Al Pacino's locker-room speech near the end of Oliver Stone's football film Any Given Sunday may not contain the complete answers to life's eternal mysteries, but it comes pretty damned close.
Outscored, outplayed, and outhustled, demoralized and deflated, Pacino seeks to motivate his athletic troops with the most over-the-top speech in the history of cinema, a speech that is more about him than about his players, and more about life itself than football. It's cornball, extravagant, unlikely, and it literally gives me chills every time I watch it.
It has a metaphor at its center that is a succint and vivid summary of all that we need to make our way through life: one play at a time, one day at a time, one step at a time.
What we need is the willigness to die for that extra inch.
"Either we heal, as a team, or we crumble. Inch by inch, play by play, until we're finished."
It's an analogy that Stone has actually stolen from himself (which all the great writers do); he uses the exact same phrasing -- the six inches in front of your face -- in his remarkable novel A Child's Night Dream, and he's recounted in numerous interviews a similar tale.
How his experience as a soldier in Vietnam left him attuned to the closeness of life and death. How a few inches to the left or to the right remained all that separated his life from that of his fellow soliders. How all we have in this world are the six inches in front of our faces.
"The inches we need are everywhere around us..."
The more I think upon that thought, the more it makes sense. I always loved this movie, and in particular this speech, but it's only as I've gotten older that I've latched onto what the speech is really saying. It's about aging, and the inches we gain or lose along the way. We move through life limited by gravity and the space we inhabit. We can never find ourselves more than a few inches away from anything or anywhere else. Our entire orbit is composed of a tactile immediacy. Its boundaries define how we view our own progress throughout the world. So little separates us from complete failure or utter ecstasy. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
A little more to the left and you lose your ability to walk. A little more to the right and you suddenly can't remember anyone around you. I lost races as a high school runner by a couple of inches, if that. Cancer cells divide and multiply an inch here and an inch there, and we watch their progress to see how many inches bigger they get on a bi-yearly basis. (From the bed to the bathroom is nothing more than a series of inches, but navigating that path while strapped to an IV tube is a perilous and frightening journey.) We live most of our lives on such a miniscule scale. The only way we can make it through is by having others help us along the way, inch by inch.
"You know, when you get old in life, things get taken from you. That's, that's, that's part of life. But you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out that life's this game of inches..."
What's mesmerizing about Pacino's speech is that it runs an entire arc: we start off in the darkness of defeat, and then realize the path to victory and transcendence relies on the kindness of others to fight for those same inches that limit and impede our own progress. Jamie Foxx's character, a selfish, show-off quarterback, begins the speech rolling his eyes at yet another rant by his blowhard coach. By the end, he's walking across the room straight towards Pacino -- a disciple, a follower, a believer.
"On this team, we fight for that inch..."
The scene works because of Stone's writing, Pacino's performance, and the music. Mostly, the music. You would think a grand orchestral cacophony of trumpets and drums would accompany such a triumphant spiel by Pacino, but no -- Stone is wiser than that, and a better filmmaker than that. Pacino's macho (yet vulnerable) bravado is offset by gentle, soothing, almost lovely music. It's understated in the way that Pacino himself, without the music, could never be. It's the perfect aural counterpoint to the verbal explosives the coach is firing. It raises the scene to a level of romanticism that is at once utterly incongrous but perfectly appropriate. (Despite what the media would have you believe, Olive Stone is, at heart, a poet.)
"The inches we nead are everywhere around us..."
The six inches in front of our face. That's all we have.
But if I'm willing to die for that extra inch, and you're willing to die for that extra inch, then perhaps together we can ascend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4tIrjBDkk
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
THE COMPANY OF OTHERS
A few days ago, while wandering around the Nihonbashi section of central Tokyo looking for the one and only Western Union outlet in a city of fifteen million people, I almost bumped into somebody. A young lady. Late twenties, early thirties. Dressed in conservative business attire, like everybody else. I was walking towards her, and she wasn't looking ahead. Her face seemed serious. She was thinking about something, obviously. I could see that she was headed straight for me, and I managed to manouever myself out her way just before she slammed into my chest. At the last moment I saw her snap out of her own thoughts. She realized she was walking. She realized that she had almost collided with a stranger. In that moment, I saw her thoughts shift.
What had she been thinking about so intently?
