One More Time

So, I came back to the United States for a period of three weeks, which under normal circumstances, is a sizable chunk of time, but in this case, flew by faster than a swallow carrying coconuts from Africa. The whole time there, I was hoping for a reflection on my time in Japan, which rather quickly turned into waiting to get back to Japan in order to reflect on my time in the states. Well, now that I’m back, I’m thinking I can do both, the former as a brainstorm about the upcoming year, and the latter as gratitude to all those that I saw and spent time with.

Let me shift the order yet again, and focus on being at “home.” The simplest way to do it is by way of a quotidian yet highly significant example. The first few days of being in Chicago, I perpetually took off my slippers before going into the bathroom, at first without even thinking about it, later forcing myself to do it. Eventually, the practice was given up. The habitual nature of human life lies locked within this little vignette. A year in Japan imbued in me new habits and patterns of behavior that soon enough became second-nature. The moment my external environment changed radically (i.e. Japan to US) the old habits resurfaced, raising the question of what causes these habits to form in the first place. Are we really such pitiful creatures of our environment? Needless to say, the bathroom incident was far from the only one with regard to doing things exactly as they had been done the year before, and many before that one. The lesson here is a good one. Unless conscious behavioral choices are generated by core principles somewhere deep on the inside, I, we, she, he will remain naught but a malleable fluctuation, well beyond what some would like to call control. Realizing all this made quite a profound impression on me. Then again, this realization has been floating around in my head for many years, but this time it was coupled with undeniable empirical proof, rather than simply abstract flotsam whizzing through my attentive space. How it plays out this time around is a good and absorbing question upon which I will continue to concentrate.

It was really good to be home, too. I visited NYC with my family and took in some of the sights and sounds of that metallic metropolis. I spent four days and an incredible amount of money in that den of sin known as Las Vegas, where my good friend Rob was given a proper send off into the married life. I ate an unbelievable amount of good food, including a few filet mignons and nine or ten enchiladas, which in the short run made for a satisfying experience but in the long run resulted in about 4 unwanted kilograms. I played some poker, watched some T.V., hung out with friends and family. In short, I got exactly what I needed from this journey back home, some R and R.

Throughout my first year away, many people here told me about their experiences in going back “home.” What stands out primarily now, as it did at the time, is that the trajectory of those still at “home” goes on. While I am away doing something else, those at home are doing what they have been doing and there are no breaks in their lives. I left and I came back, and while for me, there’s been a year’s worth of new experience, those at home cannot say the same for themselves. This forms a kind of discord, which made it difficult for me to relate what I went through and felt while in Japan during my interactions at home. I simply rejoined that on-going trajectory, which swallowed a year’s worth of memory and made it seem like it was dream rather than a lived-out reality. That, in itself, was a scary proposition because to have the significance of a year lost almost immediately makes one ask questions about the validity of life. Nevertheless, having coming back to Japan and having rejoined my own new trajectory, those fears were minimized as inconsequential. But that does bring up an important point and that is how to avoid this happening all over again next year. Which, in turn, brings me to this upcoming year.

Having been back for a couple of days now, I feel really comfortable. I approach my daily routines without the anxieties that had begun to plague them before going to the U.S. My language, although nowhere near where I want it to be, is at a level which allows me to function normally and shows the possibility of progress in the very near future. I think I have finally learned the futility of setting large-scale and vague goals (because they can always be altered, pushed back, excused out of existence) and instead am focusing on day to day tasks. Life, if lived moment by moment, but yet fully, is a beautiful and wonderful thing. What has come before is relevant only as a stepping stone to appreciating what is happening right now, and what may or may not come in the future is absolutely irrelevant to making the most of the present. Such an assumption does not negate the idea of ambition or of desire to pursue a certain path, rather it purifies and simplifies present action. I do not want to be driven by the nebulous rewards of an uncertain future because that makes me miss the fruits of the now.

My kids are good. The teachers are the same as they were. My new schedule of seven schools keeps me busy, which is also a good thing because before I was finding that too much time with nothing to do was having a negative effect on my psyche. Slowly, yet surely, a clearer picture emerges of what I must do. As before, I am plagued by the nagging supposition that I should be doing something more, something greater with my life, whether for the benefit of mankind or of my resume or for a better social image or for a better self-image, but it has become easier now to recognize that the wrong motivations will only result in wrong action and in the end only harm me. I have a lot of time for myself in the upcoming year and I hope to use it to the best of my ability.

I want to thank everyone, including family and friends, for making my visit to the U.S. highly enjoyable, and parts of it, unforgettable. I will certainly miss all of you, but I do have to say that the second time around (when I wasn’t going into the unknown and you weren’t going into a Roman-less existence for the first time) it was easier to say goodbye. Except that is not what I tried to say to everyone. Rather, it was see you.

And on that note, let me plug Japan. Come. Come. Come. You won’t regret it. One of the most amazing countries on the planet (but, of course, I have seen only a small number of them)

I hope you all are well and carrying on. Take care and I hope to write here with a greater frequency and not only narration, but reflection as well. And in shorter bursts, too. Much love and peace.