Klingsor's First Winter

I am easily influenced by my surroundings.

Leaving aside any judgement on this, it affects how I live as a Western immigrant in Japan. It is my desire to adapt to my surroundings. Even after 20 years, there are many situations where I am not sure what is the “correct” way to behave, and so I let the other person lead, and go with the flow. Honestly, I don’t think this is unique to me, and I think many people, Japanese or foreign, don’t know the correct way to behave in situations, and also go with the flow.

In some situations though, going with the flow means that there needs to be someone to lead the flow. Someone to have a sign to say unironically “This is how we do it”.

However, sometimes, no matter how foreign one may be, you need to be the one to lead the dance and say the above line.

This happens in every day interactions, probably thousands of times each day, but an explicit time I remember is when I was in charge of doing OJT for a new graduate hire at my previous job. A Japanese person just graduated university, and joined our company. They had a month of seminars and whatnot, and now they have a month of working in a department, and learning how to be an adult. It was me to teach them this.

In our many conversations one on one during this period, she voiced her concerns and anxieties about what was supposed to be done, it would have been incredibly silly to “go with the flow” here, and incredibly unhelpful to give that stereotypical foreign-esque “well in this society they do X, but really that’s dumb and we should all be doing Y!”

And so I did my best to lead the dance.

When on the phone, end what you’re saying with degozaimasu not desu. It depends on the situation, but you’ll notice that’s the custom here.

If you didn’t catch their name, just calmly ask for it. No need to panic.

When you don’t know the answer, don’t say what is likely the answer, always confirm. You will be held accountable for what you say.

And so on. And so on.

There were some times when I needed to take my own advice.

I am happy you feel comfortable asking me that, but I honestly don’t know the answer. Perhaps ask a Japanese colleague? I would love to know the answer myself.

And so on.

The other day I had procured a temporary furnished apartment for someone from head office coming on assignment to our office. The person from the apartment company came to our office to finalize the contract.

She was Indonesian, and my guess was about 23 or 24. She said she had worked there for a little over a year, and my guess was that it was her first job after university.

She had the businessman job of casually asking me questions in an effort to get to know our needs better. We talk about our experience in Japan.

I’ve been here 20 years.

I am the only HR here. Yes, a lot of things are done in Japanese.

How about you? 90% Japanese? Oh wow, I hope it’s nice to speak English sometimes. Do you know any other languages?

Today when I was doing my comprehensive health check, I was in full autopilot mode. The nurses do this however many times a day, every working day. They know what they’re doing. Lead away, nurses. Tell me how to do it.

Some speak regular Japanese. Some speak slow Japanese. Some speak slow Japanese, but are still hard to understand due to their “simple Japanese” not making any sense, leading to you be confused, and them confirming their biases that they’re going to have to make it even simpler.

Near the end of the ordeal, I was ready for the doctor’s consultation (usually at the end of the checkup), but before that could happen, I was ushered into a small little room. This was new.

I was ready to be in auto-pilot and waltz with my partner, but it wasn’t that kind of situation.

She explained why I was there.

Yes, that is my BMI. Yes, my waist has expanded a little hasn’t it. Oh, my glucose is high now?

She tried to lead the conversation on eating healthier and getting more exercise, but it was not an autopilot moment for me. I just wanted to jump through all the hoops, and tick all the boxes and go, but this was a qualitative moment.

I guess I do snack a lot.

Yes, I go to the convenience store and buy bread. No, not that kind, like with a sausage. (I didn’t admit my love of koppe-pan)

Yes, that’s a good idea, I could eat these lower calorie substitutes.

At the end she asked where I was from and how long I’ve been in Japan.

Canada, and about 20 years. Perhaps too long, isn’t it?

She responded that she actually wasn’t Japanese herself. (She didn’t exactly look Japanese, but we’re all beautiful snowflakes, and her name tag showed a common Japanese surname, so I didn’t think anything deep.)

Do you know about Uyghurs? I’m an Uyghur. I also came here 20 years ago, when I was 8. Perhaps it is too long.