Perhaps she had decided, at that very moment, to break up with her boyfriend. Or else she was worried about her senile grandmother, lost in dementia. Or perhaps the bathtub in her apartment needed cleaning. Or a superior at work had just chewed her out, and she was going to drown her secretarial sorrows in Starbucks.
She had been thinking something, and I had inadvertently, accidentally jarred her out of her own thoughts. Her almost-collision with me had managed to slide one of her elusive introspections into a different direction, perhaps never to return.
If she hadn't have almost run into me, would she have continued along that same erratic train of thought? Who is to say? How can we know? Would a decision have been made that had now not been made because I had inadvertently caused her mind to change course and ground itself on alternate bearings?
Impossible to guess.
And you, gentle reader, as you read these words, are drifting from one thought to the next. Perhaps I have startled you out of a previous moment of bliss. Or managed to take your brain out of its daily crevice and onto a new ledge. Something important may have been on your mind, and because you flipped to my site, that thought has now been lost, never to return, stuck in the mud of your memory.
I would apologize, but I cannot.
These random twists and intersecting thoughts are the fragile, undefinable price we pay for the company of others. Helplessly losing our way and finding our path at one and the same time.
What had she been thinking about so intently?
Perhaps she had decided, at that very moment, to break up with her boyfriend. Or else she was worried about her senile grandmother, lost in dementia. Or perhaps the bathtub in her apartment needed cleaning. Or a superior at work had just chewed her out, and she was going to drown her secretarial sorrows in Starbucks.
She had been thinking something, and I had inadvertently, accidentally jarred her out of her own thoughts. Her almost-collision with me had managed to slide one of her elusive introspections into a different direction, perhaps never to return.
If she hadn't have almost run into me, would she have continued along that same erratic train of thought? Who is to say? How can we know? Would a decision have been made that had now not been made because I had inadvertently caused her mind to change course and ground itself on alternate bearings?
Impossible to guess.
And you, gentle reader, as you read these words, are drifting from one thought to the next. Perhaps I have startled you out of a previous moment of bliss. Or managed to take your brain out of its daily crevice and onto a new ledge. Something important may have been on your mind, and because you flipped to my site, that thought has now been lost, never to return, stuck in the mud of your memory.
I would apologize, but I cannot.
These random twists and intersecting thoughts are the fragile, undefinable price we pay for the company of others. Helplessly losing our way and finding our path at one and the same time.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
LOOMING, OR SIMPLY SQUEAKING
Is the universe absurd?
I don't mean our perceptions about it. I'm not talking about the way that humans see a particularly strange situation, like an old lady rummaging through a garbage can, or a child digging into a tub of ice cream with her baby finger at the supermarket while her mother pushes the shopping cart three paces ahead, oblivious. I'm not talking about the way that we shake our heads, turn to our friends and say: "That's crazy, isn't it." Then us, these humans, go back to our lives, swig our bottled ice teas, and wonder what we should have for dinner. I'm not talking about noticing life's oddities and pointing them out for the amusement of others.
I'm wondering if space, galaxies, the universe, black holes, all of that shit, has, at its core, absurdity. Absurdity as a physical property. Beneath the logic and the atoms, the nucleus and the string-theory, all the stuff that makes other stuff work, is a core of physical, tangible, irrefutable absurdity. Absurdity as a scientifically proven thing.
The older I get, the more I learn, the more I start to sense the lack of symmetry in life, and it is this absence of intent, this reckless neglect of order, that worries me. It makes me nervous because everthing appears to make sense. There are suits that fit and ties that match, blue ones with perfect red spots scattered across the silk. Trains that come on time. Weather forecasts that recommend umbrellas, correctly. It rains, and there it is, the umbrella, in your hand, just like the little man on TV predicted. Both the rain, and the umbrella. He mentioned rain, and he knew you would need an umbrella, and so you have it, and there you are: order. An illusion of logic. Feeling a hunger pang, a dull knife carving a benign scar into your stomach, you can buy a burger and ease the pain. All is right with the world. The sun comes up, goes down, shines again. Symmetry, and intent, and order, but I'm nevertheless starting to believe none of it.
This is, perhaps, a child's lament, an adolescent at the onslaught of age twelve who suddenly realizes that the homework is always, eventually due, the vacation cancelled, the black-eye bruised. Life come undone. Then we move on, adjusting. Graduating. Commencing. We start to think that life has a rhythm, a pace, and if we are not marching to this particular tune then there will be another one, after, later, in a different, more spacious venue. One where the music will eventually suit our tastes. We forget the child of twelve because we know that you cannot remain twelve forever. Reality intrudes. We confuse reality with order.
