IHSM and an oasis

Just been for a walk on a particularly lovely day round some of the predominantly natural but partly man-made beauty around this house. And had a couple of random thoughts on the need to:

Take life seriously without being too serious.

Live for the moment while planning for more moments like this in the future.

Learn from the past without spending too much time in it.


Getting very carried away by this innate harmony seeking module idea (IHSM). Have realised that what a lot of people have been telling me for years is in fact true - that creating a peaceful, harmonious environment, both natural and social, is a goal in life, which I shall endeavour to do something about from now on, with more vigour than heretofore.

One thing to be said about Japanese society and culture, at least traditional JS&C, is that a massive emphasis was put on the blending of the natural and the human into a harmonious whole (to the extent that there is or is not a division between 'natural' and 'human', but you know what I mean - 'natural' refers to what happens without us humans sticking our oar in).

So, while much of modern Japan is an almighty ugly unnatural mess, there are everywhere oases of simplicity, beauty and harmony with nature. The most obvious of these are the temples and shrines, where trees, wood, plants, water, fish and rocks are blended together in an inspiringly beautiful fashion, often.

I have made it my goal to contribute with increased energy and enthusiasm to the development of such an oasis of natural and social harmony and beauty - a place where you can stay for a while, and leave feeling like a better person than when you arrived, or at least you have tapped into some source of beauty that you can carry with you in your heart while you are away.

Sounds good, doesn't it?!

Third time lucky

On the subject of photography, I have often noticed that I tend to take photos of groups of three objects - I'll dig out some examples in due course. I once thought that perhaps this is because I have three sons, and am one of three brothers - but then I realised that I am not the first to be drawn to groups of three.

Take the three wise monkeys for instance. Or the Holy Trinity - Father Son and Holy Ghost; the Triptych; the Sun, Moon and Earth; Heaven above, Hell below, and here we are on Earth.

Families usually span three generations.

Jokes often involve an Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman.

A lot of things quite naturally have a beginning, middle and end - meals are more complete after three courses - starter, main, dessert.

Students of rhetoric notice this trait in political speeches:

I came, I saw, I conquered.

Government of the people, for the people, by the people (?).

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.

Ready, steady, go.

etc.


A thesis provokes an antithesis which leads to a synthesis - got back onto harmony again.

Grains of sand

I am lucky enough to live in a part of Japan where I can walk out the door and within five minutes be walking up through the local hills in lush green mature woods, finding viewing spots every so often 'affording stupendous revelations' - views across Sagami Bay, the weather coming in, the sun setting beyond the Hakone hills across the water.

We humans have spent several million years evolving in the natural world, and as a result, I reckon, have somehow got into our genes a need for harmony in our lives. We seek harmony, and feel uncomfortable in unharmonious situations. We like to wear clothes that match; we cook foods that go together; we worry whether the curtains go with the carpet; and all of us all over the world appreciate music - which is all about disparate sounds producing a harmonious whole - which is something we all love to hear.

I realised this last week - I was walking along the shore and got drawn to the fishermen's huts, shacks full of oddments and oddities, some useful, others just randomly thrown together and left. I found myself photographing them and trying to find pleasing combinations of shapes and colours, as you do. When the right combination came into the viewfinder I clicked the button. But how do we know what the right combination is? It's all to do with an inbuilt appreciation of harmony.

Harmony is, of course, not uniformity. If every object was, say, white, then there would be no harmony. If every instrument played the same note, there would be no harmony. Harmony is about reconciling and celebrating differences.

Harmony is not a state, like heaven. Nature reminds us of this - harmony is an ever-changing process of competition for resources, life and death. A never-ending process of learning and understanding, with no end, no result, no final solution, other than the random snapshot we are presently witnessing.

Harmony doesn't happen easily - it takes time. Nature reminds us of this too - it has taken billions of years to produce this present state of natural beauty that we can witness all around us, all the time - as the poets, among others, remind us - 'to see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower' (Blake).

So it is with human relationships. Just as a baritone sax and a piccolo might not on the face of it seem ideally suited to make harmonious music together, they can if they work at it for a while. But they, or their players, have to have the will to try.

Harmony

Midnight on a Wednesday - not time to be writing on a blog, so just a quickie. My favourite word of the week is 'harmony' - I'll get back to this, anon. But in a nutshell, it seems to me that we humans might have some strand of DNA that seeks harmony. We have evolved the tendency towards harmony - through harmony we are less likely to make a mess of things and more likely to succeed and enjoy life. So we are drawn towards harmonious activities and circumstances. When we find harmony we call it 'beautiful' - the natural world is full of it, for one thing - which illustrates a good point about harmony - it doesn't necessarily mean love and peace all the time - animals naturally kill and eat other animals, plants aggressively compete for space - but the overall consequence is harmony. In Japanese by the way, it's called chowa - I learnt this as I was trying to encourage my basic writing students to write about their hobbies. I used myself as a model and waffled about music, art, hiking and sailing, and then tried to find a common theme for a conclusion: harmony.

Next week's word is passion.

Sardine umbrella,Yokohama containers etc

"To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be
replaced by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary'). I will also arrange alphabet lessons so you understand that O is not a number and therefore does not replace ZERO - a number.

