Creature Comforts

Tonight is a quiet night. The moon is full as I walk home from the gym, but the streets are empty. It's Golden Week in Japan, and everyone has gone somewhere special. Everyone's gone off to string the sequence of holidays into memories of the sparkling seas, or misty mountains, or disheveled bedsheets.

I've made a lot of progress in the bedroom front myself, where I've conquered a pillow-case sized bag of popcorn and pizza the size of car tires while watching "Practical Magic" and "Romy and Michelle's Highschool Reunion" with friends after a fulfilling day of buying raunchy gay paperbacks at the annual "Yarou Fest (Rascal Fest)."

Luxury must be this freedom for irresponsibility. I think the novelty will die quickly though, along with the contents of my bank account if I'm not too careful. But I've started feeling somewhat numb about it. Where before a pang of guilt would strike, now, a dull ache throbs within my heart and yearns for something more.

I step into the bookstore near my house and, for the first time since I moved into the neighborhood 2 years ago, took a look around. The latest monthly serial that included the groundbreaking gay story "Ototo no Oto (My brother's husband)" was on the shelves. There was also a "Boy's Love" section as well, a full bookshelf of it. I start to wonder why it took me so long to stop by here.

Oh. Right. I can't read any of this stuff.

The most striking twilight zone episode for me was the bespactacled man who loved to read books. The story starts with a nagging wife and troublesome acquaintances that keep interrupting his book. He bears it grumpily. While he hopes for the abrupt demise of those around him, he continues his reading, until a nuclear bomb hits. He survives somehow, and revels in his answered prayer. He rushes through empty streets and the derelict library. There's no one in the world to interrupt him, and all the time in the world available for him to relish each book here. But, alas, he stumbles, and steps on his glasses.

Japan's been like this for me. I make headway somehow in friends(3 orgs and counting!) and knowledge of culture(I hate tourists now, too), and I am still optimistic. Yet the door remains closed, and I glimpse through the gaps and cracks the absolute satisfaction that waits for those who aren't illiterate in a foreign tongue.

Tonight is a quiet night, with no foreign words to capture the beauty of the moonlit night. I, too, am quiet. But, I must admit I've grown comfortable with it. I may not fit into this strange corner of the world yet, but the nook I've fashioned for myself is not too shabby. Not shabby at all.

Photo Credit: Library by Stewart Butterfield

this existential restlessness

A few days ago, in the bright sunshine typical of post-rainstorm Tokyo, officemates huddled together on the worn wooden benches at the nearby quad after lunch. Our conversation veered here, there, and everywhere (with a few stopovers to google or wiki something), and somehow ended up with my OKCupid page.

I apparently made one a few years back and it was filled with such witticisms as "just a simple guy living a simple life." I imagine I must have made it in college, judging by how effective I was at playing casual and aloof.

Everyone had a laugh. I agree, it was funny, in that I think everyone can relate to that phase in their life when being cool and being numb meant about the same thing. With that flash of kinship, I continued explaining my, now mature, thoughts on life and happiness, pointedly. Before the eventual awkward pause, a friend thankfully commented on the heavy atmosphere and smoothly brought us back on the usual lighthearted track.

I guess I've got some steam to blow. When usually I'd be bubbly with friends, I've lately noticed I'm at a loss for words and pull back into myself and grow pensive.

I fear I may be in a rut.

Which is a shock to me, since everything in my life has been going swimmingly so far. I'm on track to getting in shape, we've just completed our annual concert to much applause, we shipped our application on schedule, I've got money in the bank, I just came back from a refreshing trip to visit my closest family and friends. Everything is great, so what am I worrying about?

I guess I don't feel excited about life lately. There's nothing challenging nor daunting in the horizon, just a long list of things that must be done, or waiting to be done, or hoping to get done. I guess this is what most would call stability, or security? I watch the fruits of my daily labor grow on the branches of my life and dutifully wait for them to ripen and fall.

It's mind-numbing. Who wants to watch trees when you can do cartwheels down the hillside? Or fool around with the neighboring shepherd boy?

But all the remaining things in my bucketlist require some preparation, a bit of leverage, a bit of planning, and with costs that are too significant to mark-off as one-time splurges (that means my credit limit can't handle it).

Which is a kind of delayed-gratification: do the overtime now so I can have piece-of-mind later? skip that order of fries now for those killer abs in summer? save up money now so I can move to an awesome apartment with a great view of the city skyline?

I live by a code of happiness--but before people brand me a nepotist, luckily my happiness includes the happiness of others--and the problem with chasing happiness is picking. I don't really know yet how to quantify whether this happiness is greater than this other one. Will hooking up with this guy, or hanging out with my volunteer friends be more enjoyable?

Where before, I was in raptures imagining the sheer pleasure I would find trying those fantastic, crazy, unheard of things I would do once I've secured my place in the world. Instead, now I don't know which is fantastic enough, sufficiently crazy, or even where to listen for these unheard of things.

Life was simpler when I just meant to be alive; now, I am trying to find what it means to live. I'm still confused but I did realize something: maybe my college thoughts on a simpler life isn't as foolish as I think and may be worth revisiting.