Fujiko Suda / Reflection

Spiritual accomplishments

It is a simple story. There is little to tell and it may sound as if I had invented it; but to me it seems like a poem.

This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard," she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously." Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, "This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness." Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. "I often talk to this tree," she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know haow to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked here if the tree replied. "Yes." What did it say to her? She answered, "It said to me, 'I am here - I am here- I am life, eternal life.'"

Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl

Milan Kundera's Laughable Loves

Only a couple of pages into the first story, Nobody Will Laugh, I was feeling uncomfortable. This isn’t exactly the kind of story that inspires me. After couple of more pages, and I was beginning to feel a bit angry with myself. Why am I continuing to read this story? If I didn’t enjoy it, then stop! Somehow, I skimmed to the end of the story, determined that if I didn’t like the second story, I will return this book mostly unread to my friend, despite the fact he recommended it to me heartily.

My first reaction when I was halfway through the second story, “The Golden Apple of Eternal Desire” is that of amusement. So this is what my girlfriend was talking about. She said that the ultimate thing all men care about is getting laid.

I kept on reading. “Symposium” was interesting. The twists and turns! I think I am most like Elisabet and then next like Flajsman. Elisabet because I am quite simple minded, not aware of much of finesse or nuances that abounds around me. Flajsman because I am always making up stories in my head and am convinced by these stories. No, no, I got that wrong. I decided I want to be like Elisabet many years ago, because I just got tired of feeling too much, thinking too much. I decided life was much easier and bearable if I lived moment by moment. About being like Flajsman, I simply am that way.

Many of the situations in these short stories felt familiar to me. I just never thought of describing details of the situations and feelings into words. That goes for the recurring theme of aging too.

It seems the theme is about people keep falling in love throughout their lives, even in very happy marriages. Like Baby Face's song, Love Makes It Happen. (The song is light hearted.) Kundera is describing love without neither embellishing it nor renouncing it. He’s just telling it like it is. Mostly physical, because we are nothing without bodies, mysterious feelings and spirits and thoughts that are hard to be distinguished from the bodily feelings.

My previous boss used to say, uncomfortable is good. Reading Milan Kundera again after reading Unbearable Lightness of Being about 18 years ago reminded me why I stopped read fictions, unless it is a simple and straight forward one. It occurred to me I have been avoiding having my difficult feelings brought up to surface, but of course, some times I can't avoid them. I like being simple, living moment by moment, grateful for all that life is giving me. Uncomfortable is good. Reading Laughable Loves forced me to learn a new lesson: although I choose to simplify life, things are really complex.

Tanabata decoration

Wish

If I were to with for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparlking, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility?

Soren Kierkegaard

High point of the day

Riding the train at 6:30 p.m., I was reading a book, and I was reading a chapter that was really good. But I noticed that the sound of running train changed and knew we were on the bridge going across the wide Tamagawa river.

Should I keep reading, not bother to turn around and glance through the window? The thought flashed through my mind, but I turned around anyway. Instantly, I was rewarded with stunning panorama of sunset.

The picture of solumn, majestic sunset was there in front of me. Wide night blue sky, touching the horizon with lingering deep shades of flame, farewell gift for the day from the gracious sun. Agains the sunset orange, black silouette of mountains in the distance, Mount Fuji remote but most distinguished, with perfectly symmetrical line. Still solemn woods, as if pausing for thanksgiving prayer for the day. Wide open riverbank with lush grass growing accented with clay fields here and there, creating sense of freedom. Graceful, slowly winding silver river, mirror for its surrounding.

Amidst of sacred still picture, a dark shadow of a single duck takes flight away from me, flying close to the surface of the silver river, perhaps hurrying towards its place to rest at night.

This perfect show to end an ordinary day, the sky, the mountain, the field and river not caring if anybody watched it's daily sunset ritual. I've graciously accepted this gift of life, even if it was not intended for me but rewarded me simply because I took a second to look away from my interest that moment.