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I just walked down to the shop again, past the same waves and tinkling piano as the other night. I decided to come back a different way, down a sidestreet I'd never been down before, and found just a few metres down and round a corner a wonderful looking traditional restaurant in its own traditional garden. And I thought how we can have the same experiences with people, even ourselves. I mean, you think you know a place pretty well, but one day you discover some hidden gem just round the corner - an old shrine, some beautiful trees, or whatever - that you never knew about. People are a bit like that, or they can be.
It's such a clear night tonight, after the rain - the clearest I can remember. I can go to the sea wall and look right across the bay, all the way down the Izu peninsula on the other side, it must be 50 miles - all the twinkling lights as far as Shimoda, even the cars going up and over Hakone. In the summer we can't see any of it, they're lost in the haze - but they are all still there nonetheless, even if we can't see them. And there's another little lesson, a reminder. You may not think about someone for a while, but then something happens, and you are reminded of their constant presence.
I was also thinking about how we learn about each other - how we think we might know someone, but then something happens and we are taken by surprise by their reaction, for better or worse. We learn about ourselves in the same way - we only find out how courageous we are, for example, when we are pushed into a situation that demands courage. Perhaps we find out how wise we are when we can distinguish between courage and foolishness.
That's another point that came to mind on my evening stroll - the complexity of life. We want to make it simple - enjoy the simple pleasures, keep it simple. Complexity might involve difficulty. But it seems to me that we have to work quite hard to keep our lives simple. Maybe if we think life is simple then we don't really understand what's going on!
It's such a clear night tonight, after the rain - the clearest I can remember. I can go to the sea wall and look right across the bay, all the way down the Izu peninsula on the other side, it must be 50 miles - all the twinkling lights as far as Shimoda, even the cars going up and over Hakone. In the summer we can't see any of it, they're lost in the haze - but they are all still there nonetheless, even if we can't see them. And there's another little lesson, a reminder. You may not think about someone for a while, but then something happens, and you are reminded of their constant presence.
I was also thinking about how we learn about each other - how we think we might know someone, but then something happens and we are taken by surprise by their reaction, for better or worse. We learn about ourselves in the same way - we only find out how courageous we are, for example, when we are pushed into a situation that demands courage. Perhaps we find out how wise we are when we can distinguish between courage and foolishness.
That's another point that came to mind on my evening stroll - the complexity of life. We want to make it simple - enjoy the simple pleasures, keep it simple. Complexity might involve difficulty. But it seems to me that we have to work quite hard to keep our lives simple. Maybe if we think life is simple then we don't really understand what's going on!