And I don’t know. The dance metaphor stopped working. This was supposed to be a real conversation with two souls expressing themselves and make a small connection. That was how to do it.

I mumbled something silly in return, and was out of there.

Next was the doctor’s consultation, which was perfectly possible to do on autopilot.

Yes, I have gained weight.

Yes those numbers are a little higher.

You want to hear me breathe? Sure.

Okay. Thank you. Good-bye.

You know how you want to know the time in Vancouver, to see if it’s an appropriate time to text your mom, and so you Google “time in Van”, but then it gives you the time in Van, Turkey, and not Vancouver.

And then you look up where Van is on Google Maps, and then you read the Wikipedia article about it.

Then, sometimes when you’re looking up the time in Vancouver, and typing it in properly so there’s no mistakes, you look up the time in Van anyways, because it feels like the right thing to do.

As of right now, it’s before 6am in Vancouver, so unless my mom has insomnia, she’s not responding.

It’s just before 4pm in Van, Turkey. If my mom lived there, we would be golden.

Life would be quite different though.

A friend I hadn’t seen for 20 years gave me pics today of our trek up the Black Tusk in 2005. I sent some to my mom, as one does. She’ll see them when she wakes up.

I haven’t always liked video games as much as I do now.

I played them as a kid, sure.

Once I was 15 and got a part-time job, I had spending money to buy a game or two a month. I did this. I didn’t really beat anything of them though, I got bored of games before I could.

When I was 18 or 19, I lost interest in video games for the most part. I went out with friends. Dated. Read books. Went hiking. Things like that.

When I moved to Japan at 21, I bought a Super Famicom right away, and brought some Gameboy Advance games. I liked games, but I didn’t really play them too often.

As I “grew up”, my gaming hobby became more and more intense, and looking in my office at my home, it is probably the most intense it has ever been now. I didn’t really think about it though, it just sort of happened.

With a child on the way, I think about it a lot more now. All of a sudden, I don’t think video games are good. Books and nature are obviously much better. I wouldn’t want any son of mine to just spend all day thinking about or playing games. What a waste!

Wait, how do I spend my time off again?

So there is a dilemma of sorts in my head. If I think that video games aren’t good for someone to obsess about, and I obsess about video games, then quite obviously, I shouldn’t be thinking about and playing video games so much. The problem is that I find it quite fun to do so.

Sometimes I am told that I take things too seriously and think about things too much. Video games are a part of our world, parents play video games too. Hey man, it’s okay to play video games you know. You’re doing nothing wrong.

The bolded dear reader is what I hate more than evil itself, for I am not an elementary school student, and I do not take solace in the fact that it is not considered wrong. I think I am doing something wrong, and as the person who is me, that opinion carries a lot of weight. There’s also this belief that something that (to me) can only ever be completely and utterly subjective can be tackled with such seemingly objective phrasing.

So will I give up my video gaming hobby? Honestly, not likely. At least not right away.

Do I want to scale it down a lot? Yes. Very very much yes. I can’t part with video games before I have finished the complete Suikoden series. Of course I want to have the experience of playing Dragon Quest with my son. What father would not? I just don’t want to think about spare time in terms of video games I can play. I don’t want to have a list of games I want to finish at any time. I want some separation from the hobby, and reduce the mindshare (if that’s a word) it has in my head.

In case it wasn’t clear, the “winter” in the title is metaphorical. Literally speaking, if you live in a place where the winter is quite cold, video games in winter is a great time. If you live in a place where summer is horribly hot though, they’re a great time in the summer as well.

Below is a photo I took from Suikoden III. A people on the edges of the grasslands were able to join the neighboring empire, but not yet as equals. It’s titillating.

We live in a society that misuses words until they have no meaning. I think this is a primarily American trait, but I could be wrong, and that is neither here nor there in the point I am trying to make.

I think divorce when used figuratively is usually not given its full weight. As a man who has gone through the practice of divorce, I will give my take on what it should mean figuratively and apply it to America as one who is not American.

Divorce is not merely separating, and dividing up what is mine and yours. That’s a high school break up or something, where you lose your favorite hat because she says she doesn’t have it, but you know she does, but her new boyfriend will kick your ass if you go near her house. Divorce is more than this.

