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Picture Credits: Screengrab
Till Our Lives Burn Out
Chapter 5- Modi Vivendi
(Part 1b)
… It had to be that; it just had to; it couldn’t be anything else. That he hadn’t mentioned anything about them after steadily writing in this journal constituted a proof more elegant than if he’d written in plain romanji “I love you, Setsuna Meioh.”
He told her to continue on to the Blue Room while he popped into the kitchen to get her a snack. Back at her seat, Hotaru worried a bit over that stuff about ‘avoiding the authorities,’ but thought it probably had to do with him being a foreigner who could easily be kicked out of the country were he perceived as a troublemaker. Or it might be that once, he was not so good a person. By any way she knew to check, by any intuition she had about people, she felt he was one now. If he wasn’t one in the past, perhaps he suffered a few things that brought him around. She could relate to all of this. Her own existence wasn’t something she was comfortable with. There were times, especially lately, where it nearly horrified her. When he came back into the Blue Room carrying a snack for her and looking chipper, she was nearly overwhelmed by a sudden urge to rush up and hug him. She did not, of course. It would have been improper. She did wonder what became of “N,” and she was dying to know about “Thérèse.” Obviously, she could not ask him about any of that, not directly at least, but she might be able to find out indirectly. That would have to come later. For now, where she once saw a stranger, then a teacher, then a friend and mentor, she was starting to see something else now.
The rest of the day proceeded as usual. The Kittens arrived at 4:45 to pick her up. Hotaru took note that Kuryakin-san and Michiru-momma had developed a casual rapport. That evening during her review of the day’s history lesson, Hotaru realized that they were getting pretty close to the modern era, and the dawn of the 21st century. With that, she realized something else. They were getting close to the end of the term. It had snuck up on her a bit, because she was used to the Japanese Academic year, which ended in February with the new term beginning in April. But Kuryakin followed the American academic year, and that meant finals in the second week of December. There were still a few weeks to go, but this night was first time Hotaru had to think seriously about what the end of this special time as the lone genius student of a very gifted teacher meant to her. Her initial reaction: it saddened her very much. She was thinking a great deal about it when she went to bed that night. By 9:30, she finally fell into fitful slumber. About 10:30 she was wide awake again, and thirsty too. She went to the bathroom to get a drink of water. As she was coming back, she heard something she’d heard occasionally before: faint music coming from Setsuna-momma’s room. She’d never paid it much mind before, except this time the song sounded familiar. She crept to the slightly open door of Setsuna’s bedroom on all fours and listened. The song was in English and sung by a suave tenor-baritone voice, against a background of silky, ethereal strings.
When she peeked through the crack, she was able to see Setsuna, who was apparently dozing in and out, and as always could not help but reflect on how pretty she was, and how there was no time of the day or night when she wasn’t. Then she caught enough of the song to recall where she’d heard it before. It was one of the songs Kuryakin had played on the piano that night at the hospital. She made a mental note to ask him about it next time. From what she could make out, and translate back into Japanese, it was a love song. Where Kuryakin-sensei was concerned, the ledger of “he likes her” boxes was discarded. There was no doubt in her mind how he felt. Now there was only the matter how she felt about him. It was still a tricky thing. Setsuna acted very odd about her tutor; on the one hand, there moments where anyone could not but conclude she had a growing affection for him, possibly from day one. At other times, she was defensive? Indifferent? Angry? What was it? Thus, she wondered whether sitting and listening to love song as she was falling asleep could be counted on the “she likes him” side of things. The song ended, but then, after a few moments, started again from the beginning. ‘She must have the repeat on,’ thought Hotaru. She stayed and listened through two more iterations of the song, understanding a bit more of it, but halfway through the third time, Setsuna awoke with a start, and then sighed heavily. Hotaru crept quietly back to bed, and was finally tired enough to fall asleep quickly.
