How a book led me to Japan

Books can have a profound effect on a person’s life. They can open up avenues of thought, inspire you to action and in some cases completely alter the course of your life. I want to tell you about a real story of how a book (and a magazine, although that sound less cool…) changed my life.

A book is a gateway into the deeper aspects of the imagination, where the author’s experiences and your own merge to create completely a unique world that exists only in your mind. But for some people, a book is just a book, and well that’s fine too. But before get all esoteric and mystical (yawn for some, I know) I want to tell you about a real story of how a book (and a magazine, although that sound less cool…) changed my life.

This is my father with my step brother Johnathan in Tokyo July 1980. He was on his way to meet my mother in the Philippines. Japan and my father will become relevant later on.

First, I must preface by introducing my father who is a integral person in this story. He never forced me to read, but I observed that he was always had his head in a book. So I thought that was something that must be worthwhile. Over the course of his life, he had amassed quite the collection of books/oddities. His collection of books kept me entertained when I was young. Not an academically orientated man, but a lover of information and images. Poetry, Shakespeare, history, and a strong dislike for fiction. Perhaps, the practicality of the real world didn’t allow much room for anything else. More than anything, this eclectic collection may me feel that there was way more to the world outside the boundaries of my sleepy and grey little town in the middle of the UK.

I would find the most off collection of books, mostly from my father’s interests. Books on Maori carving, poetry, I remember a lot on the Pacific War and Japan, woodworking, carpentry. Many were rare. It was indeed an eclectic collection. All of my father’s interests in book form. No explanation as to why he was interested in these subjects. That sparked my interest even more.

One evening, gazing up at the bookshelf, my eye was caught by a slender, yet intimidating book and on the binding written in red letters ‘AIDS’ followed by ‘The deadly epidemic’.

My parents slept in separate rooms when I was very young and so for a few years, I shared a room with my father. Some may find this odd, but if you knew just how polar opposite my parent’s personalities are you would understand why a wall and a few doors were necessary to separate them. Despite the unconventional sleeping arrangements, I have many fond memories of this time. Reading side by side, my father often with a dense bookon some long forgotten war, and me with an illustrated guide to birds, insects and such things, we would share what we read. Sometimes he’d read me an interesting quote he found, and sometimes I’d ask him questions about words I didn’t understand like, ‘Dad, what’s a Gom Jabbar?’ If you haven’t read Frank Herbert’s Dune, this will make no sense — and the Gom Jabber certainly made no sense to my father. Bless him.

After growing up a bit, I moved into my older brother’s room which was also symbolic of my entry into adolescence. It was the time for a new set of cultural influences, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, movies like the Predator and Terminator 2 and no curfew. When I wasn’t hanging out with my friends, walking on train tracks and smoking cigarettes, my new found freedom also came along with being stuck at home bored out of my mind. My family would retire upstairs around 6pm, which left me to my own devices. There was no internet, the TV sucked and I didn’t play sports. The only thing we had of any interest were bookshelves stacked to the brim. It was here that I lost myself in a world of literature. Many a night I would scour the bookshelves out of sheer desperation for anything to fill my curiosity.

I would find the most off collection of books, mostly from my father’s interests. Books on Maori carving, poetry, I remember a lot on the Pacific War and Japan, woodworking, carpentry. Many were rare. It was indeed an eclectic collection. All of my father’s interests in book form. No explanation as to why he was interested in these subjects. That sparked my interest even more.

Some of my father’s books eclectic collection. He had a lot of books on Maori carving. He was a skilled Moari carver. That’s definitely a topic for a future post.

One evening, gazing up at the bookshelf, my eye was caught by a slender, yet intimidating book and on the binding written in red letters ‘AIDS’ followed by ‘The deadly epidemic’.

I didn’t know anything about AIDS at the time, apart from it’s stigma in society. The book was pretty brutal. Things I remember are the terrible suffering of people with the disease. The skin carcinoma. Please fill in the details here. It wasn’t pleasant read. But you know, books aren’t meant just for entertainment to make you feel comfortable.This book made me feel ashamed and kind of guilty for being born healthy. Whether it was guilt, maybe a mixture of guilt and compassion and naivete, I was compelled to do something with this feeling. Not exactly a relaxing bed-time read. This book was a brutal read on many fronts. It made my own ignorance about human suffering very clear and also the ignorance of the West. I’m not saying that we do not suffer in the west. But if we knew the absolute brutality of every day existence in some parts of the world, we would definitely be a little bit more grateful for living in this imperfect society. Graham Hancock was was the East Africa correspondent for The Economist.

