Sorry, Jesus!

Sorry, Jesus!
I still love you
I still respect you but
You are no longer
The only one

I cannot keep
Other wise and loving ones
Out of my heart any longer
Because it only makes me
Feel I am not true to myself

Sorry, Yahweh!
I can no longer love you
Curse me if you want
But it only proves
You are not pure love

Bye-bye, Jesus!
Bye-bye, Yahweh!

You are not my Lords any more.
This is my last prayer.

Amen!

-End of Transmission-

There is Allah's intelligent design behind my idiocy

I love to destroy and then rebuild my identity time to time. Now I identify myself as a working class househusband. More as a garbage collector than a writer. Many well-educated men see such an identity almost as a curse but I am happy to take it. It broadens my consciousness.

I am rather timid but I am quite a daredevil at the same time. So I often change things radically without thinking much. Such a character is evey bosses' or every Japanese's nightmare and it is far from risk-free. I often feel I am a total idiot. I often depress myself so much that the world would be a better place if I ceased to exist.

But I am like this because Allah or Dharma or Whoever/whatever designed me like this. So I believe that blasphemy is refusal of accepting myself as it is.

Insha'Allah! I believe I am heading in the right direction. I am okay.

Good Needs Evil

God is supposed to be all good. But is it possible for good to exist without any bad? We cannot live without oxygen so it should be good. Yet, we are rarely aware of preciousness of the life-sustaining gas because it is abundant everywhere on the Earth. We would only be aware of how good oxygen is unless we face a danger of suffocation, which is bad. Good can only be good when there is something to compare to.

So an absolutely good God needs someone or something absolutely bad. Something huge always accompanies a huge shadow. This can explain why Satan is extremely powerful for the Christian or Muslim fundamentalists. Their God is so powerful that He sounds like a muscular commando. (Well, it may be a correct view of Yahweh because He is Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of Armies.) A God that powerfully good may not be able to exist without the backing of something excessively evil and powerful - the great Satan as the great God's enourmous shadow.

It is nothing new. It is what Carl G. Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist said. And the theory of "shadow" is a very important part of Jungian psychology. But it took me almost a decade until I realised that the mystery of my neurosis could be solved by this theory.

A Prayer for Judas Iscariot

Our Father who art in the Heaven, 

Please trun Your face and smile to Judas Iscariot!

He was a simple man who wanted to see

His superhero perform a miracle on the Cross

So great that everyone would believe in Him

And people talk about it until the end of time.

Our Father who art in the Heaven,

Please have a mercy on Judas Iscariot!

He was simply too ardent a fan of Jesus to foresee

 That his superhero would really die on the Cross.

So he thought, with all His superpower

The Cross would never hurt Jesus.

He was wrong.

But our Father who art in the Heaven,

Please remember whose plan it was

That Judas had to betray Jesus!

Isn't it Yours?

And didn't you create Judas just as

A disposable tool in that cruel plan?

Jesus suffered and died.

But so did Judas.

Our Father who art in the Heaven,

To Your feet pelase raise Judas Iscariot!

He was a simple man who wanted to see

His superhero perform a miracle on the Cross

So great that everyone would believe in Him

And people talk about it until the end of time.

I believe I would have felt the same way

If I had lived in that time.

Because I am only a simple man.

In Jesus' name, please hear my prayer!

Amen!

Long Sleek Haired... What Then?

It always surprises me. Time to time, the number of beautiful or cute women suddenly skyrockets around me. And most of them are my type - usually short-haired and somewhat boyish... Not everyone's favourite. Well, I am a married man and I don't expect any intimate relation with any of them. But it is indeed a pleasant scene.

That used to make me wonder a lot.

Now I know the reason. A swarm of cuties only appear in front of me when I am happy - when my conscious mind is getting along with my unconscious one. And I know that my unconscious mind is represented by a mischievous young woman (quite much like Midori in Norwegian Woodby Haruki Murakami) that appears in my dream. She is what Carl G. Jung calls anima and I call her "Luna".

All those cuties I see time to time are projection of my happy peaceful mind. Luna appears everywhere and tells me "Everything is fine."