Setsuna was also doing some heavy thinking in the midst of falling asleep tonight. It was due to a problem so out of the blue that she was having trouble coming to grips with it. She was very upset, though she had hid it from her housemates, as she always did with personal matters, but that morning, Setsuna had a meeting with her mentoring professor to talk about next year’s junior thesis. During that meeting, he had made a not-very-subtle pass at her. Initially, she was so shocked she couldn’t grasp that it was happening. Once she did realize it, she more or less told him where to get off and quickly exited the situation as fast as she could. Later the professor had caught up to her and attempted to apologize for this gross violation of ethics, saying he really didn’t know what came over him. Her thoughts had wavered between conciliation and anger, but when she tried to say it was all right, she could not bring herself to lie. He was a youngish, single man, quite handsome in a bookish sort of way, and she liked him very much, as a teacher. She admired how smart he was, and his reputation as a comer in theoretical physics was known around the world. She’d had dinner with him in the university commissary more than once, but it was always on a professional basis. Possibly, he’d felt otherwise, though she could not once remember discussing anything other than her term papers or her plans for a Junior Thesis. Perhaps she had led him on without realizing it, but on the whole, this was as infuriating as it was inexplicable. How could she trust him now? In addition to being her mentoring professor, she had two classes with him. How could she know whether her sterling grades were the result of her own hard work and ability, or simply because her mentor had the hots for her? No matter how hard he tried to apologize and to assure her that she was a superb student, this was a Rubicon that, once crossed, could not be uncrossed. Even if she could trust that he’d been objective up to this point, how could she trust that he would be objective from now on, especially since she had, awkwardly but very firmly, rejected the advance? She had half a mind to write off the entire year, and take her classes again under a different mentor, which she was going to find in any case. This would be troubling enough to anyone, but the upshot for Setsuna Meioh was to remind of how complicated her situation was, and that she would never … “have anyone.”
This was driven home to her again when, a few hours later, the day became even more inexplicable, though in a much more positive way. In a dither about what to do over her mentor, she had taken a late lunch in the commissary and after she sat down with her meal, she saw Mamoru Chiba standing in line. After he got his meal, she flagged him down. Chiba knew that Setsuna went to this university, but had no idea what her schedule was, nor any intention to look her up. In their ‘civilian’ personae, the paths of the “Elite Outers” and the “Workaday Inners” –or their sage ‘protector’- did not often cross. She asked him what he was doing here, and found that he had taken a lucrative, short term, second job in K.O. University’s Research Hospital, from which he hoped to make enough money to buy Usagi –of course, Setsuna sighed inwardly- something very special for Christmas. It was his first day, and he’d been an hour early reporting for work, so he was stopping in for a bite to eat before his shift started. As he talked, she was struck by how handsome he looked today. He was still far too young to really make her think of who he was to become, but she nonetheless felt the old stirring in her heart at the thought of King Endymion, the one she, the lone and lonely Guardian of Time, “watched over from afar.” As he talked a bit more about Usagi’s Christmas present, she realized, though it might have something to do with her earlier problem with the professor, somehow Mamoru Chiba never looked so much like the noble man she knew he was going to become. ‘Alas,’ she thought, ‘there was no point, no future-quite literally, in these thoughts.’ She knew her place, and she did her duty by turning the discussion towards his destined love.
“How is Usagi these days?” she asked with sincerity.
“Very … Usagi-like,” Mamoru replied, not intending to be funny, but after a brief pause, they simultaneously chuckled. Then, as abruptly as they had met, the golden moment was over. Usagi –who had come all the way here after school to wish her beloved good luck on his first day at work- interrupted them, and cut short that very pleasant moment for Setsuna.
Now in her bed, ready for this troubling day to end, Setsuna sighed again, dabbed her eyes, - ‘why is there so little consolation in my life?’- and listened to the song one last time. Then she shut off her player, settled into her covers, and had nearly fallen asleep, but not before one more thing happened – the strangest of thing all, on this very confounding day: she fell asleep wishing Mister Kuryakin had called her tonight to talk about Hotaru.