But is 'reality' a cyclone in Burma? An earthquake in China? Marvellous instruments of order, these cyclones and earthquakes. They have a ruthless symmetry that hides an indifferent, bottomless core of emptiness. The peasant in Burma and the factory worker in China both roam through the rubble, stumbling over the heads of their children. While the blue sky looms, perfect in its purity.
Is this not absurd?
If reality, if nature, has, at its basest level, such evolutionary indifference, then what are we left with? Colliding atoms and groups of molecules masquerading as entities we call humans. Victims of this sperm and that egg on one particular night. Asserting our identities to each other through business and sport, art and commerce, each of us attempting to prove, endlessly, that we have some sort of significance. No matter that the cyclone or earthquake is insisting otherwise.
The universe rages on around us, maliciously absurd, while we huddle together, cramped but alert, wondering what's next. Absurdity awaits, to be sure, but perhaps together we can wait out the havoc.
Nothing is more absurd then the blessed calm after a murderous storm, yet there always is one, this calm, which must mean something. The pause after the rage. The gap between the points of the razor. That blue sky. Those white clouds. A gentle wind, silent but insistent at our backs.
If I can feel that wind, I can make myself believe that it means more than it does. I can remember to take my umbrella on rainy days, and eat a burger when my stomach growls. I can feel the grass between my toes and the sun on back of my neck and shoot absurdity itself a dirty look. Shoot it the finger, even.
And if absurdity is a thing, a force, an entity in and of itself, at least age will allow me to become familiar with its ridiculous, clown-like face, the one it hides between the cyclone's winds and the earthquake's shakes. I can keep an eye out for its imminent arrival. I might be able to occasionally hear its plodding, stealthy approach, and even, if luck abides, somehow judge if its clumsy, cosmic, clown-shoe steps are looming, or simply squeaking, or existing somewhere in between.
I don't mean our perceptions about it. I'm not talking about the way that humans see a particularly strange situation, like an old lady rummaging through a garbage can, or a child digging into a tub of ice cream with her baby finger at the supermarket while her mother pushes the shopping cart three paces ahead, oblivious. I'm not talking about the way that we shake our heads, turn to our friends and say: "That's crazy, isn't it." Then us, these humans, go back to our lives, swig our bottled ice teas, and wonder what we should have for dinner. I'm not talking about noticing life's oddities and pointing them out for the amusement of others.
I'm wondering if space, galaxies, the universe, black holes, all of that shit, has, at its core, absurdity. Absurdity as a physical property. Beneath the logic and the atoms, the nucleus and the string-theory, all the stuff that makes other stuff work, is a core of physical, tangible, irrefutable absurdity. Absurdity as a scientifically proven thing.
The older I get, the more I learn, the more I start to sense the lack of symmetry in life, and it is this absence of intent, this reckless neglect of order, that worries me. It makes me nervous because everthing appears to make sense. There are suits that fit and ties that match, blue ones with perfect red spots scattered across the silk. Trains that come on time. Weather forecasts that recommend umbrellas, correctly. It rains, and there it is, the umbrella, in your hand, just like the little man on TV predicted. Both the rain, and the umbrella. He mentioned rain, and he knew you would need an umbrella, and so you have it, and there you are: order. An illusion of logic. Feeling a hunger pang, a dull knife carving a benign scar into your stomach, you can buy a burger and ease the pain. All is right with the world. The sun comes up, goes down, shines again. Symmetry, and intent, and order, but I'm nevertheless starting to believe none of it.
This is, perhaps, a child's lament, an adolescent at the onslaught of age twelve who suddenly realizes that the homework is always, eventually due, the vacation cancelled, the black-eye bruised. Life come undone. Then we move on, adjusting. Graduating. Commencing. We start to think that life has a rhythm, a pace, and if we are not marching to this particular tune then there will be another one, after, later, in a different, more spacious venue. One where the music will eventually suit our tastes. We forget the child of twelve because we know that you cannot remain twelve forever. Reality intrudes. We confuse reality with order.