It was a realization in just one sentence ‘The West thinks it has an AIDS problem but they have no idea just how bad it is in Africa.’ That one sentence still resonates with me today. We have no idea about the problems that people in other parts of the world are facing. That notion really hit me hard. So in my teenage naivete, I decided that I need to find out more. This would set in place a series of events that would lead me to study Pathology at Bristol University in 2003. I wanted to know how disease progresses and what can be done to stop them. That’s how basic my mentality was back then. This would be a book that led me to Japan, but not in the way you might think.

Unfortunately, while I seemed to have enough passion and dedication to the subject, my analytical and numerical skills were simply not up to scratch. It didn’t help that a lot of my fellow classmates who outmatched me in IQ by a long shot, were also struggling to keep up. I came to the conclusion, I was never going to make it as a researcher. I didn’t even have the confidence I could pass biochemistry. I knew deep in my soul that I was going to fail in this domain. So much for a book changing my life right?

Well there is a little more to the story.

I passed the first year. And found myself in the 2nd year in a biochem laboratory class. In the first five minutes the content was already over my head. I remember looking around to check everyone else’s faces to see if they knew what they were doing. It looked like they did. I had absolutely no idea. So much for a book changing my life, right? I did the most logical thing given the circumstances and I walked out of that biochemistry lab class. Simply stood up and walked straight to the door. I still remember that moment until this day. Because that single action changed the course of my life forever.

A little embarrassed, yes, but more that, I felt lost and that I would be letting my parents down who had sacrificed so much for me to get to university. With no plan, no destination, I did what I usually do, I went for a walk.

Well a very strange thing happened indeed that would alter the course of my life forever. While walking along Woodland Road, I saw a group of acquaintances who were in my Pathology course but had not signed up to Biochemistry. I asked them where they were going and they told me they were heading to study Japanese. I immediately wanted to go along with them. But why Japanese? Here is where the power of the bookshelf comes into play.

Here is where the power of retrospection comes into play. On the same bookshelf all those years ago, there was another book (actually magazine but a very thick one…let’s just call it a book for simplicity). My father, on that trip to Japan in the 70s must have picked it up to get a sense of Japanese carpentry and interiors. When I was young, even before I found the AIDS book, I found this one but had forgotten about it. And it was my first exposure to Japanese characters. It was purely a captivation by the aesthetics of the characters.

There are concepts that exist here that I cannot access. It’s such a weird thing. Their enigmatic nature was a culmination of culture, art and history all together and I was deeply attracted to the characters. I couldn’t decode them which only added to the mystery of their allure. Of course, I didn’t know they were Japanese characters at the time. At 6 or 7 years old, I was barely even aware of that there was such thing as Japan.

So when I was confronted with the opportunity to tag along with these guys to the Japanese class, it was a no brainer. I’m not naturally talented at languages but the curiosity of Japanese characters, the thought I might one day be able to read what was written in the July edition of Modern Living pushed me beyond my fear.

It was the AIDS the Deadly Epidemic that led me to Bristol and Modern Living that gave me the push. And it was the magazine Modern Living memory of a Japanese furniture and interior magazine that reminded me of a childhood fascination with Japanese characters. It was the kanji characters in the magazine that sat dwelling in the back of my conscience all these years. When the opportunity arose, as it did on that day in Bristol. I chose to go along to that Japanese class. And the rest is history.

Books can and do change people’s lives.

The Subconscious Mind

Our ability to engage effectively with the world is highly influenced by the signals we send to our subconscious mind. This is crucial to understand because this deeper aspect of our psyche permeates/influences all aspects of our life, from our perceptions of the world, the kind of choices we make, to the quality of our relationships with others and with yourself. Ultimately, it is the influence of our subconscious that can determine to a large extent the kind of life we will experience. On a broader scale, it is the ‘collective unconscious’ of individuals that can alter the functioning and direction of communities and society.

While the role our subconscious plays in our lives is profound, many people are either unaware of or refuse to acknowledge its influence. Still, there are some that reject its existence and look only to the conscious mind to explain aspects of human behavior. To reduce the totality of an individual to their conscious mind is to disregard all of the underlying subconscious systems that form the foundation of an individual’s psyche.

