In Between the Wheel of Time

I imagine that everyone has experienced some kind of pain that you have eventually gotten over with or left it behind in the piles of the routine. If you don’t put any special efforts or by putting excessive effort, anything can be forgotten. Everything can be washed out from people’s memory. I believe. And I think the axiom mentioned there is one of the best metaphors I’ve ever met about people’s memories.

“Or has the tree gone through enough seasons to erase the past?”
From Leaving Paradise, p.40


However, after reading Night by Elie Wiesel I realized there are some things that one can never forget. Or is there?

This Is More Or Less a Continuation of the Previous Entry

“Do you see this really really fading white that completes the circle of the crescent moon?”






My father asked me the other night. I didn’t have my contact lenses on and saw the crescent moon blurry. So I answered, “Yeah, well I don’t see the moon clearly but yeah I guess,” without thinking about it. But actually there is no ‘really really fading white that completes the circle of the crescent moon.’ It is pure imagination of the brain. I mean there is no light reflecting the dark part of the moon at all. Do you see how unreliable our brain can be?

Brain is our core organ to think, to make decisions. But our brain modifies the facts with the impression we have or with the previous beliefs we have. How did we end up being so unstable? Why have our brains developed this way? What can we do about it?

There are too many questions that are yet to be answered.

So Sad

“See? People don’t believe the truth.”
From Durarara episode I-forgot

This line was spoken during a conversation of two normal teenagers talking about this extraordinary thing that has happened to them. When the classmates of them began to ask, “What happened? What are you guys talking about?” One of the boys that experienced the ‘not-likely-to-happen-in-a-normal-life’ situation told them what has actually happened, while the other boy was disconcerted because his friend was telling the others the truth. Well, as you can imagine, the classmates didn’t believe what the boy was saying and left. It was then, when the line was presented.

But how sad is this? People only believe what they want or think it is true. Furthermore, the propagandas and commercials use this human behavior so neatly that they make people believe what is actually not true at all. I’ve always tried to believe what the others say even if it sounds unconvincing. But would I be able to believe if someone tells me they saw a Nessie? Or God? Or would I think that they were dreaming or tired or mentally ill? There is a saying in Japan that says, “Salvation will come to those of who believes.” (It’s not anything religious by the way. It is just a saying and there is no specific reference to what you should believe.) How sad will it be if I wouldn’t be able to believe what the other is saying when that person is actually saying the truth? But it is also true that the world is not always full of truths. One should be careful to not be fooled. Am I questioning all of these because of my youth? Is this a thing that I would notice it is no true when I get older? Or is it that I will be too brainwashed or tired to believe in such things? I sometimes truly don’t want to grow up.

Human Behavior

Sacrificing other things in order to protect one’s important thing.
Is this the source of the human behavior?
R.M. sacrificed ‘indifference’ for his dearest friend.
Y. T. sacrificed ‘himself’ for himself.
F.K. sacrificed ‘the place where she belonged’ to earn decision-making authority.
F. S. sacrifices ‘others’ for the life of the only person she loves.
From: The King of Nabari volume 7th

The line from Tao Te Ching about gain and loss reminded me about this line from the comic book The King of Nabari. This one mysterious character analyzes the action of others in the form of sacrifice and gain. All of them have different values and different pasts, but they are all related in a sense that they all are sacrificing something to gain the other. Have I done any sacrifice to fulfill my desire? Maybe I have. But have not considered them as “sacrifice”. I mean what makes thing “sacrifice”?

I would like to study human behavior some day.

Indescribable

“Stand before it and there is no beginning. Follow it and there is no end.”
Tao Te Ching Chapter 14

According to the book of Tao Te Ching, the great Tao is like air. It’s not describable as in shape, color or size. Why is this? It is probably because by giving it a specific description one will limit the possibility of that existence. I don’t know specifically what kind of limits. But I do have a feeling that its enigmatic form is what makes Tao so great.

Another thing I wondered off when reading this line from Tao Te Ching is an axiom from a Japanese cartoon called, “Baccano!” This character says,

“Be freed from the illusion.
Throw away that illusion, that tells you there is a beginning and an ending in a story.
There is no beginning in a story. Neither an end.”

From Baccano! OVA episode 3

This story actually didn’t have a firm ending neither a beginning. It began suddenly and ended in the middle of everything. There were no main characters. Everyone was the main and the sub characters. It is based on this novel about people who obtained eternity of life. Bunch of random people meet and say farewells. Just like how life goes. Each of them dealing with “eternity” in their own ways.

Random Thought

You are too sweet that I will get some cavity.

Are We All Alone?

If we are all alone,
Then we are all together in that.

From: P.S. I love you


“At the very end, one is always alone.” Is one the things I have been hearing my whole life. Along with, “One is never alone. Don’t forget about all the people around you.” These two beliefs say the opposite thing, but both of them seem to be true. I mean, even if we feel a strong connection with someone, it doesn’t change the fact that you guys are different people. Different people with different background, different daily customs and different personality. It may be possible to understand each other very well but not 100%.
But it is also true that all the people around you affect you in the same way that you affect them. They become part of your life and you become part of their life that it is no longer about you.

So the question is, “Why can these two different opinions coexist together?”

Is it because those two points of view are talking in different scale? Is it because the second argument that states no one is alone is true until certain point? Or does this opinion depend on one’s personality? Just like preferring to do sport or art? I am still not sure about the answer. Or which side I agree with. Maybe there might be a third argument. But for now, it seems that the opinion that says everyone is alone sounds more reasonable. To me.

Well, the quote listed above might be a third opinion. It made my heart go warm. How can someone come up with such a positive perspective. It. Is. Amazing.