But is 'reality' a cyclone in Burma? An earthquake in China? Marvellous instruments of order, these cyclones and earthquakes. They have a ruthless symmetry that hides an indifferent, bottomless core of emptiness. The peasant in Burma and the factory worker in China both roam through the rubble, stumbling over the heads of their children. While the blue sky looms, perfect in its purity.
Is this not absurd?
If reality, if nature, has, at its basest level, such evolutionary indifference, then what are we left with? Colliding atoms and groups of molecules masquerading as entities we call humans. Victims of this sperm and that egg on one particular night. Asserting our identities to each other through business and sport, art and commerce, each of us attempting to prove, endlessly, that we have some sort of significance. No matter that the cyclone or earthquake is insisting otherwise.
The universe rages on around us, maliciously absurd, while we huddle together, cramped but alert, wondering what's next. Absurdity awaits, to be sure, but perhaps together we can wait out the havoc.
Nothing is more absurd then the blessed calm after a murderous storm, yet there always is one, this calm, which must mean something. The pause after the rage. The gap between the points of the razor. That blue sky. Those white clouds. A gentle wind, silent but insistent at our backs.
If I can feel that wind, I can make myself believe that it means more than it does. I can remember to take my umbrella on rainy days, and eat a burger when my stomach growls. I can feel the grass between my toes and the sun on back of my neck and shoot absurdity itself a dirty look. Shoot it the finger, even.
And if absurdity is a thing, a force, an entity in and of itself, at least age will allow me to become familiar with its ridiculous, clown-like face, the one it hides between the cyclone's winds and the earthquake's shakes. I can keep an eye out for its imminent arrival. I might be able to occasionally hear its plodding, stealthy approach, and even, if luck abides, somehow judge if its clumsy, cosmic, clown-shoe steps are looming, or simply squeaking, or existing somewhere in between.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
EVERY ROOM WE ENTER
One of the most difficult parts of teaching for a relatively shy person like myself is daily dealing with the fact that thirty sets of eyes are staring at you from the moment you step into the room, and it's your job to direct their attention, focus their energies, deal with distractions and set the tone for ninety straight minutes.
I was talking with a fellow teacher the other day, a Brit who's into Aikido, the Japanese martial art that is purely defensive -- disarming an opponent who attacks you, rather than initiating any conflict. (Steven Seagal is the most famous western practictioner; he resided in Japan for fifteen years, was the first westerner to operate an Aikido dojo, and, aside from his terrible movies, is actually very respected for his aikido skills.) Aikido is also about controlling the energy of a situation, harnessing what your opponent is offering and what you are accepting, or rejecting, on his behalf.
Teaching's the same. It's all energy. You have thirty different, unique, complex, individuals, each of them nervous, or confident, or bored, or tired out of their fucking minds. As a teacher, they're looking to you -- or not looking to you, as the case so often is -- to tell them what to do.
It took me a long, long time to get comfortable doing this. Probably five years, I'd say, which is no exaggeration. I'm perfectly content to sit by myself and read in a room for days on end, so having to deal with four groups of thirty students per day takes some getting used to. You have to figure out what works and what doesn't, what's funny and what's not, when discipline is required and when levity is allowed.
Only recently have I truly thought about the fact that everything I say is heard by students through a filter. English is not their first language; inevitably, they're not picking up everything I say. An auditory gauze separates us, so there can never be the natural fluidity of thought and diction that occurs when native speakers of the same language stop and chill and shoot the shit. I've learned to pace myself as I speak; I speak clearly, and I pause, briefly, after each sentence. If I don't, their brains don't have time to hear that slight and subtle click that indicates they've understood what I've said, and are ready to move on and comprehend the next thought. I speak with an intent to be understood, which is rarely, if ever, the case in real life. Usually, we speak without thinking, not worrying about what comes out.
But speaking is not the only means by which we communicate. If teaching has taught me anything, it's that we can, and do, and probably should be cognizant of how our entrances and exits affect the mood of a room. The tempo of a place. The energy of a situation. If I come into class glum, with my shoulders slouched, my head resting on my chin, the class can sense it, feel it, disdain it. If I'm smiling, snapping my fingers, clapping my hands together, the mood shifts; a light ignites; a space is filled.
I fear that too often we remain trapped in our little bubbles, not conscious of how each of our movements influences the mood of those around us. Of course it's impossible to get out of our heads and into another's, but we do exist in the same space, like it or not. We sometimes forget that.