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as 'like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

There is no such thing as US English. We will let M*crosoft know on your behalf. The M*crosoft spell- checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists.

The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you
will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.

Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been
calling gasoline)-roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps.

Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted
provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on
earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as
good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to
play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football.

There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body Armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God save the Queen."



Thanks to Jane Sid

Bill and Ben

Had great Norfolk-Japanese sea food pie last night, followed by a brilliantly nostalgic youtube session which kicked of with the Flowerpot men and led to dancing round the living room to, among many others, Roy Wood's 'See My Baby Jive', which I think was the first single 45 that I bought:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8PdHg84zUE

Smoking

I smoked on and off from the age of 11 - a packet of ten Number 6, from the cigarette machine outside Archie's newsagent in Terriers (?) - Billy Colborn, a couple of others - I think it was me who was elected to jump over the fence behind the shooting range in the corner of the sports field, a gap in the laurel hedge - the barrier between the safe upper-middle class privilege of the Royal Grammar School and the grubby working class life beyond - to Easter Sunday, aged 41, when I gave up, and headed off to a new life in the Tuscan mountains.

Fighting nicotine addiction was like fighting with an internal occupant of my body - a fight I won in the end. Now I feel like I still have some internal occupants - and don't know who controls whom. They are my feelings - and they seem to be so much wiser than me.

Golf

"YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT UP NO. 2054

INTERVIEWER: If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what's the worst that could happen, what's the doomsday scenario?

GEORGE BUSH: "Doomsday scenario of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened… The biggest issue we face is, it's bigger than Iraq, it's this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives."


An antidote to Bush's increasingly deranged pronouncements is this wonderful tirade by Keith Olbermann, the presenter of MSNBC's Countdown programme:

http://tinyurl.com/3vo3hq

Norwich Stop the War

Crisis

Crisis - which is my all-time favourite film? The desert island DVD? Up until tonight it was always Jean de Florette / Manon des Sources, but having just re-watched Dr. Zhivago for the tenth time ....

Open Air

We went up the ajisai (hydrangea) railway - the steepest conventional railway in the world apparently - and re-visited the great Hakone Open Air Museum

http://www.hakone-oam.or.jp/eng/

Inspiring stuff for projects this summer - my favourite being Symphonic Sculpture by Gabriel Loire (top - the other photos are of things in Hayama).

Ended up at a birthday bash in Odawara, where a good time was had by all. The quote of the evening, that I can recall, from a European lady married to a Japanese: "He is a very nice man, but a terrible husband".

Fuji from Zushi

http://jun2.pro.tok2.com/zusi/syounan-3/syounan-3.htm

Wet Saturday morning in Japan

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http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/previous.html
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http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=L5C99JyP2ns
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http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=NDXgKIpJyIk

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http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=jzqMJWlKMsY&feature=related




William Blake, Plate 4 from 'Europe: A Prophecy' 1794

Kite, feet and fish

Question: What do you most like about your partner?

Answer from F (18, after some deliberation): His feet.

Answer from H (50 something, spontaneous): The long time we have been together.

We went to watch the kite flying at Sagami River the other day, which seemed to illustrate some of the significant differences between humans and the rest of the living world - while most organisms aim for the efficient use of energy, many human activities often appear to be irrational and senseless on the one hand, but filled with optimism and hope on the other. Huge resources and amounts of time had gone in to attempting to fly enormous kites, up to one ton in weight and 100 tatami mats in area - against all odds and in defiance of logic and experience they battled on in a desperate attempt to get them off the ground and keep them there for a few seconds.

I guess they were quite efficient at getting large numbers of people together on a rather wet and blustery day, to scratch their heads and wonder what they were doing there.

We went sailing in Sagami Bay and snorkelling in the Izu Peninsula over the last couple of days - and how beautiful it was - like diving through a membrane, a thin curtain, separating two co-existing worlds, whose occupants are largely ignorant of each other. We snorkellers and divers are the lucky ones, the papalagi, swimming, floating in a 3D world of art - everything is beautiful - the fish, crabs, rocks, squid, puffer fish, rockfish, sea weed, shells, urchins... and such abundance, depth and variety of colour.

Could be a moral there - look within, don't go by first impressions, go deeper, further - seek the beauty below the surface of things, etc.

http://www.papalagi.co.jp/english/english-top.html

Dolphins

Sometimes I think about Saturday's child,
And all about the times when we were running wild,
I've been out searching for the dolphins in the sea,
Ah, but sometimes I wonder, do you ever think of me,

This old world will never change the way it's been,
And all the ways of war won't change it back again,
I've been out searchin' for the dolphin in the sea,
Ah, but sometimes I wonder, do you ever think of me,

This old world will never change,

Lord, I'm not the one to tell this old world how to get along,
I only know that peace will come when all our hate is gone,
I've been a-searchin' for the dolphins in the sea,
ah, but sometimes I wonder, do you ever think of me.

Tim Buckley

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=LtU-9EMSYu0

Henry's Bar

Bit of a blowy wet Saturday afternoon so spent it playing pool in Kabukicho. Had a look round the Golden Gai area of tiny bars, some with less than 8 seats, and ended up in Lucky's bar, Esogie - drinking Nigerian beer, eating, among other things, cow's entrails, and playing the djembe, while Lucky sang. Must go back!