‘Where had that come from?’
Chapter 5- Modi Vivendi
(Part 2a)
The next morning when Hotaru came down the stairs, she saw Haruka sitting in front of the TV. CNN-Japan was on. People were people, and the world was what it was, and it had been busy place while the Sailor Senshi slept: terrorist attacks in Indonesia, religious violence in Pakistan, ethnic violence in Africa, a minor earthquake in Southern Europe, celebrities performing all manner of silliness in a desperate quest for relevance, the sad, sorry ‘usual stuff.’ She sat next to Haruka, who looked at her, winked, and wrapped an arm around her. Michiru joined them on the couch a few minutes later, and then she heard the sounds of Setsuna deftly working at breakfast in the kitchen.
“Good morning, Setsuna-momma.”
“Good morning, Hotaru.”
It was the top of the hour. A growing bribery and kickback scandal in the Japanese parliament was the top story. Apparently, the corruption was very widespread and quite well hidden, until now, in part because it involved pay-offs to reporters. Worse, there was an embezzlement angle involving huge sums that had simply disappeared, and threatened to deprive some of the poorer prefectures of Japan of needed public funds. There was a near riot in Kochi City, the capital of Kochi prefecture when public employees and teachers heard rumors that their paychecks might bounce next payday. The Prime Minister, who was not implicated, was quoted as saying he would spare no effort to root out the corruption and recover the missing funds. Opposition figures felt this was a lot of talk and nothing else, and boasted that they would unseat the Prime Minister in the next election. Haruka –unusual for her- watched this with considerable interest, until Michiru asked what was on her mind.
“Oh,” she said offhandedly, “I just think it might be important to watch the news a bit more closely these days.”
Michiru “tksed” as the news anchor listed the government officials, business and media figures implicated. “The economy of our country always has been a rigid, good ol’ boys network,” she commented as a phrase she’d heard recently came to mind. “Webs of trust.”
“What?” asked Haruka.
“Oh, just something I remember Hotaru’s tutor saying when we talked at the Dolphinarium. This lack of ethics is going to cost a great deal in the area of trust.”
“Corruption in government officials is never a good thing,” Hotaru said, recalling one of her lectures. She was beginning to appreciate the meaning of ‘professionalism.’
Michiru stroked Hotaru’s hair, and said, “It’s still a little unusual for you to be this interested in the news, Haruka.”
“But don’t you think this news is a bit unusual? I mean the way they were able to bribe reporters, who make their living and their reputations by exposing such stuff? Government corruption is deplorable, but not unusual. We can tolerate some corruption, but when the watchers are bought off, who’s watching them? There have been some mildly troubling breakdowns in our institutions lately. Doesn’t take much to reach a critical mass, you know?”
“Haruka Tenoh, publicly conscious good citizen. I think I like it,” Michiru said, smiling at her.
“It’s not that. I just wonder,” said Haruka, “if we’re beginning to see the consequences of what Our Princess did in defeating Galaxia.”
Hotaru and Michiru both looked at Haruka.
“If so, we shall do as she says,” said Michiru thoughtfully, “and trust in the people that love their world.”
“And in our own love for it,” said Hotaru offhandedly. “We are not alone. None of us, anymore. We have each other.”
Setsuna had been silent the whole time. Now as they gathered around the table for breakfast, she too was struck by the general lack of ethical behavior she’d experienced lately. When they gathered for breakfast, she looked as if she had something she wanted to say. “It is my usual practice to keep personal matters to myself, but …,” she said hesitantly. Everyone looked at her. After a further pause, she told everyone what had happened with her mentoring professor. Hotaru didn’t quite understand the exact nature of “the pass” the professor had made at her, but didn’t think it wise to ask for clarification on a matter so discomfiting to Setsuna-momma. Haruka and Michiru both acknowledged the serious breach in conduct, and the obvious conflict of interest it generated, but then, surprisingly, advised Setsuna –a very strange feeling for them both- to play it by ear for a while. Of course, he had to go as her mentor, but it would be costly in both time and money to retake classes, and as long as her professor behaved himself from here on out, she shouldn’t be too concerned. Setsuna was equally surprised at the strength and peace of mind she drew from just talking it out with her “old friends.” She had been thinking “let it play out” herself.
