Yourself?

Holidays over.

So the holidays are officially over. Tomorrow's the first day of school and I thought I'd just spend some time to review what's happened over the holidays. I went on a trip to Tokyo and Hokkaido, spent a week or so with friends in Singapore, and worked on my instruments.

Japan was interesting in a way. To me Japan is meaningful on many levels. It has a militaristic history. It has a deeply religious culture. It is both rich in tradition and accepting of foreign culture. It takes over nature, yet embraces nature.

In Tokyo, you can see how the Japanese have created an artificial human space, ideally designed for human activities and desires. Yet just a short day train ride away, Hokkaido lives in harmony with nature, with it's agricultural background and beautiful seasonal festivals.

Religious and cultural imagery lie side by side, together with foreign influences and their own beliefs, in harmony. The beauty of oriental Shintoism makes Othordox Christianity look pale in comparison. One builds shelter in harmony with nature, communicates with it, lives and breathes with the world around us. While the other makes a man-made cave to keep out the cold, and lights candles for light, with ornate gilded artefacts.

The beauty of the natural world is our treasure. The source of our energy is life itself, and not the promise of life after death. When you already know you are living in paradise, you will not hope for another place to be, but realize your reality. When you are living in the cold, bleak norther latitudes, maybe it's more natural to build a cave from the cold, and pretend that life is sweeter after death.

Going ot Japan really opened my eyes to the beauty of life. When I went there, I had only one question on my mind; what is the nature of love? But over time I realized that my question had no answer. When you are surrounded by love, what love is is meaningless. Who can describe light unless he has experienced darkness? From as far as I can remember, I've always been loved, in one way or another. Love is the nature of all living things. Death is love too. So is birth. Sickness is love, so is loneliness. As long as the communication between us and nature is open, as long as we build shelters and not caves, we will never be in that place where love can't be found.

On this trip, I went with people I didn't know well and had a great time. It was terribly rainy when we went to Disney Sea, but my friends made all that cold dissapear with their warm smiles. Looking at the photographs, we won't remember the cold, only the great warmth in friendship. Even we could not communicate well with our Japanese hosts, we recognized that we share the same concerns and interests and problems at this point in our lives as young people, and as medical students, and as artists.

When Yanyi lost her glasses on the train, and we couldn't really speak Japanese well with Mr Miura at the train ticket office, he still went all the way to help us call the train conductor and do a sweep of the carriage at Sapporo. Our anxiety was relieved, and comforted by the thought that they did all they could for us, even when it was our mistake in the first place, and terribly out of the way for them. He offered to call us back at the hotel if they found the glasses, and even bring it to the train station.

I let myself take photographs again, although it felt terrible at times. I was sneaking one or two in, during the first few days, where I'd concentrate fully on the moment and produce good photos. But I always felt guilty for turning this trip into work. Felt guilty for "manipulating" my travel buddies in a way. Felt guilty because I gave some hobbies up for medicine, and going back to them feels so good and natural and "addictive" and fufilling in a way. I know because of that, some of my friends do have photos that they are very pleased with. I have a few photos I'd love to blow up and hang on my wall. I know my uncle John loved a few of my more artistic works. My mom loves the night photo we took on that chilly mountain top, when I had to use all my training from RJ Photog Club to make a good picture, since i had nothing with me, photographically speaking.

I know exactly how Sai in Hikaru no Go feels. The pain of doing something you love so much again, after not being able to do that for a really long time(for whatever reason). It's both happiness, regret, and sadness. A little of everything. It's a shoe you once wore, kept in a box for a long while, and worn again, only to know that it fits perfectly, and all that time it was in the box, was time that you could have spent wearing it.

We spent so long in beauty, that coming home felt so difficult. Mixed feelings all around. I knew I was missed though, and loved, and that made coming back all the more bearable.

Then when I got back it was furious re-acquaintance with my violin, guitar and piano. Also spent some time playing drums on Rock Band at Brian's house. Spent some time composing, and drawing up my preferred band list. I'm starting to feel the depths of music. It's another deep hole like the visual arts, and sometimes it just feels that I will never have enough time to perfect anything at all.

I've made it so far with my hands tied behind my back. I can make it. I can make it.

posted by Downhere. @ 11:35 pm 2 comments