The more we continue to ignore the subconscious, the more the human mind, and the solutions to our problems will continue to evade us.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” This is a perhaps the most famous quote by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in which he summarized the important influence of the subconscious mind. Much our behavior is driven by unconscious tendencies patterns and deeply embedded subconscious systems that keep you alive. However, some of our unconscious tendencies are highly limiting in that they prevent an individual from developing.

In some cases, it is our subconscious mind that creates problems in our lives. If left unresolved, our subconscious can make us and the people around us to suffer. Everyone has a family member, colleague, a friend or acquaintance that exhibits a behavior pattern that they are unaware of and which has a negative effect on the people around them. This is an outward manifestation of the unconscious mind. In a similar fashion, you are likely to have unconscious habits that irritate others and or prevent you from developing as a person.

A bird

Photo: Arashiyama, Kyoto, Japan

Mankind has always revered birds

For they symbolize a set of higher ideals

Freedom, perception, potentiality,

These are just a few of said virtues

We aren’t so different to birds

Not to be be trite

But we can take flight in life

And experience a much wider world of exploration

But so many of us clip our own wings

Or even worse, the wings of others

Limiting our own freedom

And the freedom of the people we are envious

or frightened of

Many stay safely sat on the nearest branch

Watching others fly into the distance

Or circle their nest forever

Forever waiting for the right opportunity

That may never come

Carl Jung's Idea of the Future Self

We often think about our future self as abstract potentiality.

Or in other words, that which we are capable of becoming.

And through concentration and action in the present moment we shape and solidify who or what we are going to become.

The Swedish psychologist Carl Jung proposed a very intriguing, yet somewhat frightening alternative to the phenomena of the future self.

In his theory, your future self already exists.

And that future version of you is trying to manifest itself in the present moment,

by directing your attention towards things of interest.

It stands to reason that your interests are ultimately what you become if you focus on them.

So whenever you are drawn or attracted deeply to something in your daily life,

it could be your future self trying to come alive in the here and now.

Often in life, we are drawn to things unconsciously.

We cannot always explain why we are curious about certain things.

We may become fanatically obsessed with something, without understanding on a conscious level why.

Why is an artist drawn to a certain mode of expression?

Or why are we attracted to certain people or places?

Why do we sometimes feel the need to explore something even if it may be impractical or even dangerous?

Could it be due to the phenomenon that Carl Jung tried to articulate?

This concept could be considered quite frightening because

it suggests that you may have very little control over what your interests are.

It may also explain why people that have no interest for anything,

those that suffocate their passions,

or those that are too frightened to follow that intuitive desire towards that which provides their life with meaning,

often become nothing of particular interest.

I believe an individual suffers if that is how they choose to live.

However those that pay attention to that which presents itself a highly meaningful

often manifest greatness.

Many of the famous artists, musicians, poets, and creators of the world

often say that they cannot sufficiently explain why they are doing what they do.

Perhaps there is weight to the insights of Carl Jung.

Of course we need to make a distinction between the things that draw your attention and the phenomenon of impulsivity.

I feel that is something for another post

But I suspect there is a consistency and a pattern to the meaningful things in your life,

that by following them, you are being taken somewhere meaningful.

Whereas impulsivity is blindly following urges related to emotional and superficial aspects of living.

And ultimately you are taken nowhere.

Everything that stands before the sun

Everything that stands before the sun casts a shadow.

A beautiful hazy projection

of the outline of true form.

But as beautiful as shadows may be

they are merely representations of what is true.

In our own lives,

with every false action and utterance

we cast shadows of who we really are.

And almost everyone you meet

will take those shadows for the real you.

They may never find out what you are really about.

Perhaps you’d prefer it that way,

for people to believe in your own illusions.

Are you simply an overzealous magician who has fallen for his own tricks?

Or is your greatest fear to have your true self revealed to the world?

Only you know the answer.

So in this light,

Shadows can either be beautiful hazy projections,

or deceptive distortions of your true self.

On the Fringes

The center of the circle is not where you want to be.

It may feel like the safest place,

because you can see everything around you

But that is also the most dangerous place to be in the long term.

because you have already mapped out your surroundings

and you know where everything is.

There is nothing new for you to learn in the center,

there is nothing to push against to challenge you.

By staying in the center, you limit your potential

and you stay weak.

Then all it will take is one major life crisis to occur,

and you’ll be completely destabilized.

If you want to make the most of this experience,

to strengthen your character,

enlighten your soul,

and discover what life is really about,

you need to be exploring the fringes,

the edge between the known and unknown.