After they cleared the table, Hotaru got Michiru alone for a moment and asked for specifics about what “making a pass” at someone meant. She understood it was a manner of expressing romantic, or at least erotic, interest in someone, but what she didn’t get was “what, exactly, did he do to Setsuna-momma?” It was not a laughing matter, but the seriousness with which Hotaru pressed her question made Michiru put her hand to her lips in amusement. Michiru told Hotaru she didn’t know; Setsuna had not told them after all, but then discoursed briefly on ways of making a pass. Hotaru couldn’t say it, but her curiosity was embedded in the context of what she was sure she knew about her tutor’s feelings. Michiru did say one thing that gave her hope, for want of a better way to put it, for her tutor’s chances should he ever “make a pass” at Setsuna.
“A lot of the time,” Michiru said in closing, “the goodness or badness of it depends on …well, whether the person on the receiving end is … let us say, receptive to the person making the pass. But in this case, Setsuna is rightly upset because her collegiate career is at the mercy of her mentor. He has a lot to say about her success as a college student. She wants him to neither punish nor favor her, but to be fair. And now she can’t trust him to do that.”
The discussion ended with Hotaru realizing how complicated a thing adulthood was; the morning ended with one further surprise. As they discussed their plans for the day, Setsuna casually mentioned she’d be late getting home tonight. Hotaru would need to do her worksheets and homework while the spending the day with Haruka and Michiru, since this was the Wednesday gap between her Tuesday and Thursday lessons with Kuryakin-san. Then Setsuna quietly suggested to Michiru that this would also give them a chance to see what Hotaru thought of Funabashi Academy. Michiru agreed, and said she’d clue Haruka in, and later they would both carefully ask Hotaru about it. Then Hotaru, wondering about all the whispering, interrupted and asked Setsuna why she wasn’t going to be home until late. Setsuna explained she was going to attend a lecture that evening. Hotaru thought nothing further of it, until she remembered Kuryakin mentioned he was giving a lecture at K.O. on Wednesday.
Which was today.
They all left the house together. Haruka, as per the usual practice, drove them down to the stop where Setsuna would catch the bus that took her to the Tokyo Bay Express Subway. The bus came into view (31 seconds early), and Setsuna got out. As she headed towards it, Hotaru called out “Setsuna-momma?”
“Yes, Hotaru?”
“Who’s giving the lecture you’re going to?” she asked, with a little smile on her face.
Setsuna was a bit taken aback, but then said smooth as silk, “Your tutor,” and boarded the bus. Hotaru watched the bus as Haruka drove them to Funabashi. Michiru happened to look back in time to see Hotaru eye her finger with a smile, then very deliberately lick it, and make a check mark in the air.
5d. Why the Beautiful is not the Good
Contrary to her hopes, it had been an interesting day for Setsuna Meioh. Her first class with the offending professor went off without a hitch. He never so much as looked at her. That did not necessarily mean things had gone well. Perhaps it was just her, but she certainly felt the tension upon entering the classroom. The second class she had with him was a one day a week seminar, two hours long, also on Wednesdays. Both times, she was careful to wait until there were plenty of other people in the room before entering. The same tension accompanied this class, and it was heightened because it was held in a smaller room, and had fewer students. He did occasionally glance at her but with no different a look than he had for any other student. When she left, she concluded this boded well.
Much later in the day Setsuna was standing by the bulletin board when Miyuki Mayamura saw her.
“Setsuna-san!”
“Miyuki-chan. How are you?”
