Riders on the Storm

Back again, so very soon, after not writing much for the entire month. Well, actually, that isn't completely true. For you see, during this time that I've been on leave from work for two months, I've been writing a long short story, it's not finished yet. It's a better, more refined version of my zombie virus short story entitled Human, Ghoul, Zombie, which you can read here. Other than that, yes, the writing has been sparse. But we'll see how long that lasts. 

Here I'd like to explore the idea of walking the Earth, not only cognizant of yourself, but also dealing with how the pandemic has forced us all into an all too close relationship with ourselves, our families, our friends, and coworkers. I haven't seen too many people writing about this. Perhaps psychology blogs are all over this, who knows.

First off, we're all riders on the storm. We're all walking the Earth, in our own inimitable way. Before the pandemic life was simple, easy, and carefree. Now we are all forced into isolation if we're sick, isolation if we're not sick too, and we've been forced into an all too close relationship with our friends, families, coworkers, and loved ones. 

I don't know but I've been told that in other cultures they don't really have a problem with that. In fact, in some cultures, they prefer their people to be extremely close to each other; mom/dad/kids/grandpa-ma all live together and in poorer parts of the world there are sometimes entire families that live in one room together. The thought of that to most Americans is absolutely unacceptable. But it has its virtues. 

The Japanese make the best astronauts. Why? Because they're used to being confined in small spaces, they get along well with each other, and they're very polite. Why, if Americans were more like the Japanese, there wouldn't be so much dysfunction in families or in the workplace. 

In my own personal experience, I would say I've handled lockdown with family 24/7 pretty well. But not great. I'm not Japanese astronaut status, yet. What am I doing that's working well? 

For one thing, I've found that I'm actually able to find the breaking points with the people around me; I know when and if I set them off, when and if I need to give them space, when and if I need to cool it, and when and if I can engage with that person more in a friendly nature, and lastly, when and if I'm set off/when and if I need a break and/or time out. I'm talking about this as it pertains to myself, my family, and friends but it also applies to my work life as well. 

The lockdown has forced many families into situations where it's easy to be mean or even small to your family, friends, and coworkers. Familiarity breeds contempt as they say. What we're trying to do here is to avoid all that, or if it's impossible to avoid it, to mitigate it as much as possible in order to strengthen relationships and make life better and easier during the most brutal moment in our lives. 

Obviously, if someone ticks you off, you should say something, right? Yes, but watch out, what you say to the other person might affect your life in a much more severe way than you think, especially if you live with that person, if you work with that person closely, or if they're a good friend of yours that you see on a regular basis. It's best to be lighthanded when it comes to dropping the hammer on people that are in your immediate close circle that you see all the time or live with. When it comes to severe arguments, and yes, they are inevitable I'm afraid, remember that it's always the person who gives in and bends the knee and stops fighting that is the better man. You can argue till you're blue in the face but if you see this person constantly you're a lot smarter if you just bend the knee and find some reasonable accommodations between you two. This goes for social and/or work relationships too.

Lastly, to close I should add that life with my family has become like a dramatic space opera; where I'm confined inside a small space shuttle with three other people, and everything I say to them, or do in the space shuttle, every action, large or small, has repercussions or positive effects that strengthen or diminish the morale of everybody aboard the shuttle. Obviously, I want the crew to make it to their destination and finish the mission. In order to make sure that happens each person has to play their part. Or if I play my part in such a manner that it's so good that I astound myself, what the other crew members do won't be as crucial, leading to a stronger party, like a pickup group in a video game with strong leaders and supporting roles that carry the team to victory. The point of all of this is simply to make you a more thoughtful person; the process is daunting, but the reward is a lifetime achievement. 


"The world on you depends, our life will never end"

The Tale of Genji

The Tale of Genji is a Japanese masterpiece of literature [considered the first novel] from the Heian period, roughly (794-1185). Written by a woman named Murasaki Shikibu. She was born into a minor branch of the Fujiwara clan. Her father was a governor. Men wrote in Chinese. Women wrote and read in Japanese, which led to female writers of Japanese, highborn women. She started writing this novel, which is over a thousand pages after her husband died. Scholars tend to disagree on the writer. Some say it was the work of many authors, as says Royall Tyler, who's translation [only 300 pages] I read. Others say its solely Muraski's work. The actual story itself has a continuity that suggests there is only one writer, her. 

