Problems in the "civilized" world...

Too many ideals, no time for honesty and ignorance of self.

"The great enemy of communication is the illusion of it." W.H. Whyte

Communication is not the disclosing of information, not even the exchange of information, but the fulfillment of a mutual need to know which gets thwarted by misplaced delicacy, arrogance, fears and assumptions.

Everybody needs a Ground Zero within, so they know where they start from.

alone, sitting next to a cactus

raspy wind, gritty sand

a forever sky going nowhere

Tokyo Station Breakfasts & James Bond Cellphones

I am now an expert on the places to get good breakfasts in the "town" underneath Tokyo Station! Having spent the last two weeks taking the early bus into Tokyo to do a training course, I would arrive in town an hour and a half earlier than necessary, so I spent the time having breakfast and reading--along with all the millions of Japanese salarymen having a smoke and a coffee. (I found a place with the best bread! Despite looking like the usual thick slab of white Wonder bread, it had texture and and you could actually CHEW it!) ANYWAY, yesterday I was in said restaurant having breakfast when I looked up from my newspaper, and directly in front of me, leaning dangerously back in his chair, was a Japanese salaryman who had finished his "burekufasuto seto" and fallen asleep. I watched for for about two minutes wondering if I should get into a better position to make a dive for him should his chair begin to slip. Fortunately, he woke up with a snort, finished his coffee, paid and left. I went back to reading, amused and sympathetic.

* * * * *

Just in from the news: A new feature has been designed for the ever evolving multi-purpose multi-functioning cellphone. Now, no matter where you are in Japan, if you hear a song blaring on the street corner, in a coffee shop or on any random intercom system, all you have to do is press the correct function button and hold your phone up to the sound. With in minutes, after calling a special number, the title of the song will register as text on your cellphone screen. This, on top of the recently advertised karaoke song feature which allows you to program in the numbers of your favorite karaoke tunes, so that when you go to karaoke, you can just point your phone at the karaoke machine and, badda bing! badda boom! "Oops! I Did It Again..."

Personally, I am waiting for the cellphone that is equipped with a stealth water pistol device that allows me to put out the cigarettes of Tokyoites who light up mid-stride in the middle of a crowded walkway at 7:30 a.m.

Commitment, Boxes and Doors

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness, concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

* * * * * *

Commitment--work, a project, a friend, a lover, religion--shouldn't be a box, it should be a door.

Find your key.

This online communication thing...

Did I just spent three hours reading online dating bios? I think I did...am I now a geek or breaking through to the next level of modern socialization? I wonder what Jung would make of it, or what any of the "fathers" of psychology would make of it.

Speaking of psychology, I heard Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences guru from Harvard, say at a lecture in Tokyo that psychology has only given us two things; the means to create dubious intelligence testing and the means to create manipulative advertising. For someone so high up in his field, he doesn't give it much credit...did I mention that I trust the man?

But at the end of the day, I think the "fathers" of psychology just created psychology to avoid the responsibility of learning from Womanly Wisdom. But have you noticed the Return of the goddess? Take a read through the controversial The Da Vinci Code. That Mr. Dan Brown, though not a particularly good historian, is one heck of a feminist, bless him!

Hello to anyone who might be reading this--my first entry in my first blog. I am an American female teaching at a Japanese university wondering what the h*** is going on with the world. I mean I have my theories and my solutions, but it is hard to get people to listen; we are all so busy being intelligent, creative, savvy, successful, communicative people.

A poem:

PSYCHO

psycho

Freud

sex

and the

universe.

motivation,

motives

come from

the

survival instinct

which

is basic

and natural

though

we don't

survive

anymore

we only

think

we do

which

is

mind

motivation.

we'd

survive

it all

if we

could

ever

get down

to it

instead

of pretending

that

we

love.

*****

Japan is an interesting place. What is also interesting is the phases that we foreigners living here go through to cope; how we perceive who the Japanese are, what Japan is. I've been reading blogs of expats living in Japan. They are all so clever and perceptive to the bizarre cultural dichotomies (such as having to change into special slippers to use the toilet yet bathing naked with multiples of your gender in a public bath). But more often than not, I find most people here have their angry period; anger that boils your blood and makes you want to scream at the standard norm of Appearance for the sake of Appearances, go-by-the-book mentality that drives 90% of its population. I think that what makes us rage is that to LIVE here and SURVIVE with any success, we DO IT TOO, without even realizing it! Because, when in Rome, do as the Romans...right?!! Perhaps a better motto for a cosmopolitan is: When in Rome, Know When to Go Home.

But deeper than the anger, a love for Japan gets under your skin--like a much loved, but very disfunctional relationship. It's not just the creature comforts such as warm toilet seats in the freezing cold winter or the trains that run with clocklike regularity to any potential destination you want to visit. It's the dusky floral scent of incense that you smell as you walk by a tiny shrine tucked in between two highrises on a cool autumn evening that reminds you of the very first time you arrived in Japan; your senses sharpened by the newness of the sights, tastes and smells. It reminds you of the enormous wood beams of Kiyomizudera in Kyoto, of taking off your shoes the first time to reverently step into a Buddhist temple to listen to a group of monks chanting and of sitting seiza style in your socked feet feeling like you had just walked back in time and were witnessing part of the Creation of God.

But then you live here for a while. You hear about how wretched and horrible the politics of each religious sect is, and you lose what you'd already lost in your own country--Respect for the Sacred. But for that brief time, when you first came, it was there, real, tangible. And it smelled mysteriously alive and necessarily complex--older, wiser, comforting. It is a hard feeling to let go of, but you try to study more Zen so you can; the need the hold on to the philosophy of letting go.

There will be more on Japan. There will be more on psychology and philosophy. There will be more poems. There will be more zooming from one topic to the next...did I mention noodles?!