Sometimes it’s really hard to write for this blog. I’ve written, and discarded, two posts already, and who the hell knows if this one will ever make it to the light of day. But I guess, let’s try anyway.
I can’t think of any topic in life that I’m not torn about in one way or other. Some say I take life too seriously, and maybe they’re right. Life is too ephemeral to take seriously – no matter what you do in this life, we all end up in the same place within generally the same timeframe, and nothing we do ultimately has any impact on anything at all. On the other hand, is not life too improbable to be flippant about? It is perhaps the greatest contradiction in life – perhaps the fundamental one – that we do not want to waste what is already wasted.
I feel much the same way about Japan, if I am to be honest. Learning Japanese is an interesting intellectual exercise, but at the end of the day, it’s essentially a useless one. I don’t think I will ever go to Japan – I just don’t see the point in doing so, if I’m to be honest. I mean, it’s an interesting place, and there are some interesting things to see, but ultimately it’s just like where I live, just with different people, and all that entails. It seems a lot of time and money wasted. I have found talking to Japanese people to be an exercise in futility – they don’t seem to like me for some reason. Perhaps I am too direct. Perhaps they rightly sense my latent misanthropy. Why spend all the time and money to try to get to know a people who like me just about as much as everyone else does? I can be rejected a half mile away from home, after all.
And yet, for some reason, I still do it. Perhaps I am driven by something I don’t understand. Perhaps I just don’t like to give up on something I’ve invested so much into (the “sunk cost” fallacy in action). Perhaps learning things is the only reason I’ve ever had for living, and if I can’t learn something new, I may as well just hang it up here – and perhaps Japanese has become familiar enough that I’m starting to itch for the next adventure.
I’ve been feeling lately that I need to pull back on pretty much everything and seek the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. I won’t be at all happy until I find it. And maybe I never will.