“Very good. How are you these days?”
“I am well,” she lied, if only a little.
“I haven’t seen you in a while. There was something I needed to ask you. Do you think you’d be available to be a bridesmaid at my wedding?”
“Oh,” said Setsuna. “Possibly. When is it?”
“Well, we’ve finally set a date, and we’re going for mid-May.”
“I do not foresee any problem there. I would be most delighted,” Setsuna said sincerely. She’d had actually never been to a wedding in her life, much less been a part of the bride’s entourage.
“I wonder if I could prevail upon you to be …” the very outgoing and loquacious Miyuki was suddenly withdrawn and close mouthed.
“Yes?” said Setsuna.
“Would you be my maid of honor?”
“Oh,” said Setsuna, not quite realizing her friendship had meant that much to Miyuki. “It would be a great honor, but are you certain there is not someone more … um, worthy? Some family member or someone you have been friends with much longer?”
“I do have many friends, but somehow when I started really thinking about a wedding and all that goes with it, you came to mind first.”
“I … would be glad to,” she said, somewhat abashedly. “But should you change your mind, I would not be offended.”
“Oh no,” she said, “I won’t change my mind. You’re definitely who I want. I’m surprised and pleased that you are willing.”
“Oh, it will be my pleasure. Will I be the one to give the speech?”
“Oh, no, no,” she laughed. “It’ll honor enough just having you up there with me. My parents will have to shoulder that burden. I want it to be nothing but fun for you. Now, my mother is doing all the planning, so you don’t have to help out there. But I’ll be wearing my mother’s wedding dress, and I wonder if you could adjust it to fit me? We’ll pay you, of course.”
“Certainly.”
“And I’ll want you to be at both parties: first and second. Oh, and I’m going to throw the bouquet directly at you. Don’t hide and don’t drop it.”
“This is quite an honor,” Setsuna smiled, genuinely touched. “Thank you, Miyuki-chan.”
“Let’s see, there was something else. What was it?” The butter blond-haired woman looked deeply thoughtful for a moment. “Oh yes, how is that tutoring for Hotaru going?”
“Oh. It … seems to be going well,” said Setsuna, but her expression became very “stressed.”
“Is that a bad thing? You don’t look happy about it.”
“My apologies, Miyuki-chan. I have a great deal on my mind.”
Miyuki apparently thought her lapse into discomfiture had something to do with Kuryakin-san, and not her worries over other matters. For the moment, Setsuna allowed the conversation to continue under that misunderstanding.
“Setsuna-san, my advice to you was serious, as was my diagnosis of Hotaru. May I speak plainly?”
“Of course.”
“Y’know, I’ve been fascinated by you since I met you. First of all, I cherish your good will and friendship very much. I could’ve never gotten through that math course without your help. But also, you don’t … fit. My training is supposed to enable me to understand people, and you are not like any type that I’ve been taught in my classes. You seem so mature, and self-sufficient, and yet there is this part of you that seems, I don’t know … desperate? … tragic? … and calling out for help. It makes me want to help you in any way I can. I … like you more than I can say, and I would be very sorry to have given you bad advice or, in any way, caused you to take a course of action that brought you grief. Has Kuryakin-san done something wrong? Is he not doing a good job?”
“No. As a matter of fact,” Setsuna said with just a hint of a smile, “he’s been the very kind to Hotaru. And very good for her. I’ve never seen her happier.”
“Okay. Good,” Miyuki replied. “By the way, what are you doing here so late? Going to have dinner with your mentor again?”
Setsuna tensed up for a moment, then quieted herself, but not before Miyuki had caught it.
“No,” she said, firmly. “I’m staying to attend a lecture.”
“Ah, I don’t envy you physics majors. All the extra stuff you have to … Oh my God, he still has those things?”
Miyuki glanced at the bulletin board and saw a flyer for Kuryakin’s lecture with his picture on it.
“What?” asked Setsuna, as she turned to look at the board.