This is where you will discover an endless source of inspiration, knowledge and experience.

This is all fuel to sustain the soul of an individual for a lifetime

Without this fuel how do you get through each day?

How can you say you are really alive,

if you only live within the boundaries of what you already know?

I know the center may seem bright and illuminated

but there’s nothing virtuous,

nothing truly compelling

about being in a bright and illuminated cage.

Sometimes it is dangerous on the fringes, and you may get hurt.

That’s when you should retreat to the center, to rest and reflect.

Before venturing out to the edge once again.

20 (Brutally) Honest Points for a Better 2020

I wrote this at the start of the year, but left it as a draft. I think I have followed most points, how about you?

As much as possible, I would like to live an honest 2020. However, I feel I cannot do this without getting these 20 points off my chest.

1. Your mental health is not something completely out of your control. You can both regulate and deregulate your your mental well-being with lifestyle choices.

2. Choosing not to have a hangover every day is considered a good lifestyle choice.

3. Most people feel insecure about at least two or three aspects of their life. Some people are just better at managing them.

4. One of your life goals should be to work on your own insecurities so that other people don’t have to continually put up with them.

5. Learn to better identify the toxic people in your life. Once identified, tip toe away quietly, then run until you can insert a level of distance that prevents you from seeing them, hearing them, and hopefully hearing of them.

6. A relationship that ends on an honest note, is better than one that continues as a lie.

5. Don’t expect to have many meaningful conversations if you never read. A lot of people these days have never finished a book. Go figure.

6. Overprotected children will suffer greatly in the long term. Don’t shield them from reality forever. Reality wins (roughly 100% of the time).

7. YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO. So if you binge-watch stupid shit on YouTube all weekend, guess what, you will feel like a stupid piece of shit all weekend. (YouTube also has great content - I am not knocking it completely)

8. One of the saddest things to see is a truly gifted person that wasted their talents and now forever procrastinates by treading water in a dismal sea of their own self inflicted nihilism.

9. The second saddest thing to see is a man child that never graduated from adolescence and instead whines about how the world hasn’t conformed to their naive and underdeveloped worldview. It’s not good for you to continue as Peterpan, people won’t respect you or invite you to things.

10. Try and get a hold of your ego, otherwise people may mistake it for your personality. Then again, maybe it is your personality, in which case, you may need help. See below.

11. If you have been suffering from a mental illness (such as an out of control ego) and don’t have the necessary mental faculties to self-manage, you should seriously consider therapy.

12. Alcohol, drugs, shopping and food are not therapy.

13. Shopping therapy is used as an excuse to provide temporary value fulfillment. The positive emotion such an activity imparts lasts about as long as sand castles built during high tide. In other words, not very.

13. Our collective destiny is fixed - we are all going to die. However, everything that happens between now and your death bed is up for grabs. So while you wait, why not manifest a fun and challenging life to pass the time? Cos seriously WHAT ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

14. If you aren’t trying to solve a problem in the world then how can you justify the need to have your opinion heard?

15. If you can’t have an honest conversation with your spouse/partner/best friend/parents then your relationship is at least in part, an illusion. Speaking the truth will either turn this illusion into something more real or it will destroy it. If it ends, don’t feel bad. The relationship was false anyway and probably wasn’t serving your best interests.

17. Unless you live in a cave and only eat soil, you are at risk of contradicting yourself every time you complain about capitalism and consumerism. First, and whether you like it or not, you must accept that you are the beneficiary of these systems, then you may have your 2 cents. If you really believe in communism, please make plans to move North Korea, I’m sure they’d gladly accept another slave.

18. People that espouse half baked solutions to complex geo-political issues but have yet to rectify the petty squabbles between their friends/family members/co-workers, probably shouldn’t have opinions about complex geo-political issues.

19. Pay attention to your levels of boredom. Chronic boredom may indicate that you are not being sufficiently challenged in life or not engaged in enough meaningful pursuits.

20. Your usefulness correlates to how many problems you can fix. Your uselessness correlates to how many problems you bring to situations (that are otherwise working fine without your presence.)

Irresponsible Parents

When we hear the term irresponsible parenting, 9 times out of 10 we will imagine parents who neglect their children, that fail to encourage them or that don’t cater to the basic needs of a safe and peaceful home life. But that is only one side of the story. Irresponsible parenting comes in many forms and the one I see more and more these days is parents who spoil their children. It guess you may think it only a natural progression, given the general rise in affluence among families all across the globe. But that doens’t mean that it isn’t incredibly dangerous. Many parents who spoil their children don’t seem to see this danger because they are ignorant of basic child psychology and probably need to go and take a course, or read some books on the matter to fix this ignorance.