And recently I feel that a different kind of content of my unconscious mind has been projected to the "outside" world. I find so many heads with sleek, silky long hair... I feel very weird. Those heads usually do not attract my attention because I am almost fetishistic to women's short hair. And those heads with beautiful hair are of men's... These men look like Asian rock stars... It makes me feel even more weird.

What, then, does my unconscious mind want to tell me by showing all those long-haired men? It might be related to the minor crisis I was in until a few days ago... Well, the answer will be unfolded gradually and naturally if I keep a good connection with my unconscious mind...

Death and a Broken Heart?

This (ด้วยรัก ความตาย และหัวใจสลาย) is the Thai title of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. I know the book tells you nothing about Norway or wood. Actually, the Thai titles tell you more about this book than the original title. But it makes me wonder a lot why the Thai translator changed the title.

The original title, as you may already know, comes from a song by the Beatles. Even though it was almost impossible to listen to the Beatles in China until the 1980s, the Chinese title is Norwegian Wood (挪威森林). So many readers in the People's Republic wondered why this title explained nothing about the content of the book...

Well, Thailand has always been an open country and she accepted tourists even right after the coup in 2006. There were so many American soldiers in Thailand during the war in Vietnam and I guess the Beatles were popular among young people in Bangkok or around the US military bases. But why did the Thai publisher of Murakami's classic work have to change its title? It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable...

And why does the cover of this Thai version of Norwegian Wood feature a picture that seems to be from a Shanghai advertisement of the 1930s? I guess the Thai publisher imitated a cover of a British version of this book, which also featured a Shanghai ad girl from 70 years ago... And I know this Chinese girl is supposed to be Naoko, the symbol of detachment from the world and death.

Actually, I checked the Thai title of Norwegian Wood because I wanted to tell a young Thai singer that she was like Midori in this book. Although it seems that many mature readers love Naoko, I don't like her at all. On the other hand, the wild-cattish Midori is the symbol of life and engagement to the world. She has always been be my most favourite character in this book.

Killing a Giant White Ant

I saw a very spooky dream last night. don't know what it means but I feel my unconscious mind wants to suggest something to me and it is important. If not, I would not bother to write it down, anyway...

I was in a bathtub. As I was fully clothed, I guess I was cleaning the bathroom. When I rose my eyes , I found a big white ant (not a termite) of the size of a big cockroach climbing on the outer wall of bathtub. It was coming to me. I felt a big fear that was irrational but familiar. I don't like any insect with large eyes.

So I decided to kill it with insecticide. My wife, who was crouching on the floor of that bathroom fully clothed, also noticed the unusually big white ant and told me to kill it. But she also told me to use the insecticide that was harmless to vertebrates. Maybe it was because we had a cat.

But I could not find a bottle of the right insecticide spray. So I told my seven-year-old son, who was in the living room, to bring me that bottle. However, as he was so slow and the gigantic ant was coming toward me, I grabbed a bottle of multi-purpose cleaner and sprayed it on the ant. I thought it contains surfactant and would choke the ant. Anyway, I was scared and wanted to get rid of that insect right away.

Sprayed the chemical, the ant caused an enormous amount of bubbles and grew bigger and bigger. It was so frightening but I could not do anything but watch.

Finally, the ant turned into a man, lying on the bathroom floor. He looked like somewhere in his mid-30s but I did not know who he was. When he regained (gained for the first time?) consciousness, I sprayed the cleaning fluid on his face. He protested but could not make himself understood. Anyway, I wanted to kill him.

I don't exactly know why I wanted to kill him even after he became a human. Perhaps I was not sure whether he really became a human. I would not feel not much guilt if I was killing a giant ant of the size of a human. But I did feel guilt of killing. Yet I continued spraying the chemical cleaner on his face. I also felt that the cleaner would kill an ant but not a human.

When he fell unconscious again, I stopped spraying on him. I covered his body though I was not sure whether he was dead or alive, then I left the bathroom. I had to go somewhere and was in a hurry. I worried that it would be troublesome if the police found the ant-man's corpse but I had to leave home, anyway....

Then the dream ended.

