Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Do I enjoy life?

I always dug how in the popular Mr. Men series, Mr. Fussy looks like Hitler, infact is more or less Hitler check it out:

And although I don't really recieve criticism via the blog or in any of my correspondance I don't really need to, because I have a greater critic than any reader s likely to prove to be, and one far more interested in myself - me.
And I sense now that in my warriors pilgrimage, my walkabout, my musha shugyo as it were I go from place to place and find fault and criticise and offer no real insight or solution like nothing in the world impresses me like I am Mr. Fussy if any of the Mr. Men, it poses the question of myself 'Am I just one of those miserable whining people?' And I say, I don't feel like one.
And perhaps there in lies the key that I don't really cover, my supreme confidence in myself... More illustrative is perhaps the work of Vagabond that has been highly influential in my life, you start out with Shinmen Takezo, who has deserted the losing Samurai army of the battle of Sekigahara, the Toyotomi Loyalists breaks through Tokugawa lines and is a hunted fugitive whose dreams of winning glory in war have ended.
Unable to return home due to soldiers waiting for him and never really welcomed by the locals he starts to beat his head against a rock until the wandering monk Takuan Soho puts him on his warriors pilgrimage and gives him the new name 'Musashi Miyamoto' and although I certainly didn't leave a hostile environment beating my head against a rock in Australia, the most illustrative scene is where Musashi reaches Kyoto to challenge the Yoshioka Kempo school that teach swordsmanship to the Ashikaga shogun's (now defunct) however the school is the highest esteemed in the land and Kyoto is the cultural capital of Japan and to Musashi 'the world'.
And he walks in and finds their style to be slow and sloppy and thinks to himself 'my god, its so slow, I can take them.' and yes its arrogant, but is it negative? its critical yes, maybe partially naive, but it isn't negative. I find it extremely positive. And in my travels the same goes for a lot of what I see.
Angkor Wat, Cinque Terra are probably the highlights of the man made world, thus far at least, but a lot of what I see is humanity at its most inane, its least exciting.
The meditaranian's composition is the same as any other sea in the world - salt water. People in China dream of winning the lottery to bring them out of their woes just the same as people in Turkey. Girls in Japan go to vodka bars dreaming of meeting a nice, wealthy, domesticated guy with unpushy parents to maybe date and marry just like girls in Australia, England, America and other countries.
Teenagers dress up as emo's and take their sad defiance to public places same in Rome's Piazza del Popolo as they stink up the front of Flinders st Station and QV steps Sydney.
The fact of the matter is this,

On average people are average.

And slightly less than half of us can take comfort in that.

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