In the formative years of a child, behavior patterns can get easily ingrained and can be very hard to fix later on. Often it is impossible.

There is a thing called the incentive reward system, and this maps what a child needs to do to get a reward. If the child behaves and tries hard to fix their negative behavior, they will get rewarded by the parents. This relationship between improvement and reward gets subconsciously embedded into the psyche of a child. When a child misbehaves, they learn the consequences of such behavior and will not expect a reward.

Now when you have parents that are constantly rewarding a child, often for doing nothing except for breathing, the child subconsciously begins to expect reward for nothing. Their brain is expecting reward, and one doesn’t come, it disregulates their emotions, making them experience, yes you guessed it, negative emotion. To coutneract this, the child will manipulate the parents, first pleading, making them feel guilty and then throwing a tantrum for not having provided the reward. And no matter how cute you might think your child is, a child throwing a tantrum, especially in a public place is a bloody ugly scene. Parents hate this, society hates this, and that’s why parents will threaten to leave their child by walking off.

Now this is only the start of the problem. If the parents do not sufficiently notice this and take measures to stop spoiling their kids, the children will only continue to have bigger expectations when they grow older. And it won’t just end with you. The child will then have to enter social situations with other kids, and will have the same demans on them. Then when they enter society, they will place this expectaion on the people that they meet.

The person that usually suffers the most, is their future partner, if they ever manage to maintain a long term relationship. They will place unreasonable expectations on them, and make their lives a living hell. If that’s what you want for your future child, by all means keep spoiling them, and watch the nightmare you have created unfold in reality.

You will then have to take responsibility for the role you played as an irresponsible parent.

Don't ask for permission for the life you want to live

It is not uncommon for a person to sit around waiting for someone else to give them permission to do something they truly want to do. So they wait a while, and then they wait a little while longer, and then before you know it you are 55, or 69. Past your prime, and still waiting for the touch of a magical wand, so that you can start to live the life you want to live. It’s a very sad and hopeless situation to wait for someone else to allow you to do something. Life will pass you by, and you will grow old, and grow resentful towards others who have chosen to live life based on their own terms. You need to give yourself your own permission. The permission to follow your intuition towards what you find meaningful in life and not blame circumstances, social norms, or the people around you for stopping you. In nearly all cases, it is you and your limited way of thinking that creates your own life obstacles. Of course, there are situations in life when you have to ask for some kind of ‘permission’, but the answer to that isn’t rocket science. Just ask, and if they say no, make yourself worthy of receiving that permission or simply go somewhere else. It’s not that difficult is it? Well maybe you might think it is, and therein lies the problem. It’s in your thinking. The alternative is to wait around watching paint dry. But you won’t have to wait very long because life is ticking by moment to moment, and your death bed is always one day closer with each setting sun.

Unclouded by fear, Illuminated with confidence

It is quite ironic that in order to have confidence in something,

you have to have failed at that very thing.

dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of times.

Ironic because failure usually erodes people’s confidence.

Or more specifically their perception of failure.

So to remain confident despite failure requires a change in perception.

And one of the biggest failures people make lies in their perception of failure.

If you miss the target, then identify yourself with the mistake,

and allow that to represent who you are now

and your potential

then you really have failed.

But if you learn not to identify with your own mistakes

and instead identify with the playful enjoyment of improving yourself

you can re-open that potential

and allow your confidence to naturally flow

As you gradually and surely get better at whatever you are striving towards

The confident people I know seem to be in a playful, creative mood

Even when mistakes occur,

they identify less with the problems

and more with the enjoyment of the process

which may allow them to keep a positive mindset

which in turn keeps the image of their future potential

Unclouded by fear

and Illuminated with fortitude and confidence

Something about a Dog

Dogs conceptualize the world differently. They see something fun and will charge at it full throttle. They see something scary and will run away. They see something unknown and will bark at it all night. Their existence is defined by perception followed by immediate action, with no space for endless contemplation in-between. Humans are different. Instead of running towards or away from scary or exciting things, we can spend a whole life time debating whether or not we will make an ass of ourselves in the process., and then on our death bed we regret all of the things we never ran towards or away from. But somewhere during our maturation, humans must forfeit the spontaneity of dogs for the acute self awareness of the Homo-sapien. If we all ran around like dogs all day, which some people do, nothing would ever get done. It begs the question, is a dog a slave because it acts on impulse, or does it attain freedom by being subservient to its own inner nature? And what about humans? We believe we attain freedom if we become masters of our own impulsivity, but don’t we then just become slaves to some fantasy about how a human should behave? I’m not sure, but I am happy to be a human and not a dog. For if I were a dog, I could never appreciate the concept of a dog as I am doing right now.

