2003–08–14 08:18:00; Iki-nasaiyo!
At six forty-five this morning, Frankie, without question the greatest waitress ever to grace Traveler’s Rest, informed me that she was in state ordered “intensive therapy” following a suicide attempt fueled by alcohol and Valium. She showed me the scar tissue on the underside of her wrist.
Naturally, I told her we loved her, and Waffle House wouldn’t be the same without her.
Perhaps, it’s true then that nothing in the ‘floating world’ is adamantine. That is, putting one’s hope exclusively in other people for love or friendship or even coffee can be a recipe for disaster.
I think what Descartes was getting at in the ‘Meditation’ was about more than the possibility that life is a dream. The reason that the reader is so willing to go along with the author as he casts doubt on all his ideas and sense is that in our life we have been disappointed by so many things that we assumed were solid.
Perhaps then the only things that can be solid are things that, like Anselm’s God, are defined to be so. In other words, the only way that something can be trusted to not fail is to define it as only referring to things that do not fail. Thus art-makers that betray are not artists, Christ followers who backslide are not Christians, and so on.
In my life, I can trust Bashô’s poetry, because it by definition cannot fail. If I am not moved by it during a particular reading, the fault is mine, not his. And this is so by definition, for Bashô is defined to be greatest haiku master of Japan. Similarly, I can trust the existing works of Shigeru Miyamoto, because all of his old games defined good videogaming. If one does not enjoy Mario 3, the only explanation can be one does not enjoy platform gaming, because Mario 3 is platform gaming. Bashô is haiku. And I thought Frankie is Waffle House.
I still believe in Frankie and Waffle House, but I see now how tenuous that thread of my-world is. If Mizuno Reina were to concentrate her efforts on the Osaka Regional Taxation Bureau and the Keihan line discontinued its campaign, perhaps my-world as it is currently would collapse and a new world would have to be formed.
When I saw my host family in Chicago, I recognized in my chest a distinct sensation. It had been long since I had felt it, however, I recognized that sensation to be an upwelling of emotion. As a child, some of my friend called me Spock in our nerdy games, since I was seen to be as one of limited emotional range. However, even then I felt that appellation to be unfair. It is true that I can go long periods without feeling much of anything, but I am a feeling human being. How could I not be? So, as I walked the streets of Chicago alone, I could not help but be overcome with a sense of yearning for my time in Japan.
If people cannot be trusted, what can we do? ‘28 Days Later’ suggests that those who would settle for just living are no better than talking zombies. My observations of those near me have contrastingly suggested that too great a reliance on others for one’s identity is a easy means of assuring depression and low self-esteem. There must, of course, be a middle path. Religion come to mind. Being a system of fixed definitions, its stability is assured (assuming the continued stability of science, etc.) Like readers of Bashô, those who fail to be moved by religion can be sure that the fault is their own. Certainly, it has merit.
However, for now, it is too soon to consider the matter closed. Marriage is clearly an attempt to create romantic stability in a turbulent world. It is unsurprising that it should fail with some frequency. Maybe for the time being, I should consider myself a leaf in the wind. Having broken off from the tree a short 21 years ago, it is too soon for me to be settled on the ground. For now I shall drift, until I know what to make of life, and who to make it with.
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