Whenever I have a big conference-type meeting with other teachers, or new teachers, I like to look around the room, scope out whose who, imagine what they're like and why they're here, and I'm also doing it to covertly scope out and see how many other people are looking around the room. Too often, not many people are. They're focused on themselves. What's in front of them.
Which is fine, of course. We have to look after ourselves first. But every room we enter is changed by our entrance, like it or not.
Sometimes it's good to remember that, if only to ensure that the energy we bring is equal to the space that needs to be filled.
I was talking with a fellow teacher the other day, a Brit who's into Aikido, the Japanese martial art that is purely defensive -- disarming an opponent who attacks you, rather than initiating any conflict. (Steven Seagal is the most famous western practictioner; he resided in Japan for fifteen years, was the first westerner to operate an Aikido dojo, and, aside from his terrible movies, is actually very respected for his aikido skills.) Aikido is also about controlling the energy of a situation, harnessing what your opponent is offering and what you are accepting, or rejecting, on his behalf.
Teaching's the same. It's all energy. You have thirty different, unique, complex, individuals, each of them nervous, or confident, or bored, or tired out of their fucking minds. As a teacher, they're looking to you -- or not looking to you, as the case so often is -- to tell them what to do.
It took me a long, long time to get comfortable doing this. Probably five years, I'd say, which is no exaggeration. I'm perfectly content to sit by myself and read in a room for days on end, so having to deal with four groups of thirty students per day takes some getting used to. You have to figure out what works and what doesn't, what's funny and what's not, when discipline is required and when levity is allowed.
Only recently have I truly thought about the fact that everything I say is heard by students through a filter. English is not their first language; inevitably, they're not picking up everything I say. An auditory gauze separates us, so there can never be the natural fluidity of thought and diction that occurs when native speakers of the same language stop and chill and shoot the shit. I've learned to pace myself as I speak; I speak clearly, and I pause, briefly, after each sentence. If I don't, their brains don't have time to hear that slight and subtle click that indicates they've understood what I've said, and are ready to move on and comprehend the next thought. I speak with an intent to be understood, which is rarely, if ever, the case in real life. Usually, we speak without thinking, not worrying about what comes out.
But speaking is not the only means by which we communicate. If teaching has taught me anything, it's that we can, and do, and probably should be cognizant of how our entrances and exits affect the mood of a room. The tempo of a place. The energy of a situation. If I come into class glum, with my shoulders slouched, my head resting on my chin, the class can sense it, feel it, disdain it. If I'm smiling, snapping my fingers, clapping my hands together, the mood shifts; a light ignites; a space is filled.
I fear that too often we remain trapped in our little bubbles, not conscious of how each of our movements influences the mood of those around us. Of course it's impossible to get out of our heads and into another's, but we do exist in the same space, like it or not. We sometimes forget that.
Whenever I have a big conference-type meeting with other teachers, or new teachers, I like to look around the room, scope out whose who, imagine what they're like and why they're here, and I'm also doing it to covertly scope out and see how many other people are looking around the room. Too often, not many people are. They're focused on themselves. What's in front of them.
Which is fine, of course. We have to look after ourselves first. But every room we enter is changed by our entrance, like it or not.