First, I think ripping apart is a proper way to describe it. There is no precise incision. It is messy, and the mess will go places you don’t expect it to go.

Second, before the divorce, you never really thought about what was there’s and what was yours. I thought we liked adventure, but it was actually me just tagging along? All those punk albums you listened to through me. That way we prepare coffee in the morning? All these small insignificant things that we thought of as us, half of them were actually them, some were us, and some could only happen with us together. Most of that is then gone and needs to be readapted willingly after divorce.

Lastly, there is the massive void when they have left. Maybe high school breakups are the same here, but let’s ignore that. There’s trying to fill that void. That person was a part of your being, and now it’s just empty. They fit so well, regardless if the whole relationship was toxic or not.

So now let’s apply this to America, looking from the perspective of a person who is not from America, and specifically as a Canadian who lives in Japan (because that is me).

First, the hopefully obvious needs to be said: no hate to any Americans (love my American friends and many of whom I consider to be my super friends are American). Pondering divorcing America doesn’t mean you can’t share nachos with Steve from San Antonio, America on Sundays. We all know Steve is a stand up guy, and probably better than we are. Hopefully he enjoys nacho Sundays with his Canadian buddy as much as we do.

Perhaps less obvious, no hate even to American decisions, at least specific to the context with what I am writing here. In the divorce metaphor, America has decided to change who they are, and that is their right. We can go along with it and try to find a way to make it work, or we can go for divorce. That is our decision and our right. Everyone has a choice. Viva freedom.

The first thing in divorcing America, is the realization about how many things are American. Anything that is normal is American. Our operating systems on our phones and computers are American. Our streaming services are American. So so much of the music and movies that we listen to and watch are American. While this is all American, it has never been thought of as such before, for it was is. As I’ve always said, Seattle is closer to Vancouver, and more culturally similar than Toronto. I’ve been to Seattle, I haven’t been to Toronto. However now, Seattle is in America, and Toronto is in Not America. (Please note I can only compare my perceptions of things when I still lived in Canada, so things may have moved on from 2005, even if I did not.)

Perhaps even before 2005, famously the most popular show on the CBC in Canada was reruns of the Simpsons. Perhaps Hockey Night in Canada was also up there, I forget now. However both are part of an identity. In elementary school after an episode of the Simpsons aired on television, we would all reference it and job about it the next day. Through divorcing America, it no longer becomes ours. It’s weird. The things that are distinctly Canadian (defined as normal to me, but not normal to an America) were not normal, but unique. Two different shades of identity.

All these cultural things, all these technological things, all of them just were normal, but that by definition made them American. So now if you look at current the changes of the American psyche, and if you decide divorce is the best option, ignoring the economic and security aspect, the void that it leaves is humongous. Once realizing what they have been for us, it’s scary to imagine something without it, and how we will have to grow to empower ourselves to make it work. Do we watch British TV now? Listen to French music?

There are also second thoughts in divorce. What if divorce is too harsh? Surely they’ll change in a few years? Surely this is just a phase? But what are the risks of believing that? Sure, they change in four years, but then in another four years it’s the same old thing. Do we have to uproot our entire lives every four years for the collective temper tantrums of a nation? They are not us, and it is their problem to fix. We can wish them the best, but surely we do not want them to drag us down with them. We need to employ some self-care, and ensure that we empower ourselves to be who we want to be. Maybe they’re giving us that chance to do that now? Maybe what we will fill this void with is something better than what was before?

Divorce is scary, and before you pull the trigger to do so, it feels like a fever dream. However, what I have learned personally is that once you pull the trigger, it is not magically over, and it feels like you have to pull that trigger over and over again every day, and it does not get easier with every pull, but if anything harder and more painful, leaving more scars, but you continue to do it because you are sure in your heart that you are worth it and that there is a better life out there.

So do we, the non-Americans of the world, divorce America? Do we quietly work towards it, hoping they don’t notice, so that we can do it in one swift motion when we’ve made ourselves empowered enough? Have that apartment secured on the other side of town first?