After waking up, I pondered about this dream. I am still pondering while I write this. Some words have popped up in my mind so far. The word list includes "collective", "unconscious", "mindless", "automaton" and so on. Was my killing of the ant was some kind of egocide (killing of the false part of my self)? I don't know. But I am sure that this dream at least solved one of my lingering problems; now I can add something to this blog. (I simply could not write anything even though I had a very strong desire to write something...)

The Fruitsaladist Manifesto

I am a Fruitsaladist. Well, I may be a fruitcake case but now I want to introduce myself as a Fruitsaladist. So please allow me to introduce what is Fruitsaladism...

------------------------------

I simply did not know how to answer when my son's Anglican school asks me about my family's religion. But now I can answer that we are Fruitsaladists!

Well, I can say I am a Christian because I was baptised by a Lutheran pastor at 17. But I now keep a lot distance from Christianity in the past decade because this Jesus religion is getting increasingly creepier. So now I rarely identify myself as a Christian. So I cannot answer to the school that my son is a Christian.

I do not feel like teaching my son about God or Jesus. After I found out an advertisement of a movie about the discovery of Noah's Ark (claimed by fundamentalist Christian scholars) in his school textbook, I started to talk a lot about evolution with him. (The goose bumps that the movie ad gave me is a good piece of evidence of evolution, isn't it?) I feel the need to protect him the creeping wave of fundamentalism.

Well, my wife is a Theravada Buddhist but rather agnostic because of rampant corruption among some Buddhist monks in her native country. She is very disappointed by Buddhism as an institutional religion. So we rarely talk about Buddhism at home.

But it does not mean that I am not religious. I am very religious and believe in the healing power of religion. I am simply very unhappy with many institutional religions' desire to monopolise truth. I know Jesus is my great teacher but so is Gautama Buddha. Buddhism helped me improve my depression a lot. (My depression is rooted in my father complex. So I could reject his control over me by converting myself to Christianity, a religion with almighty God. But I could not solve my father complex by simply replacing my biological father with the almighty Father in the Heaven! So I had to kill God to free myself.)

I know I can tap into the healing power of other time-tested religions. I believe that the goal of every religion (at least in the modern/postmodern context) is to bring peace among people. But a religion does not fit all unlike a free size T shirt. Everyone has a different spiritual need and the right to explore more than one tradition to find the right solution for himself.

I guess many intelligent people of the world today feel the same way. Although they do not like institutional religions or do not want to subscribe to particular religion, they feel religion could bring them peace of mind.

Here I would like to introduce the idea of Fruitsaladism. It is a mixture of any religious or philosophical ideas and practices for the peace of mind. I am not going to provide you with the only right recipe. There can be as many recipes as the number of Fruitsaladists in the world. Each spiritually eclectic person can propose his/her own recipe and share with others.

So Fruitsaladism will not build a strong institution. But I think it is nice to make a loose network of the world's Fruitsaladists to share our experiences of personal spiritual journeys with each other.

Seems Silly But Take It Serious!

I felt those TV dramas and movies silly and did not watch them. The main female characters were not my type of girls, anyway. But I still somehow remember those...

It was when I was in a high school and chasing after a cute boyish girl who was not interested in me at all. But I was just happy to have someone to drive me crazy. So it has been more than 20 years since then.

There were quite a lot Japanese teen movies in 1980s that high schools were taken over by some evil organisations. Rebellious students were captured by the teachers controlled by bad guys with supernatural powers and tortured in dungeons. But some beautiful girls (usually in navy blue sailor suits and dragging extremely long pleated skirts) heroically fought to set the schools free!

Those movies successfully captured the hearts of Japanese teen. My classmates were crazy about those shows and often imitated their favourite scenes. But I simply could not understand what the evil organisation wanted to do by taking over one high school? It seemed ridiculous.

But when some of those movies were remade in the past few years, I could understand why the Japanese teens welcomed those shows so enthusiastically. By then, I had struggled for more than a decade with the traumatic memories of my abusive primary school teachers. Looking back, I could feel as if my primary and junior high schools had been indeed taken over by some evil organisations!