The original manuscript is gone. This brings up the issue of translation. Heian Japanese is so different from modern Japanese. Translating Heian Japanese into English is a daunting task unto itself. However, a literal translation of Genji is impossible. Not only that but each English translation of Genji is so remarkably different. Consider these renderings of the same sentence by different English translators. 

In Chapter 4, titled “Yugao,” Genji comes across a run-down house, the abode of a young woman he is about to seduce. Waley describes the entrance like this: “There was a wattled fence over which some ivy-like creeper spread its cool green leaves, and among the leaves were white flowers with petals half-unfolded like the lips of people smiling at their own thoughts.” Seidensticker: “A pleasantly green vine was climbing a board wall. The white flowers, he thought, had a rather self-satisfied look about them.” Tyler: “A bright green vine, its white flowers smiling to themselves, was clambering merrily over what looked like a board fence.” Washburn: “A pleasant-looking green vine was creeping luxuriantly up a horizontal trellis, which resembled a board fence. White flowers were blooming on the vine, looking extremely self-satisfied and apparently without a care in the world.” [newyorker] 

Each version is so different, yet say the same thing in their own inimitable way. It's remarkable. The act of translating itself is a science. One could write an entire treatise on the art of translating. It would be worth the read. Genji made me realize how important a good translation of a book is. Before that, I was in the dark about it.

What is The Tale of Genji about? A noble and his concubines. It's about the art of seduction. But even simpler I would say it's about relationships. A man and his relationships with women. In this society, the way to a woman's heart was through poems, delivered by a go-between, who was elegantly dressed, and of appropriate social standing.

Courtly lovers didn't see each other face to face often, certainly not naked. Women of the upper class sat behind screens, and sliding doors. Women were protected by screens even when they spoke with males in their own family. A guy could be driven wild if he saw a woman's sleeve spill out or the sound of silk rustling behind the screen.

But people still got it on. Nobles and their ladies were promiscuous. Affairs with court ladies and ladies in waiting were perks of an aristocrat's life. So was adultery sometimes. Genji, when he's still young, has an affair with his father's [the Emperor] mistress. And both father and son lust after a young girl, that Genji adopted as his daughter. 

The requirement of a gentleman was style. You could be forgiven for seducing a man's wife. But you had to know how to write good poetry, have good handwriting, and wear the right perfume. Despite the influence of Buddhism, Heian society was governed by style rather than virtue. Good looks meant everything, virtue be damned. 

The ideal man wasn't too much different from the ideal woman in Heian society: highly perfumed, smooth-skinned, moon-faced, extravagantly dressed. The decadence of the times led to what Genji called a time “where everything seems to be in a state of decline." A state of decadence.

All of this had a strong sense of hierarchy of course. Also, Heian politics was marriage politics.  

Three important takeaways from reading Tyler's translation of Genji. 

First, this book gave me my first real look at Japanese culture that wasn't from anime or movies. I understand Japanese culture and society a lot better than I did in the past, and am grateful for the experience of reading world literature. It opened up my mind to the literature of other cultures [non-western canon], and that is an amazing gift to oneself, and for anyone who cares to discuss the book with me or listen to me explain it.

Second, the idea of translation. Lost in translation is a big possibility here. But the fact that the first novel can be somewhat preserved and rendered into modern readable English from Heian Japanese is fascinating to me. How do they do it? It's like nuclear physics. The translations in English are all vastly different. The book is 1300 pages, and the version I read and bought is only 300 pages. Obviously, Tyler's version is heavily edited, abridged, and he took out many passages, but I still found the book to be thrilling. 

Third, the sense of style. The elegance of this book is vast. You don't need action and fast-paced fiction writing to create a sense of depth. As a writer, this is very liberating to see, read, and experience. In fact, I had to read this book very slowly because each page is annotated, there's more than one poem on every page, and if you don't read the footnotes at the bottom of the page, you don't quite understand the poems. However, when you realize that the poems aren't literal translations, and don't quite mean much to you, the reader, you realize that you should focus on the story itself, rather than trying to find meanings in the poems. Going through that was a tedious yet rewarding experience. 

I plan on going back through Tyler's version again. Because I was so impressed with it, I bought my own used copy. Definitely worth it. Although the book took me almost a week to read, it was a very fruitful experience. At the very least, now I know where Overwatch's Genji got his inspiration. Of course, the real, yet fictional Genji is so much cooler.