Or how can it have come to this? They are our normal! Why does it have to change? It was so nice before. It was so comfortable before. There was nothing wrong. This shall surely pass. Come on. This is natural. This is what we are.

As merely a mental exercise, I sometimes think about divorcing from America. It would create a huge fucking void though. What if Fugazi end their hiatus? I wanted to watch Bill Burr’s new special for fuck’s sake. I want to have a computer and phone with an operating system. Maybe an old Japanese phone? I do like British humor though, so maybe it’s not all bad.

So many American things are awesome though, thinking about it.

To preface, I try to always make sure I am writing about me and not you (even if I use the proverbial you or the proverbial we). Any opinions I am not prescribing onto others. I do not talk of any masses, or at least I try not to. I am talking about little old me.

I often feel that a lot of pop-science words and concepts make simple things cloudy. For example, tricks to get your serotonin up, or figure out what you need to do to have more dopamine. Or perhaps what is causing dopamine, so that I can be careful about, because dopamine after dinner isn’t good. For me, this is clouding things with pop-science. It is much easier for me to say that I feel good after I run. I am more motivated when my room is clean. Being nice to people makes me feel good about life. Simple simple things. No need for naming chemical reactions that go off in my brain the same time that I do them.

So there’s needlessly complicating, but with pop-science stuff, there is also (to me) concepts hiding other potential truths. I am not a man of metaphysics I don’t think, but with wording like controlling your midocondriates, (to me) it infers a causal relationship. If our phase neutrons are of X value, then we will feel Y. As opposed to Y being the cause and the raise in phase neutrons being the effect. Maybe artificially raising X makes us sense a bitter emptiness of life that is a phantom in itself because it is akin to Y, but ultimately not? What if there is Z? What if Z does both AND MORE? I think saying things make you feel warm and fuzzy inside doesn’t hide away these possibilities, and saying that you need a dopamine rush does. To me.

Z was conspicuously, but secretly the soul in the last paragraph, but it can also just be anything not individualized. Family, friends, society, etc. If I’m home all day, I feel better when I walk around an area with lots of people. It’s nice being close to people? Evolutionary predisposition to those of similar species to increase levels of picobitters in the duodenum? I prefer the former.

Lastly, all of it seems to be saying to me that we don’t know ourselves, and we need some grifter to tell us how to know ourselves. I don’t need a pop-psychologist Canadian grifter to tell me cleaning my room is good for me. I know that already. I know water is good (not too much). I know walking is good (I guess not too much?). I know leafy greens are good (except the ones that are bad, and probably not too much as well). I know dancing is fun (there is no too much for dancing).

What I’m trying to say is that for my run this morning, it was the first time in a long time I set an attainable goal for myself, made the attainable goal for myself, at a speed faster than I expected, and it made me feel like a million bucks, like a real super star just being on top of the world. And then I thought of grifters and science words, and then I said “pwah”.

I will run again tomorrow with the same goal, and with motivation to make that goal.

a quick edit: Just in case it is not clear, I am not in any way talking about people’s experience with mental illness, nor am I putting forth something that is anti-medicine.

I haven’t read them all. By that I mean I haven’t read War and Peace. I think I’ve read the first 50 pages a million times or so, and the first 100 pages two or three times. I don’t read much these days due to unlimited short form videos turning my brain to mush, but I do dream of reading it. What would my unborn son think if he saw this on my bookshelf and knew I hadn’t read it but meant to. He would say “man up dad”. Or he would internalize that it’s okay to say you want to do something, but just do nothing instead. The horror.

Anna Karenina has to be the greatest novel of all time, right? I had thought the Brothers Karamazov was an all encompassing treatise on the human condition, but no! Does it touch love in this way? The core of Levin’s plight is what it means to be human? I have two pages on this book on my wall, framed. A cheap frame, but effort was involved nonetheless.

Crime and Punishment as I mentioned makes you want to kill yourself for 200 pages. This is the original Final Fantasy XIII’s “it gets good after 20 hours”. They’re not a bad 200 pages. Just man… It feels like a very different story at the end, and I guess if I looked it up, it may say it was published in bits and perhaps over a long period of time. The man talking about his daughter, about how he ruined his family… was rough.