“Those side burns. Aren’t they hilarious?”
“Oh. Well, I suppose,” she said, looking at the picture on the flyer.
“‘A Beautiful Nation or a Good One?’ Sounds very … academic, doesn’t it?” Miyuki snerked, but then she noticed something. “Wait a minute, that’s tonight. Setsuna?” she asked with a tiny but suspicious smile. “You’re not going to this thing are you?”
Setsuna nodded, looking just a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t know you had an interest in history and politics.”
“I do have some interest in perspectives on history, yes.”
That was probably true, but Miyuki wasn’t buying it as the whole explanation.
“Still trying to puzzle him out, are you?” she asked, knowingly.
“Perhaps. Not unlike your attempts to puzzle me out,” Setsuna said airily.
‘That’s better,’ thought Miyuki. She considered it the highest of compliments to herself the way she was able to draw this occasionally dour woman into lighter conversation, and give her a break from whatever perpetually weighty matters she carried in her heart. So Setsuna was still acting strange over this tutor business. If Miyuki hadn’t had to meet her fiancé for dinner, it would have been fun to stay just to observe her. In fact, she thought, as she and Setsuna parted ways, it would almost be worth the fun of that to call her intended and beg off.
Setsuna grabbed a program and entered the auditorium at the appointed hour, and sat on the aisle, near the back, under the balcony where it was darkest. The auditorium was in a mid-sized room that seated about 400 people. It was usually used for small scale drama productions, and even had a narrow orchestra pit. The seats were elevated in echelon but the balcony over hung the last ten rows and the room should be big enough for her to hide in. She truly did not want him to see her. She was here to learn a little more about him, so she told herself, and did not want to put him on his guard. The stage lights came on to reveal five leather chairs behind a podium with a retractable step box. Kuryakin-san came onto the stage with Vice President Kishimura and a few other faculty members. He seemed a bit shy and quite deferential. He certainly towered above everyone nearby. He was chatting with Dr. Mori, a superbly intelligent woman in her late forties who taught history until she was appointed academic dean last year. They all sat down and he continued to talking with Professor Mori. He must have been telling her a funny story because she started laughing. Setsuna looked over the audience, and noticed that a considerable number of faculty –primarily in the humanities- were scattered throughout. In the first two rows, she saw President Anami, and several if not most of the members of faculty search committee. Strange. This lecture was a big deal for some reason. She took a look at the program. Under the title, there was an epigraph apropos the content of the lecture:
… And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins;
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.
–Rudyard Kipling
She took note that Kuryakin himself had translated it into Japanese, and did a pretty good job of doing so poetically. Then the lights dimmed, and VP Kishimura got up to introduce Kuryakin.
‘Ah, yes,’ Setsuna thought. ‘Kuryakin tutored Dr. Kishimura’s son. He was on the list of references.’
As the vice president began his introduction, Setsuna was surprised to hear her name whispered quietly.
“What are you doing here?” she said, with some exasperation to Miyuki who was working past her to sit down next to her.
“Oh,” she said smiling at Setsuna, “somehow this sounded like the fun place to be tonight. My goodness, it looks like the whole faculty search committee is here. What’s that about, I wonder.”
She could sense that Setsuna was very tense now. ‘Yes, this would be very fun.’
Kuryakin began:
“For the record, 201 centimeters.”
There were a few chuckles from the audience, after which he told a few self-effacing jokes. Then he got into the meat of the subject.
“I’ve been asked to talk to you tonight about whether ‘a beautiful nation’ to quote the slogan from your Prime Minister’s recent campaign, is the same thing as ‘a good one.’ By way of this, I first need to give you my view of what drives human history …”
The lecture proceeded apace, and Kuryakin made the following assertions:
1) the driving force of history is collective human passion, especially the fear of mortality. But it is not the fear of individual death so much as the fear of the death of the race / tribe. Young men, especially, are perfectly willing to die, if they know that by their deaths their race, their language, their culture will continue. It has been the cause of nearly all wars, and will continue to be so.