One mid-life crisis please.

Yes sir, what would you like to order this afternoon?
Ah yes, could I have one mid-life crisis please?
Sure, would you like that in large, medium or small?
Hmmm, I think I’ll have the medium. I might not be able to get through the large one today. (Chuckles to self)
Certainly. And would you like anything else with that?
Ah yes, do you have any failed marriages followed by a painful divorce?
I’m really sorry sir, we just ran out of failed marriages followed by a painful divorce this morning.
Gosh, must be popular. You’ve been out all week! I guess they are quite tempting.
Yes, everyone seems to be after a failed marriage followed by painful divorce these days. How about something from the side menu?
Ah shucks. Well, could you hook me up with a psychotic breakdown and a small serving of impotence. Actually, make it a large serving of impotence. I think my appetite just kicked in!
Ok sir, that’s one medium sized mid life crisis, one psychotic breakdown and a large serving of impotence.
That’s right. Thanks.
OK, please take a seat and I’ll bring your order over when you are ready.
Thank you kindly. Umm, there aren’t any seats here.
Ah that’s right, I forgot we don’t have any seats. Just wait in your overpriced 2-seater sports car with the ‘I have a small dick and I’m compensating exhaust pipe’ and I’ll be right there!

A Yellow Mouse

“I don’t know why people go to the gym” the old man declared, as the contents of his mouth were finding their way into my salad. I could swear bits of his half masticated pasta were also splashing onto my face. Something I was finding very difficult to ignore. The old man was a co-worker. A co-worker with several teeth missing. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. I mean, I don’t judge people for simply having teeth missing, unless they also have their eyelids engraved in garish tattoos and their tongue sliced to imitate that of a snake. But I had to judge here because the holes in this old man’s grin had become windows through which saliva drenched food projectiles were raining down on my meal. My poor salad on the table below started to resemble an innocent farming village receiving a mortar bombardment. Like some kind of culinary Apocalypse Now. Now, this was becoming a a problem.

’Ughhh, could you just get some teeth and or not talk for a while,” I though to myself.

Obviously my telepathy wasn’t functioning 100% today. So far I had gathered that he had a problem with young people going to the gym. Not entirely sure why, but I assumed it was because they were young and striving for something that vaguely amounts to a healthy life, and he was old, really old and smoked like Mt.St Helens on a bad day. When people behave in the complete opposite way to you, its easy to reduce it to

I seemed to find myself in these situations a lot in life.

If we take a conversation to be more or less an equal verbal exchange of information between two individuals then this wasn’t falling within those parameters. But then maybe I was being too idealistic. I mean, most of the conversations I have with people tend to be me listening to the other person’s narrow conceptualization of the world, and then me nodding in agreement. I rarely agreed.

If I actually spoke my mind, spoke the the truth as I saw it, the world would stop spinning and then I would be chased out of my city by a mob of torch wielding witch hunters. Or just de-friended by people on Social Media. In my world, the truth was too much for most to bear. In this case, Mr.Mt.St Helens was on another planet, and there were many lightyears that separated our minds. As he continued, I zoned out, and naturally my mind began to wonder.

I started to remember a boy from my secondary school who lost one of his teeth. It was during a hockey match when a hockey ball found its way into his face, or into his upper left incisor to be exact. One of the most important teeth for keeping up appearances. Not that he had a lot of appearances to keep up, for he was a short, mousy looking kid with a haircut he must of received from a blind person. His mousy features encouraged me to imagine that he kept blocks of cheese in his lunchbox. In the last period of the school day a large commotion erupted on the hockey court. The mousy boy was kneeling on the ground as a school nurse rushed to the scene with a glass of milk. Not for him to drink, but to preserve the tooth. Until then I thought dropping a tooth into milk was just the kind of pseudo science featured on after-school kids’ TV programs, but apparently milk keeps the root cells of the tooth intact. Usually I would stick up for little kids, especially ones that resembled furry little animals that had their teeth knocked out by hockey balls, but not this one. This one I found rather odd.