The Brothers Karamazov has the Spanish Inquisition chapter and the chapter where Ivan talks to the devil. Two very powerful chapters. Each brother took on a characteristic of man to me (I’m not sure if that’s the consensus, I forgot what the wikipedia page said) and the bastard is man, shit-stained and all. This has to be the second greatest novel ever.

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Rosshalde is my first early Hesse book. The child’s descent into sickness is brilliant.

The Magus (barely seen) is a book I hope and pray never gets found by the douchebags, because I fear they would love it. That would be more painful than when some Gen Z Tiktoker called Pinkerton “Incel bullshit”. Leave The Magus alone. Stay away.

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I like Penguin’s clothbound series. Makes me feel like a big man.

This isn’t really an uplifting thought, and I want to stray away from negativity, but I think it can be a springboard to positivity.

Growing up, I heard about dehumanizing people: if you dehumanize people, it is easier for atrocities to be committed against them. I heard dehumanization was a tactic to get people to do these horrific things.

Then, a few years ago (or longer perhaps, I’m old and time is what it is), I heard that this was not true, and that people who have atrocities commit against them for the most part are not dehumanized, but if anything super humanized. So we lovely human beings enjoy seeing humans “fuck around and find out”. We are not dehumanizing people who we feel get what coming to them. We are hyper-aware that they are human, and hyper-aware of how what is happening affects them, and we enjoy it, that look on their face and all that… is what was said. I’m not sure if it is true, or if it’s any more or less depressing than the idea of dehumanizing, but it is food for thought. Not at all dinner party, or anything like that though. Maybe online, with other people who are horribly depressing with their potentially deep thoughts.

So anyways, how can this be a springboard to positivity? I think it is perhaps an obvious cliched way, but I am not really sure what is obvious or cliched.

The thing is that we lovely humans should be aware of our horrible areas, and if we are aware them, and disgusted by them, then we can keep them in check. I think I always use the example of the alcoholic. An alcoholic is still an alcoholic if he or she has quit drinking. Because of their alcoholism, they have to approach alcohol a certain way, and perhaps constantly remind themselves that they need to be careful around it. I know very healthy people with depressive tendencies who are very open in saying that they shouldn’t do X because they worry it may put them in a bad headspace. So likewise, us humans with our vile tendencies should be aware that we may get into negative weird ways of thinking, and ensure that we don’t go on X to make us prone to such things.

So let us embrace the hideous imperfections we have, and build defenses against them to be the best possible humans ever.

Or something, I don’t know. Let’s just not be dicks by enjoying human failure, for fuck’s sake.

Do you ever disdain with love? I don’t want to give a preface for ordinary time.

I am having wine now.

I’ve contacted a lot of monthly mansion places for work. Short-term furnished apartments. Not for me. I work in HR and I set things up for people. I am the setter upper.

I’ve ignored phone calls that I think are from the driver teaching guy I inquired to a few days ago. I want him to teach me how to park in my driveway.

I had an inappropriate dream the last night, and the big issue here is that it wasn’t even fun. Just guilt ridden. I would like a guilt free inappropriate dream.

I put on the Policenauts record today. I listened to Side B more than A, but Side A is better.

With the snow this morning, I didn’t cycle to the store to buy breakfast for my wife, I walked. Both ways. In the snow. No hills though.

Crime and Punishment was delivered today. Clothbound classic. I like the book. The first 200 pages or so make you want to kill yourself though. Russian literature, eh? That Mountain Goats song references the book. You know, Love Love Love.

I drank a lot of tea. Most of it Earl Grey. Some of it decaffeinated. I’m sensitive to that after a certain time of day, and like a good night’s sleep.

I’m going for drinks with colleagues next week, and in my head I imagined we went to karaoke and I sang cool songs, and people thought I was putting on airs and then I got in a huff. Wowzers. After thinking that, I took a chill pill. And listened to some cool songs.

Denouement. Denouement.

Thus ends the first day of ordinary time.