Now I understand why my classmates loved those shows. They also felt as if their primary and junior high schools had been controlled by evil guys. Between 1970s and the early 1990s, Japanese teachers were obsessed with how to manage or control students. Students were treated as if they had been factory products. They imposed grossly outdated and harsh school rules and punished the offenders relentlessly with fists and wooden swords. I also used to see a delinquent kid with black eyes and bruises on his face and/or in a blood-stained shirt time to time at my junior high school. Anyway, many schools were frightening places in 1970s and 80s in Japan...

Perhaps I am rather a lucky one even though I am still struggling with school trauma. I can work and support myself now. But there are so many former Japanese students, now in their 30s and 40s, who have withdrawn into their rooms and refused to contact anyone. Many of them have refused any contact even with their family members for many years, even more than a decade...
Remembering those shows, I now feel how pop culture is a mirror that reflects the shadow of the society. We cannot take that lightly...

But so is everyone's.

Whew! My company recently hired a new writer (after half a year) and it has lightened my workload a lot. It lightened my heart up so much even before the arrival of new colleague that I could read more than 1,200 pages last month. I felt so good!

But things has gone quite strange last week.

I first found that my reading significantly slowed down. Unexplainable fear built up in my heart. Then I got irritated so easily, thinking a lot about my primary school teachers' full-blown abuses. Uh-oh, these were signs of another depression episode. Then by Thursday, I started to feel a lot of energy draining out of me. By Friday, I hoped my life be short and I was aware that I was depressed again.

Well, I might have made my depression prophecy come true by labelling my slower reading speed, fear and irritability as signs of depression...

When my efficiency drops due to exhaustion, I tend to think about what my primary school teachers did and said to me. Although it has already been 26 years since I left the school that was more like a boot camp or a religious cult's extremely long seminar than a grade school, I still feel I am still under the control of that school's violently abusive teachers.

Over and over again, they reminded me that I was the most sinful person in the world. Over and over again, they told me that I did not understand how much they and my classmates hated me. Over and over again, I was labelled as the source of all evil, who was responsible for the bloody civil war in Cambodia and the horrifying famine in Ethiopia. Over and over again, they destroyed my identity as a Japanese national and a human being... (That is the reason why I emigrated from Japan.) I was like Damien (a devilish boy with a sign of 666 on his head in a 1976 movie The Omen). In addition, they labelled me as a mentally retarded and physically handicapped child. They even said that I should be thrown into a special facility on a mountain so that I, an eyesore, would not disturb others but would die quietly.

All these things were said by Japanese public servants, who had sworn their allegiance to the Japanese Constitution that guarantees all the human beings' dignity.

Anyway, I was supposed to have an extremely evil mind that would contaminate the entire school and eventually the whole world. Everyday was for me the day of a denunciation meeting led by a teacher and all my classmates. When I first saw a film of the Cultural Revolution of China, I cried a lot because the scene was so similar to my primary school classroom!

What did I do? Did I constantly beat classmates? Did I steal other students' things? Did I try to burn the school down? NO!

I was just a feeble kid, who could not run fast and often forgot turning my homework on time. I was not a bully but constantly bullied five years out of six. Those teachers allowed the bullies to do anything to me but severely punished me when I stroke them back. One of them even reported to my mother that I loved streaking when my arch enemy stripped me down and beat up so I ran all around in the school naked, crying loud! (Their logic is that if I had not been there, there would have been no bullying! So they wanted me, not the violent bullies, to disappear.)

I don't know what made my teachers to label me evil. But I feel I was an unpleasant kid for a teacher to have as a student. I was exposed to information from overseas as my father was a seafarer. I wore a more urban hairstyle. I did not look like a Japanese (so Tokyo cops often stopped me while I was taking a walk at night in my 20s). And I was sick and feeble so I could not run fast, i.e. I would be useless in the next war. (I don't know why but the teachers always talked about the next war even though it is illegal for Japan to fight any war.) I guess I was simply an eyesore.

But because of that I have always had to face the evil inside of me. I have always imagined it as an abyss that if someone dropped, he would not reach the bottom in thousands of years. I imagined of me falling in the abyss, die while falling and continue falling even after I turn into skeletons and then into dust. It is indeed a chilling image. But I felt I deserved it because I was evil, anyway.