A year before during a history class, he turned around in his chair to let me know,

‘You’re yellow’.

I was taken off guard. I’d never been assigned a color before. Did it mean I had to perform a special dance whenever a rainbow appeared? I didn’t know how to process his information by the mousy boy with a blind man’s haircut. My friend sitting next to me stepped in.

‘What do you mean he’s yellow?’ he inquired.

‘You know, you’re yellow,’ he repeated so matter of fact. It was as if he was reading the titles from a history textbook. OK, chapter 1, Hitler invaded Poland, chapter 2, you’re yellow, chapter 3 three I have a block of cheddar in my lunch box, chapter four, David who sits in the back row’s terrible body odor bad is actually due to a congenital defect. The whole thing was odd for there was no sign of hatred on his face. His eyebrows relaxed, face covered in neither grin nor frown. It was simply a case of me being yellow and him needing to tell me before I discovered it for myself on the next page of our history textbook.

Even to this day, I don’t think he meant to be racist. He probably had just eaten too much cheese and that somehow whatever makes cheese yellow had induced a biochemical reaction in eyes that disrupted his ability to perceive color correctly. At least, that was one theory. That or I was actually yellow and he was the first person to let me know. In any case, he would regret his faux pas as we would hound the boy for the next 3 years. Every time we came across him in the school yard, in a class, in the tutor’s room, on the way to the bus my friend would ask him ’Don’t you want to talk to us anymore?’ ‘Is it because he’s yellow?’ The boy never replied, but his face showed a mixture of embarrassment and then frustration as he knew he had said something that didn’t need to be said. Poor mouse. They fixed his upper left incisor saving his future family from having to put up flying food projectiles.

My mind came back to the present moment. Mt.St.Helens was still yapping on about young people going to the gym. My salad was now no longer fit for consumption. And I had no intention of contending with the old volcano. People don’t win against volcanoes. Not at this range. I longed to go home but it was raining outside. I was stuck between a volcano and a hard place. To pass the time and keep a modicum of sanity, a glass or several of red wine would be in order. I raised my hand and scanned the room for the waitress, while the old volcano continued its eruption and the sound of rain pattered against the window reminding me how I was stuck in the present moment.

The Zombie Apocalypse

Hordes of half alive
Half dead lifeforms
Packed onto commuter trains
Walking corpses dragging feet
to cramped office spaces
Sitting slack jawed
With glazed eyes on the bright square
of a computer screen
for 8, maybe 10
of their best hrs
of their best years
The monotony finally broken
by a short break
Only to shovel food into a facial orifice
While eyes transfixed
By the Bright spinning lights
Of a phone screen
back to work
For more screen gazing
While the big boss is grazing
On your body, time and soul
Finally get off
Drag feet to a crowded train
then home
Release food from another orifice
pass out
Wake up
Repeat
The zombie apocalypse is here and has always been

The significance of Japan's Yata no Kagami

It may no coincidence that one of the sacred objects of Japan is the Yata no Kagami.

In the Japanese mythological story,
a mirror representing wisdom was offered to the goddess of the sun, Amaterasu.
Which begs the question,
Why would a mirror represent wisdom?
And why would Amaterasu be interested in such a thing?
Well, a mirror allows a person to see themsevles clearly
and if you want to have any true understanding of the world
You first need to be able to perceive who you actually are devoid of illusion
Could this not be the first step to acquiring wisdom?
It is certainly an important, if not absolutely crucial step.
How can we call an individual wise if they cannot even see themselves clearly?

In our lives, we know this to be true,
because we sometimes come across people that live in a fantasy world
of their own delusions about the nature of reality and of themselves
These people are clearly not wise.
For an individual that lives in this way
Is living in a maze of faulty beliefs
and may remain trapped inside these illusions forever.
Anything they encounter that is not in congruence with their fantasy world
they will avoid, bury, or even fight against.
That or,
one day they will have their illusions shattered
by the hard edges of reality.
Maybe you have seen either of these scenarios play out
in acquaintances, a relative or a family member.
It is not a happy thing to observe in any sense of the word,
and sometimes leads to their own destruction.

In broader terms,
a society with too many individuals that avoid the truth
or one that actively suppresses what is true
is a terrible and deplorable one to live in.
Our collective history has many such examples of this,
You would only need to look so far as the past century
to see many examples of horrific tragedies that emerged from such societies.
And unfortunately, some of these still exist today.