2) this fear of ethnic death is a legitimate fear. How many peoples have gone into the dustbins of history without leaving so much as a pottery shard or the slightest trace of their language? What of the Sarmatians, the Lusitani, the Dalmatians, and such, peoples history had barely heard of and who had left little trace once they passed into oblivion. He then recounted several periods in history where “the great extinction of peoples” occurred, including the end of the Bronze Age, the epigonoi of Alexander the Great, the aftermath of the Fall of Rome, and even in the present day, where according to the anthropologists, a language dies out every two weeks because the numbers of those who speak it dwindle and die out; by the end of 21st century two thirds of the languages currently on this earth will be gone. He also drew on examples from literature to make his case, with special focus on the last part of the Beowulf saga, where the old woman laments the death of the hero because it means no one is left to protect the tribe, and they will now pass into oblivion.
3) He then connected this to present day Japan. “Demography is destiny,” he said. “The future belongs to those who show up for it.” Japan has entered upon a period of demographic implosion, and downward spiral in which to maintain the pensions and the social safety net people had to work more, and put off having children, which meant that there would be fewer workers to support a population where the median age keeps rising. The downward spiral gets increasingly harder to pull out of, until you reach a point of no return. Japan, which entered negative birth to death ratio in 2003, was very close to that point.
4) At that point, desperation sets in; desperation is the father of fascism, and other solutions heretofore considered ‘extreme.’ Unexpectedly intriguing was the way he connected all this to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, in which he agreed with a recent poll that, in spite of the fact it was not ‘good literature,’ it was the most profound novel of the 20th century. It describes a world and a kingdom that is a shell of its former self. The army that sets forth against the Black Gate is smaller than the vanguard of Gondor in its prime. Mordor encroaches because the dwindling population in realms of men cannot man their borders. Juxtaposed against this are the immortal elves, who serve as a foil to help us understand what happens “when immortality is not enough.” But that, he said, was another story.
5) His final point was a brief discourse on why the beautiful was not the good. Evil men can appreciate beauty. Hitler loved not only Wagner but Beethoven. The Japanese affinity for the fleeting beauty of nature was wonderful in a way, but not in a moral one. Nature is beautiful, but it is also cruel. Even the more recondite “inner” beauty of nature, he stated, cannot be equated with the good, for it was those few elites who understand that inner beauty the best, the great physicists, who created the atomic weapons that destroyed “those two cities to the southwest.”
He ended the lecture part thusly:
“So then, my prescription for the coming decades: prepare yourself. There’s a good deal of tragedy ahead. And how do you do that? Start with a few basic things. This quote is from, of all things, one of your animated films …”
There were some jaundiced stares from the audience.
“You cannot so much as live without your daily bread. Truth changes to lies when it leaves your lips. Virtue changes to evil when it leaves your hands. What you see as good may not be good as God sees it. What can any of you do but pray? Prayer is a small thing, but it is everything. There is nothing nobler than prayer. There is nothing more humble.
That is from the fictional ‘Book of Dao,’ in the animated film The Wings of Honneamise, and I am not out of sympathy with that via negativa point of view. To that, I would add this more positive quote from the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
And, finally, to that I would add, there is nothing beautiful about dressing someone’s bedsores or cleaning out a bedpan. But it is a good thing to do. It is the kind thing to do. Kindness is the only thing not lost to the streams of time. Kindness is eternal. It’s the only thing that is. Thank you for your attention tonight.”
The lecture was wide ranging and laced with authoritative quotes from source material. Setsuna expected the erudition, and was not disappointed, though he had, in the best of pedagogical fashion, made the lecture easily understandable for anyone present. What she didn’t expect was how funny he was, in spite of the weighty topic. He had sprinkled the lecture with puns on the Japanese language ...
(Word Limit Reached)
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