Except a preface when the mood hits me. Summer is sometimes strong.

My wife is currently 7 months pregnant.

So I thought from when she was 6 months pregnant or so, that it would be the perfect time to start reading to our unborn son.

I bought a version of the Chronicles of Narnia that is hardcover, huge and has those pictures that are in the novels, but in color.

The pages are quite huge, and probably have four regular pages worth of words on them.

I read to my unborn son one page a day, usually at night time.

I put my hand on my wife’s tummy as I do, so I can feel our son when I am doing so.

I’m currently about a third of the way through the Magician’s Nephew, which is the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia chronologically, but the fifth book in the Chronicles of Narnia that CS Lewis wrote.

As my unborn son would be able to tell you, the first book is about the dawn of Narnia. Not to spoil anything, but it may involve the lost continent of Atlantis, but that also may just be a red herring, there to throw us off the scent. But as I say this, dear reader, I believe you know I am being a little silly. The mention of Atlantis did surprise me though. That may just be because I am old and forgot about it from my previous times with the book.

I don’t know if there is any meaning to any of this reading, and the last thing I would do is try to verify if there is or not, as that seems like a total waste of time. I hope the vibrations of my voice through my hand are felt and are calming. I hope my reading voice and the regular interval that I do it is soothing. Regardless of any of that, it makes me happy to do it. I think my wife likes it too.

When my unborn son is older (likely after he is born), I hope that he can form opinions on Narnia. Does he find the Calormen to present Muslims in an unfair light in a Horse and his Boy? What does he think of Digory, not Polly giving into temptation in the great hall? What lessons on faith in the underground in the Silver Chair are there, and are they relevant for today? Is CS Lewis being a misogynist in the Last Battle?

That’s for another day though. As I’ve mentioned dear reader, my son is not born yet, and I don’t want to be too unrealistic with my expectations for him.

As a man who shouldn’t be called young, I only have one concern about this. If my son tells me one day that he doesn’t want me read to him anymore, that is fine. The concern I have is that I lose interest in this. I start something with passion, and then get bored and stop. I make an excuse to not do it. May my reading not come out of passion, but out of dedication.

It is winter after all.

Please note, dear reader, that my refusal to reference the three most well known Narnia books, and to reference the four lesser known Narnia books was not on purpose, but that it is key to my soul. I have shown myself to you.

This is my new blog.

My last blog I believe was just called chestnutvinegar, which is an alias I use online so that the crazies don’t stalk me in real life.

The name of this blog is inspired from the short story (or novella perhaps) by Hermann Hesse called Klingsor’s Last Summer. I flipped it on its head, and made a last summer become a first winter.

I haven’t read it in quite a while (despite having bought a physical copy of the book last year), but to summarize, it is about a painter’s last summer alive. The painter is engulfed in passion and spontaneity for life and love and all that jazz. He dies. A similar thing I have heard about is a “Dance of Death”. I’ve heard about that from 1980’s DC band Rites of Spring, but I think it’s from something much older than that.

In youth, there is something so attractive about frantic undefinable self-destructive passion for life. I first read Klingsor’s Last Summer on my Amazon Kindle in a Saezeriya drinking chilled red wine alone, eating salad with little shrimps and Cobb salad dressing. I felt self-destructive passion in my own way at that time.

But then something changes.

Perhaps you pull a Klingsor and die, so nothing really changes except that you die.

Or perhaps you don’t and you live, and you did not self-destruct and you continued to live after the story is over.

This to me is Klingsor’s First Winter. If summer is spontaneity, then winter is ordinary. When Klingslor’s Last Summer failed to burn out life, Klingsor’s First Winter begins.

As you may know, I am still alive (as of this writing).

So the idea was perhaps to document that.

I don’t mean to be a slave to ideas though. I’m drinking red wine as I write this. But it is true to say there is nothing desperate about the wine I’m drinking, if that makes sense. It’s calculated. It’s part of a budget.

It just is what it is, and we best not think too too much. Don’t want to go crazy about it or anything. Just felt I better explain the name of the blog, because it may not roll off the tongue for some.