Sometimes it's good to remember that, if only to ensure that the energy we bring is equal to the space that needs to be filled.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
SOMEPLACE FAMILIAR
Take Poland, for example. I know nothing of Poland. A few Polack jokes, a little bit involving World War II, but other than that, zip. How can this be? How can an entire country exist as an empty space between my ears? Same goes for Latvia. Can't tell you squat. This scares me. There are entire countries, millions of people, that remain mere letters on a page in my consciousness. Black ink on white. Blips on a computer screen. I have no connection to them; they have no link to me. Their roads are untouched by my dirty boots. But I was raised in Canada, and I've lived in Japan, Cambodia and the Philippines, and sometimes I think about the rooms that I've lived in. Literally, the rooms. The beds I've slept in. The stairs I've climbed up, then down, then up again. When I think of those places, I think of those rooms. It puts things in context. I can think: I've been there. I've touched that earth. It's abstract no longer. I can localize these places within myself. And sometimes I wish that I could walk the entire globe, every country, every city, every town, every village, every valley, every street. Is that possible? I know the world is vast and a journey such as this would take a lifetime, yes, but there are worse ways to spend a life, I think. At least then I would be able to look at a globe, or stare at a map, and think that there's nothing on this planet that is foreign to me. I can think: I have been down every path, at least once. My boots have dirtied every road there ever is. I've slept in each place. I've showered under every waterfall. I've breathed the same air in multiple points of contact. Every news story would affect me in a personal way, because I'd been there, and done that. Nothing would be foreign. Then I could finally rest my weary legs content with the knowledge that I have been everywhere there is to be. Alien no longer, the world would be. I could step out my front door and know that if I turned either left or right, someplace familiar would be out there, almost waiting for me, wondering where I'd been, and what took me so long to come back.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
SHAKESPEARE AND BASEBALL III, or HOW EVOLUTION MAKES ALL OF US PREDICTION-MAKING CREATURES
Before classes began about a month ago, our Japanese supervisor cautioned those of us teaching the introductory writing classes that the students would need a great deal of help learning to write in English -- not because of the language itself, per se, but because of the way that thoughts and concepts are organized in English, the style and manner in which we logically connect one idea to the next, telling all you nice folks what we plan on saying, saying said thoughts, and then, in the end, wrapping everything up neatly in a bright red bonnet before calling it a day. The Japanese language is more elusive, more given to tangents, she said; it tends not to be as direct or forthright as our mother tongue.
After struggling my way through Shakespeare and Baseball, I think I see what she means.
I bought the book a) to keep on studying Japanese and b) because I like reading writing about Shakespeare, and I also like reading writing about baseball, and the combination of both topics, in Japanese, no less, sounded irresistibly odd and alluring.
One month and one hundred and fifty pages later, I finally realized that there wasn't much about baseball or Shakespeare in the book.
Mostly, it's about the American forefathers who landed on Plymouth Rock and struggled to build a life. The book touches on the roots of baseball in England, how games involving round discs immigrated to the United States along with the people who played them, how Shakespeare mentioned various ball games in various sonnets and verses in his poems and plays, and how parts of The Tempest may have been based on one of the American immigrants who helped, inadvertently, create baseball. (I think.)
But the actual amount of information on Shakespeare and baseball was minimal. The bard and the game were used as gateways into a larger analysis of how ideas, customs and sports migrate from one culture to another, and how elusive any attempt at understanding the origins of any one topic remain.
My supervisor's point was aptly proved: the book winded its way from here to there and back again, in a roundabout way that I can't quite imagine occuring in an English text. I lost count of the number of times the writer used the English equivalents of 'incidentally', and 'by the way'. Of course, I didn't understand everything, despite my dictionary's able help, but I think got, if not the gist of it, at least the gist of the gist. (If you get my gist.) And, even though it wasn't the book I thought it was going to be, it was entertaining in its own right, and I learned a little more Japanese, and I thought about topics and ideas in ways I never had before.
Which got me thinking: Most of life is like this book. We start out thinking one thing's going to happen, but it rarely does, or if it does it does so in such a way that it bears little resemblance to what we imagined was going to happen. I usually begin something convinced it's going to fail, or succeed, or land somewhere in between, and rarely am I right in my predictions, but always I make them.
I think it's a human thing to do, this notion of willful expectations. Maybe it's evolutional. We're programmed to believe that things are going to 'all...work...out...', when we know, on the deeper, fundamental level, that that's not really the case at all. We will all grow old, and everybody around us will die, and so will we, or else an accident may take it all away from us the very next day. Or not. We may live bright and prosperous and relatively joyful lives. Either possibility is equally likely. We don't like to think of the dark stuff because doing so would immobilize us, which would lead to wild and dangerous creatures eating us in the night, and then we would be no more, anymore. Better to think we are in control, certain of our destiny, confident in our decisions. And we thus make predictions based on who we are and where (we think) we're going.
And nothing seems to work out the way I thought it would, but I remain enlightened nevertheless.
Starting university, I thought that at the age of 32 I'd be writing books in Canada or writing movies in Hollywood. Instead, I've been teaching in three different Asian countries for the past nine years.
Go figure.
But I've learned more than I ever could have imagined, or hoped to imagine. I started on one path, ended up on another, and now look towards a third, realizing that my life five years from now will probably be alien to the self typing these words.
I will start one book, one life, and at its conclusion find that it was not the one I had predicted it would be at the beginning.
I think it will be better.
That's only my prediction, anyways.
And since in the end all we have are our hopes, I might as well hope to the limit, right?