Mirrors are also used to view that which is not directly visible.
To be aware of that which exists but cannot be seen directly,
is the foundation of all abstract thinking
and forms the basis of all truly creative and artistic pursuits.
Why is this important?
Well, it is often said that it is the artists of this world that have the ability to save mankind
because by attempting to grasp what cannot be seen
And extracting from it a sense of valuable meaning
then forging it into reality,
enables others to learn, perceive and understand that which is beyond the confines and limitations
of mankind’s current state,
and thus enabling transcendence
And because mankind is always in need of transcendence,
this makes the artist eternally relevant in the highest degree,
to the evolution of society.
You only need to look at how we define all of our periods of history and their evolution, to see
they were all defined by artists and their influence on literature, religion, architecture, philosophy, music and thus human perception.

Anyway, this is becoming a longer analysis than I had originally planned.
The remaining question is,
Why would Amaterasu be interested in such a mirror,
that would confer such values to mankind.

See yourself clearly, and at least attempt to see that which cannot be directly seen.

A God can represent that which is eternal,
in a purely practical sense,
Gods can be seen as guides to universal values, ethics or a code of behavior
with the aim of guiding society.
Of course, a God is not simply just that,
and by no means am I saying that I understand what the concept of God is.
But in an age of nihilism and materialist reductionism
speaking in terms of practicality is often necessary.

The values we place upon, or assign to Gods through symbolic representation
is how we guide people through the ages.
The mirror therefore is the value of seeing the truth, or at least attempting to do so,
And in many cases in life, this is the only thing that will save you,
from whatever it is you are seeking to be saved from.

Solitary

In the haze of Japanese Spring, one can overlook the beauty of a single blossom over the millions that cover tree branches or lie scattered over park benches. In abundance lays a seed of indifference, that when left to grow, can blind you to the ephemeral beauty found in the delicate, unassuming aesthetics of a single flower, or the faint warm smile from a passing stranger you’ll never see again.

A Vision for the Future

The human species is completely unique
For it can articulate a vision for its own future
and through action and the incorporation of ideas from its environment
proceed to make that vision a reality.

On the flip side,
we can also fantasize our own destruction
and work hard
to make that a reality too.

But whatever the case may be,
out of the 9 million species on the planet
isn't it rather strange that we’re the only ones
that can choose between the two?

But who knows,
maybe a group of monkeys are plotting something crazy in trees and caves
that we are completely unaware of.
Although, I think the likelihood of that is quite low.

A major relationship problem is like a bomb

You can think of a major relationship problem as like a bomb that grows bigger over time.
If left unattended, it will enlarge and one day detonate,
injuring friends and family in collateral damage.
Tackling a difficult relationship problem can thus be like diffusing this bomb.
It can be really hard, really complicated,
and may require the help of a bomb disposal team
or several rounds of therapy.
It may take multiple attempts, and if you are not careful, it may explode in your face.
But what is clear, if you don’t find a way to diffuse it, your relationship will surely implode.

How do you know if your friends are real?

Real friends aren’t there to serenade you with praise all the time,
they are supposed to keep you in check,
letting you know when you are doing something unbelievably moronic,
because a real friend doesn’t want you to undermine yourself and your potential.

Friendships must be firmly grounded in truth.
If every time you try and articulate it,
the foundations of your relationship start to shake
and the walls start to cave in
then you simply don’t have a real friend.

Arabian Knights

Words and illustration by Chris Irwin

The sea, like a churning endless bowl of Quicksilver,
Catches the moonlight and boils it beneath.
Towards the shore. To ward the shore.
Primordial under the half-moon,

tilted bowl-like on it’s side,
It sends a shimmering road of molten light,
Towards the shore. To ward the shore.

Waves heave their bulk against the land,
Softly blue foam skids to kiss the land.
Towards the shore. To ward the shore.

Cliffs lead down to the beach, palm fronds black,
Against the blanket of stars.
Towards the shore. To ward the shore.

Ghostly clouds gallop on the Arabian horizon,
Clad in moonlight armour glinting,
They wheal their horses rearing.

The lanterns of the fishermen,
Signals of orange, winking the waves.
Towards the shore. To ward the shore.

The Sorrocco, it’s energy spent, kisses my skin with thick lips.
It carries the salty tang, the sweet intoxications
Of the tropic flowers, mingle on the cliffs.

Once, Krishna trysted Vishnu as Mohinni here,
Where the surf loves the shore.