Preface

 There is a genre (or anti-genre) of writing among Japanese literature called 随筆 (zuihitsu). The literal translation of this genre title is “following the brush.” The idea behind zuihitsu is that the author writes about the topics that come to mind in a loose essay-style format. As described by Linda H. Chance in Formless in Form, the main difference between zuihitsu and western essay is the intentional lack of structure inherent in the zuihitsu genre. The canonical example of zuihitsu, called 徒然ぐさ (tsuredure gusa) or Essays in Idleness as translated by Donald Keene, is perhaps the greatest example of this. The work is an unstructured set of essays by an old monk living in isolation. A keen reader may now note that Essays in Idleness does not fully lack structure, given it is split up into 243 passages. To that end Formless in Form notes that this structure was the result of later editors. Among classical Japanese literature, it was not uncommon for editors to move whole passages or add in new ones, nor was it uncommon for them to change the title of a work to one that they saw fit.

 This work will have to break from that “proper” tradition of classical zuihitsu for two reasons. The first of these is that I myself will provide a title and section numbers to each distinct “section.” The reason for this is that I do not expect my work to actually garner any readers, let alone any literary analysis which would warrant determining proper section numbers and a proper title for this work. The second is that I am very young. In tradition it is well-regarded that only those who are older write good zuihitsu, as they have more interesting things to say. In my case this cannot be helped. I am instead lucky that my goal is not to write good zuihitsu or good literature (though it would be good to do so), but rather to express myself.

Plain Essays

I. A friend of mine once told me that he believes light pollution is an issue ignored by the government so that we are no longer able to see the stars. He said that being able to lie on your back and see the milky way instills hope in us. That hope to do more with our lives, to break free. I have recently moved out of the city and into a smaller town area. One night I decided to listen to Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven. When I looked up at the sky and saw the stars for the first time in years, I understood what he meant.

II. Riding in the passenger seat at night, I pull out my film camera. The shutter opens. I think about my first memories. As the shutter stays open, the lights start to smear across the image. They become streaking lines across a now unintelligible image. I think about what I’ve been doing for so many years of my life. I don’t know when to close the shutter, and now a bright light from above passes through, ruining half the image. I think about where I’ll be going in the future. I close the shutter. All of this time compressed into one image just gives me back a meaningless smear.

III. I have found that what I want most in life is to be in the middle of a flat plain of golden grass with nothing as far as the eye can see. I wouldn’t take a car there, nor would I take anyone with me. I simply desire to lie down in the middle of nowhere and soak in the sublime. Unfortunately, such a place does not exist. It is nice to dream about, though.

IV. I have found the five stages of grief are applicable to most difficult-to-accept things, though it is not a linear progression.

V. I recently read Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky. I think that the beginning section of the book may be analyzed in part as a zuihitsu (though this does not apply to the second section of the book, due to its more standard literary nature). I think that it would be very interesting to write a zuihitsu from the perspective of a more fictionalized character. I say here “more fictionalized” because any remnant of a human left in a written work is, at least in part, fictionalized. The person this work reflects on exists partially in fiction, simply because the “true” self fundamentally cannot be expressed.

VI. An unfortunate fact about most zuihitsu is that most of them are dry slogs, devoid of any true literary or entertainment value. I consistently fear being confident in my work.

VII. We as a society tend to have nostalgia for the poor quality of the past. I take photos on film in part because the lower quality gives more for the viewer to imagine. I format this site in such a bland way, reminiscent of the early internet, not because I cannot do any better, but because it helps the user experience through its simplicity. I remember hearing someone once say that the effects of MP3 compression on audio would never be nostalgic to anyone. I disagree.

VIII. I think that what we consider liminality is the equivalent of the idea of the “sublime” during the Enlightenment applied to the power of man rather than the power of nature. It is the feeling of awe which we feel understanding the unnatural effect we are able to have on the world and how commonplace it has become. The simple decor of a 20th century suburban household is so commonplace to a significant portion of the world but so unnatural that when we are confronted with a world solely constructed of that, we are emotionally challenged.

IX. Utilization of the rhetorical flourish 体言止 (taigendome), the technique of ending a sentence with a noun, in Japanese literature is quite an aesthetically beautiful construction. It is a very poignant way of emphasizing certain ideas and has been used across a range of texts, from a poem of 百人一首 (hyaku nin isshu) describing the heavenly Mt. Kagu, to the introduction of コンビニ人間 (konbini ningen) depicting the mundanity of being another gear in the system. It is unfortunate that the use of such a technique is difficult to pull off in English, and may be considered “bad style.” This is the fault of the English language for a low-context language. Perhaps poetic construction would be easier if pronoun-dropping was considered to be literary instead of just casual.

X. I have an older brother. The age gap between us is a considerable distance. Because of this, when he was about to finish high school, I was still in elementary school. He had taken some theatre class or the other. Or perhaps it was a club. Either way, he was required to do a one-act play in front of an audience which included me and my parents. He was in a pair performing Victoria Station by Harold Pinter. His partner was the controller while he was #274. Rewatching the play now that I am older, I can see that the oddity of the play gives way to somewhat of a comedy. The erratic attitude of the controller is amusing to see, and the dreamlike statements of #274 is a good foil to the angry nature of the controller. However, when I was younger, it was much different to me. There was something visceral about seeing my brother on stage. I saw him saying statements that didn’t make sense. Referencing places I didn’t know. Someone who I had looked up to all of my life, so confused and different. It unsettled me. The way he screamed “They’re all bloodsuckers. I’m the only one you can trust” is still etched into my mind. Maybe the way I remember it is much different from how it actually was. Afterall, I had the line in my mind as “They’re all bloodsuckers, the lot of them” before I checked.
 Before and after that play there were some other one-acts I can’t remember. The only other thing I can recall that day was while going home with my parents, I started crying. I don’t know why I started crying but I did, and I couldn’t stop it. My parents asked me why, and I couldn’t answer them. They tried to console me. They told me that it was just a play. Of course, I knew it was just a play, but knowing that didn’t help me. There was something more to it. I continued to cry until we got home. There I sat in my parent’s bedroom and cried some more. Thirty minutes after I started crying in the car, my brother arrived home separately. My parents must have told him about the situation, perhaps even strong-armed him into coming to talk to me. He came and wrapped one arm around me. He didn’t console me. Instead, he asked me why I was crying. I responded as I did to my parents: I didn’t know. He asked me if watching the play had made me feel something. I told him yes. He said “Good. That’s the point of Harold Pinter’s work. It’s to make you feel something.” That line has stuck with me until this day. It is why I create. I want someone to feel in that same way that I had felt all that time ago. Maybe it is impossible. I have often thought about the fact that I may not have been so affected if it was not my brother on that stage. However, I feel as though however impossible or improbable it may be, it is a goal worth working towards.

XI. Haldi will stain your fingers. If you’re not careful, it will stain your palms as well. The stains don’t wash away. They just fade over time.

XII. Rather than flowers I would like to receive a few stalks of golden wheat, シメジシミュレーション (shimeji simulation)-esque.

XIII. There are considered three wise monkeys based on the fact that in Japanese the term ざる (zaru) can be read as the word for monkey and the bound morpheme for verb negation. This has given rise to three wise monkeys: 見猿・聞か猿・言わ猿 (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil). My family had a statue of them, including a fourth monkey. I have found recently that this monkey is a variation on the original, and is called せ猿 (do no evil). For a long time I thought that it was instead なら猿 (be no evil). It is better to aspire to be no evil rather than do no evil. However, perhaps because doing no evil is more visible to the world, Confucius said to do no evil. All that later artisans did was take his words and turn it into an image, I do not blame them.