After struggling my way through Shakespeare and Baseball, I think I see what she means.
I bought the book a) to keep on studying Japanese and b) because I like reading writing about Shakespeare, and I also like reading writing about baseball, and the combination of both topics, in Japanese, no less, sounded irresistibly odd and alluring.
One month and one hundred and fifty pages later, I finally realized that there wasn't much about baseball or Shakespeare in the book.
Mostly, it's about the American forefathers who landed on Plymouth Rock and struggled to build a life. The book touches on the roots of baseball in England, how games involving round discs immigrated to the United States along with the people who played them, how Shakespeare mentioned various ball games in various sonnets and verses in his poems and plays, and how parts of The Tempest may have been based on one of the American immigrants who helped, inadvertently, create baseball. (I think.)
But the actual amount of information on Shakespeare and baseball was minimal. The bard and the game were used as gateways into a larger analysis of how ideas, customs and sports migrate from one culture to another, and how elusive any attempt at understanding the origins of any one topic remain.
My supervisor's point was aptly proved: the book winded its way from here to there and back again, in a roundabout way that I can't quite imagine occuring in an English text. I lost count of the number of times the writer used the English equivalents of 'incidentally', and 'by the way'. Of course, I didn't understand everything, despite my dictionary's able help, but I think got, if not the gist of it, at least the gist of the gist. (If you get my gist.) And, even though it wasn't the book I thought it was going to be, it was entertaining in its own right, and I learned a little more Japanese, and I thought about topics and ideas in ways I never had before.
Which got me thinking: Most of life is like this book. We start out thinking one thing's going to happen, but it rarely does, or if it does it does so in such a way that it bears little resemblance to what we imagined was going to happen. I usually begin something convinced it's going to fail, or succeed, or land somewhere in between, and rarely am I right in my predictions, but always I make them.
I think it's a human thing to do, this notion of willful expectations. Maybe it's evolutional. We're programmed to believe that things are going to 'all...work...out...', when we know, on the deeper, fundamental level, that that's not really the case at all. We will all grow old, and everybody around us will die, and so will we, or else an accident may take it all away from us the very next day. Or not. We may live bright and prosperous and relatively joyful lives. Either possibility is equally likely. We don't like to think of the dark stuff because doing so would immobilize us, which would lead to wild and dangerous creatures eating us in the night, and then we would be no more, anymore. Better to think we are in control, certain of our destiny, confident in our decisions. And we thus make predictions based on who we are and where (we think) we're going.
And nothing seems to work out the way I thought it would, but I remain enlightened nevertheless.
Starting university, I thought that at the age of 32 I'd be writing books in Canada or writing movies in Hollywood. Instead, I've been teaching in three different Asian countries for the past nine years.
Go figure.
But I've learned more than I ever could have imagined, or hoped to imagine. I started on one path, ended up on another, and now look towards a third, realizing that my life five years from now will probably be alien to the self typing these words.
I will start one book, one life, and at its conclusion find that it was not the one I had predicted it would be at the beginning.
I think it will be better.
That's only my prediction, anyways.
And since in the end all we have are our hopes, I might as well hope to the limit, right?
Saturday, April 26, 2008
LONELY PEOPLE IN JAPAN
The owner of the local used bookstore, the one just past the 7-11, the one on the way to Fujisawa Station. He sits surrouded by books, old and yellowed, stacked and sturdy, and yet every time I wander in or walk on by, he is watching television. From the street, the distance from the door to the counter seems very long, framed on both sides by books lining the walls. And there he is, waiting at the end. Hair dotted with gray. Mustache stretching across his lips. (If he were an ordinary salaryman, he would not have that mustache. Salarymen in Japan do not allow facial hair to smudge their face. It his one and only source of rebellion in the world. This is what I think, a senseless thought.) The arc of this funnel leads to him and him alone. He waits at the end for customers. He watches t.v. All those books, and he never seems to be reading any of them. Is he like a cook who never samples the goods? Has he spent his entire life reading, and has now decided to sit back, kick back, and let his brain zonk out on wacky variety shows? The books are all old and eloquent, weighty tomes on serious subjects: art and culture, politics and economics. But he will have none of it. He sits, silently, watching his television, while the customers browse and the books stay stacked.