However, it is crystal clear to my intellectual side that my teachers were insane. I know it is immoral to find the source of all evil in a feeble, horrified kid who repeated petty misdeeds such as forgetting his painting set for an art class. It is indeed illegal and unethical to beat a student with a bamboo sword for such a small mistake. Above all, physical punishment of any kind was/is illegal in Japan. I also think it is unethical that the teachers carry weapons such as bamboo or wooden swords in a school so that they can beat students for any possible reasons (such as looking bored or unhappy). Being a champion of morality while ignoring laws is nothing but immoral and unethical.

I know my teachers were crazy. Even though they said I was evil, now I know they were the evil ones. So I am angry. (I thought I was evil so I deserved the teachers' all those punishments until I was 18 when I found out that any physical punishment was prohibited by a then 30-year-old national legislation in Japan.)

But my soul is still frightened. My soul is still crying under the crushing weight of guilt. My soul is still trying to take personal responsibility for what is happening in Sudan or Iraq...

It caused a big struggle in my heart in last few days. Even though I did not want to label myself a victim, even though many (including some psychiatrists) had told me to forget and grow up, I peeled off all the evil labels on me and put them back to the teachers. And I imagined about all those teachers taken to a court of law as defendants of a criminal case. I let my anger explode so that I could quit being the source of all evil.

I feel good this morning. I guess I have successfully rejected the evil long imagined in my heart.... From now on, I am going to take responsibility only for the things I am really responsible. Well, I know it does not waive me from my share of collective responsibilities (such as environmental pollution or awareness of human rights) that everyone has to bear, though....

Still, I know some part of me (the Ego?) is evil. But so is everyone's.

My Will

After I die
Please go and find
A cardboard box and
A small can of baby formula.

After I die
Please place my body
In the cardboard box and
Burn it into fine ash.

After you cremate my body
Please put the ash in the can.

After I die
Please don't buy
Any piece of land for my tomb.
I don't want to be weighed by
A boring tombstone for years to go.

But please do remember to
Take the can with my ash
To a windy place on a windy day
So that I can fly into the air
So that I can travel freely
And reincarnate into many different things.

And please do remember to
Recycle that can of baby formula...

I hope I can live as long as God, Tao, Dharma or
Whoever/Whatever permits
But I feel it is useful to remember
That my body will die someday...

A Fat Angel

I am a fat angel sent to you
By yourself
So that you can realise that
You are actually a goddess
Glorious and victorious.

I cannot fly but I don't care.
I have no burden to carry
So I can walk freely.
I cannot fly and it has reason.
I am here and now with you
To teach you how to fly
With your soles touching the ground.

I am here and now with you
So that you can put down all the burden
Which you've believed would allow you fly
But actually only drags you down.

You can fly freely,
Only if you put down all the burden
And set free the goddess glorious and victorious
Who resides deep within you and
Who is actually yourself.

I am a fat angel sent to you
By yourself
So that you can free yourself
So that your mind can fly.

The Dawn Train

Even if a leaf withers in the end, the world would never change.
Even if a flower opens in the beginning, the world would never change.
You'll have to forget him while in love, if he is destined to go.
My impoverished silent love is blown away in the wind.

Run, the Dawn Train! Go penetrating this darkness!
Go casting away my prolonged wondering
In the dawning sky!

Even after many thoughts, love would be nothing but love.
Even if the Sun set in the east, a life would be nothing but a life.
When old stories disappear one by one like stardusts
and the eastern sky gets brighter, I will see a vast plain.

Run, the Dawn Train! Go penetrating this darkness!
Go casting away my prolonged wondering in the dawning sky!

(This is my poor translation of a Korean song I loved when I was in the late teen. I recently happened to find the original words on the Net. It feel it very strange that I can still sing this song almost 20 years after I listened it last time. Even though it is a melancholic song, I love it because I can see some hope in the part "Go penetrating this darkness!" Since I felt some significance in my re-discovery of this song after 20 year, I translated so that I could share with all of you...)

