life and death.



The cover of "Ikite Shinu Watashi"

Telling the coins just by listening.

I had an very interesting chat session with people working as volunteers in Dialogue In the Dark Tokyo for a book project. These are visually challenged people. "Taicho" ("The Boss"), "Mikitty", and "Hiyamacchi" ("The mountain guy") were there.

When the chat was close to the end, I accidentally dropped a coin on the Chinese restaurant floor in which we were meeting. "100 yen!" exclaimed The Boss, without moving a muscle of his characteristically cool face.

"Correct!" I cried. "Do you mean you can tell the coins just by listening?"

"Yes, naturally." Mikitty said in her warm voice. The Mountain Man chuckled, nodding.

Getting very interested, I said "let's try", and they said "why not?"

I dropped the 1 yen, 5 yen, 10 yen, 50 yen, 100 yen, and 500 yen coins. Each time, they could tell which very accurately. I was impressed.

"The 50 yen and 100 yen coins are a bit tricky to tell apart", The Boss explained. "The 1 yen and 10 yen are the easiest."

What was impressive was the immediacy with which the replies came. Evidently they have been practicing and exercising the coin telling game all the time, all along. The rest of us, on the other hand, have been relying on the visual information to tell the coins we dropped, so that the particular neural function to decipher the sound of collision never developed to any substantial degree.

For me, it was yet another testimony of the richness of the diversity of ways that brains can develop, given various constraints and encouragements.

With that marvelous finishing fanfare of coins hitting the floor, we parted. I shook hands with The Mountain Man, Mikitty, and finally The Boss, and said good byes.

The Boss, who is a musician, had a really tight grip. The firmness and warmth was the coda of the evening music.

I cannot live without rice, I can live without rice.

I really stick to the rice. When I stay at a hotel, and have a choice between Japanese and Western breakfast, I always choose the Japanese one. My morning simply cannot start without a bowl of rice and preferably a cup of miso soup. If there were some pickles, that would be divine.

Having said that, my preference does seem to be context dependent.

When I am on the road, for example in Europe or in the United States, I simply discard my usual preferences. When I walk into the restaurant, I am quite forgetful of the fact that in the world there are such things as rice and miso soup. I am quite happy with bread, bacon, cereals, orange juice, and the usual suspects.

When I reflect on this very convenient change in my taste, I realize how flexible one's custom is. It is important to know your customs, and yet it is also important to know how flexible you can be.

I cannot live without rice, I can live without rice. These double aspects of my existence is an interesting problem poser for me.

You could build a whole system of philosophy from here.

Being out of your depth is one of the most marvelous experiences that life can bestow on us.

It may sound paradoxical or even outright absurd, but being out of your depth is one of the most marvelous experiences that life can bestow on us.

When you have a really moving experience, you feel that you're out of your depth to grasp it. Something is definitely there, but you cannot know or describe that something as a collection of explicit expressions. The experience flows and then disappears like tears in the rain, and you're left with a bittersweet aftertaste which you cling to like the last lifeline. If you let the small trace go, then the giant apparition that crossed your mind for a brief period would also disappear into the great void embracing all existence.

When in a social situation, like giving a lecture, or discussing things, or arguing that they should employ you, being out of your depth, or, even worse, letting people know that you are out of your depth is a nightmare. You feel so ashamed at the unintended display of your own incompetence. You feel you would like to hide in a hole. You wish you would disappear into the air. You wish you had never been born.

In audience with a great work of art, on the other hand, you can enjoy the state of being out of your depth alone. You need not let anyone else know your state of blissful misery. You can pant, roll, sigh, cry, regret and aspire in solitude. When the tears dry, you can start building your life all over again, as a changed person who sees the world in a slightly different manner.

It is good to be out of your depth from time to time. Especially when you do it alone.

Experience categorically different things.

Creativity does not come from nothing. People sometimes have this hazy and rosy misconception that you can create marvelous things out of the void, but that does not happen in reality.

Creation is a result of successful and often unexpected link between items stored in the brain. Nothing comes from nothing.
Nothing ever could (yes, it is Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music). So it pays to store miscellaneous and on the surface irrelevant things in the cortical circuit of your brain.

As the number of items stored in your brain increases, the number of possible combinations increases in an explosive manner (just consider nC2=n(n-1)/2). So experiencing miscellaneous things is a rational approach to creativity.

Here, it is important to seek diversity in categories. Categorically same items, no matter how many are stored, would lead only to likewise properties when combined. If you store categorically different items, and successfully combine them, it would sometimes lead to real innovations0, although it is fair to say that the establishment of the combination itself is more often than not difficult.

The more difficult the establishment of the link, the more valuable when you succeed, although there is a fair chance that you end up as a hopeful monster.