The people who clean my classrooms. They are old, older than old. In Japan you retire at sixy, but since the life-expectancy here is higher than anywhere else on earth, that means you could very well have a good thirty years of nothing-to-do before you pass on to whatever awaits on the other side. The cleaners look to be in their mid-sixties, possibly early seventies. Do they want to be there? They are invariably polite, intent upon their work, waiting in the hallway when the schoolbell rings, eager to wipe the boards clean. Sometimes I have another class featuring the same lesson on the same room, so I politely tell them: "Sonna mama de ii desu." It's fine as it is. They smile and hurry somewhere else. Often when I walk into the bathroom between classes they are there already, male or female, furiously scrubbing the urinals. They seem happy. But in their eyes is a certain weariness. They are already old, and yet they are here, cleaning classrooms, wiping down toilets. Is this how they imagine their golden years? I want to ask them about World War II. They would have been children then. What did they see? Who were the first foreigners they met? I had an older student years ago who said the first English word he learned was 'chocolate' because the American soliders at the end of the war would throw Hershey bars to the starving Japanese children. Did these cleaners have similar stories? Of course they do. I want to hear them. But they have rooms to clean, and bills to pay. They hurry off to the next room, on the next floor, before I can do more than mutter a few feeble words of thanks.
The man I saw today in Shinjuku. The homeless man. Clearly homeless. All his goods stuffed into a bag. Shoes ragged. Shirt ripped. But his beard was neatly trimmed, almost artistic. His cheeks were clean shaven. How could this be? He obviously had recently done the deed. Perhaps that morning. Did he shave every morning? Was the shape of his beard a statement, a sign that said I may be poor, and I may have no home, but I have a beard, and it is mine, and I will show you what I can make of it, and thus make of myself. Was he mentally unstable? At one point in time he was a boy in a bed, waking to his morning light and his mother's rice. What happened in between that day and this day?
And these people, the lonely ones -- are they thinking the same thoughts about me? The foreigner hurrying to the train, his suit wrinkled and ill-fitting, his mind clearly somewhere else. What do they see when they look at me? What do any of us see when we look at each other? The illusion of judgement binds us together while tearing us apart. I don't know them at all, any of them, and I can't trust what I see, but I will keep looking.
The people who clean my classrooms. They are old, older than old. In Japan you retire at sixy, but since the life-expectancy here is higher than anywhere else on earth, that means you could very well have a good thirty years of nothing-to-do before you pass on to whatever awaits on the other side. The cleaners look to be in their mid-sixties, possibly early seventies. Do they want to be there? They are invariably polite, intent upon their work, waiting in the hallway when the schoolbell rings, eager to wipe the boards clean. Sometimes I have another class featuring the same lesson on the same room, so I politely tell them: "Sonna mama de ii desu." It's fine as it is. They smile and hurry somewhere else. Often when I walk into the bathroom between classes they are there already, male or female, furiously scrubbing the urinals. They seem happy. But in their eyes is a certain weariness. They are already old, and yet they are here, cleaning classrooms, wiping down toilets. Is this how they imagine their golden years? I want to ask them about World War II. They would have been children then. What did they see? Who were the first foreigners they met? I had an older student years ago who said the first English word he learned was 'chocolate' because the American soliders at the end of the war would throw Hershey bars to the starving Japanese children. Did these cleaners have similar stories? Of course they do. I want to hear them. But they have rooms to clean, and bills to pay. They hurry off to the next room, on the next floor, before I can do more than mutter a few feeble words of thanks.
The man I saw today in Shinjuku. The homeless man. Clearly homeless. All his goods stuffed into a bag. Shoes ragged. Shirt ripped. But his beard was neatly trimmed, almost artistic. His cheeks were clean shaven. How could this be? He obviously had recently done the deed. Perhaps that morning. Did he shave every morning? Was the shape of his beard a statement, a sign that said I may be poor, and I may have no home, but I have a beard, and it is mine, and I will show you what I can make of it, and thus make of myself. Was he mentally unstable? At one point in time he was a boy in a bed, waking to his morning light and his mother's rice. What happened in between that day and this day?
And these people, the lonely ones -- are they thinking the same thoughts about me? The foreigner hurrying to the train, his suit wrinkled and ill-fitting, his mind clearly somewhere else. What do they see when they look at me? What do any of us see when we look at each other? The illusion of judgement binds us together while tearing us apart. I don't know them at all, any of them, and I can't trust what I see, but I will keep looking.
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