새벽열차

마지막 잎이 진다고 해도 세상은 변하지 않으리
처음 한 꽃이 핀다고 해도 세상은 변하지 않으리
헤어져야할 사람이라면 사랑하면서 잊어야지
가난한 내 침묵의 사랑 바람 속으로 흩어져 가네

달려가자 새벽열차야 이 어둠 속을 빠져나가자
늙어버린 내 방황을 새벽 하늘 속에 버리고 가자

아무리 생각해도 사랑은 사랑일뿐이야
해가 동쪽으로 진다고 해도 인생은 인생일뿐이야
별빛같은 지난 얘기들 하나 둘씩 사라지고
동녁 하늘이 밝아오면 넓은 들판이 나타나겠지

달려가자 새벽열차야 이 어둠 속을 빠져나가자
늙어버린 내 방황을 새벽 하늘 속에 버리고 가자

(한돌 사/곡 / 신형원 노래 VOL2 / 1987)

Dear God

Dear God,

When I took down the rusted ancient armour and the sword
Which many people believe are yours
I became free.

When I demolished the ancient fortress mighty but choking
Which many people believe is yours
I became free.

When I allowed myself feeling with my own feelings
Not with the ones many people believe are yours
I became free.

Now I am open and happy,
A lot easier to relate myself to my neighbours
Than when I was armed with
What many people believe is yours.

I am happy here and now.
It is better than living in the hell on the earth
even if I can go to the Heaven after I die.

So I love you, God.
I can feel your love better than when I was trying to
Reach you through what many people believe is yours.

Burn me in the eternal fire of hell
If you find me blasphemous.
It is far better than
Living in the ever-lasting hell on the earth
By enforcing what many people believe is yours
To my neighbours.

I walked out from Apocalypse.
Now I live in peace and hope.

Sincerely yours,

Pete

Egoiste

I opened today a bottle of Chanel's EgoistePlatimum that my sister had given me. As a northerner living in a subtropical city, perfume is a kind of necessity to me...

Egoiste smells good. But I feel a bit awkward liking Egoiste.

I am a student of A Course In Miracle (ACIM), in which Ego is treated almost like Satan... It seems quite the same as a Christian liking a product called "Satanist".

Well, this perfume did not put me in a moral dilemma. It simply gave me a chuckle...

Anyway, my awkward feeling was just my perception. And it is empty. So I can transform such a harmless perception into anything like a good chuckle that relaxes me...

BTW, A Happy Lunar New Year of the Pig to everyone! Live long and Prosper!

A Cold Day?

Amy (this cat) looks very cold, doesn't she? Nah, she is just hiding from my son.
Actually, it is not cold at all in Hong Kong now... It may be the warmest winter I have ever experienced in this city... Although I miss ice-cold weather, it maybe a nightmare for Amy...

Sieg Heil in the toilet?

Fühler is alive...

in some of your toilets...

controlling everyday...

the flow of flush water...


But I guess running or working for this company named "Hitler" requires helluvalot nerves, anyway...

A Rare Gift

Photo: Website of Ministry of Commerce, China

"Thanks to my father, I was sent to prison when I was still a high school student. The five years of my life in jail was a special gift of fate and a rare experience for me from which I truly benefited."

Bo Xilai 薄熙來, the Minister of Commerce
of People's Republic of China

Quoted from South China Morning Post, 16th January 2007

It Doesn't Matter, Does It?

Yes, I said
I wanted you to be happy
Because I wanted to be happy.

But happy you can make
People around you happy.

And happy me can make
People around me happy.

Then almost infinite circles
Of happiness start to grow.

So I said I wanted you to be happy
Because I wanted everyone to be happy…
So for whom I said this
And for whom you said this
Doesn’t really matter, does it?

So I say again that I want you to be happy
So that you and I can take a part
In making this world a happier place.

His Majesty's Career

Tears of joy welled up in my eyes when I knew that His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand identifies himself also as a translator. I am so happy to know that I can have a same career as His Majesty’s.

I used to be a republican (not with a capital R) and wanted to make Japan into a republic. However, my feeling has changed a lot after knowing about the Maharacha of Thailand...

I first felt awkward about feeling enourmous respect to King Bhumibol welling out from my heart. I still do not know why. I simply cannot help myself from feeling this way.