The week began Sunday night with the news of a death of a child in a tragic drowning incident. A good friend had been running a course to introduce kids to their local beaches. What was a wonderful day properly organised with activities for kids and the participation of their parents and the local community became a nightmare for everyone as a young boy died despite the best efforts of professional life savers at the scene and the emergency services. This incident caused me to reflect very deeply about the preciousness of life as my heart went out to both the boys mother, who saw her dead child carried from the sea, and also those who felt responsible for him at that time. The pain to those who knew the child or had recently befriended him is almost unimaginable and I feel very upset when I think of a young life being cut short in this way.
The sea, especially in Okinawa, is an incredibly beautiful environment and treated with due respect it is our friend and ally but it is a powerful force of nature that we really know little about and can be dangerous. It is so tragic that good people were trying to help children to understand a little more of the wonder of the environment on their doorstep when a tragedy like this occured. Loss of life at sea has been a fact of life for the Okinawan people for centuries as many of their communities have relied on the bounty of the sea to sustain them in good times, as well as and bad times, and every community knew that the price for this was that occasionally lives of the brave folk who faced the sea to fish would be lost. This has always been the way things are between the sea and the people. Offerings were made to the gods of the sea to appease them and that was all communities could do.
In modern times we often forget how insignificant we are compared to something as huge and powerful as the ocean and yet we damage it and as a species mistreat it through environmental mismanagement and polution. Our unending demands for fish have destroyed food chains millions of years in the making and our desire to strip the land of its trees causes runoff of soil that is destroying coral reefs that can never be replaced. I have always had a very strong spiritual connection with the sea and I am in awe of it. I love it but I fear and respect it too. My feeling has not changed.
An innocent life has been lost in tragic circumstances but we can all learn from this and remind ourselves of our own fragile existence and relationship with the world we live in.
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On Monday my friends Wife gave birth to their first child. It was wonderful to share in the celebration of this event having witnessed months of growing excitement and spoken to him about what it means to be a Dad. Due to the wonders of technology pictures of the happy event dropped into my inbox and I was able to send my congratulations almost immediately to the exhausted parents after the 24 hours of hard work and in the case of his wife physical pain that is hard for any man to fully imagine.
It has been extremely good to share in his excitement and see him and his wife become closer in their new role as parents. Some of the things he said really touched me. He said his wife had become his hero after he witnessed her stoically coping with the pain. As men who have witnessed childbirth know it is a terrible thing to see the one you love in such pain even though this is often forgotten quickly as soon as the little person responsible pops out.
His excitement at the event has not abated and he told me he even showed the guy in a convenience store the photo of his baby he had on his phone. He described to me how he recently had held his son and looked into his eyes and felt an overwhelming feeling of love for him as he thought of all the years of parenthood ahead. It is moments like that remind us what life is really all about even if it is a struggle and things don’t always work out as planned.
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Most of us have to work for a living and I am no exception. This week I had my three monthly review in my job. This was an interesting experience as I have been honest about the fact that I am much better suited to working with older people than the very young children that I have been working with. I was happy to hear my closest working colleague comment that in his opinion I had been doing the job better than those who were convinced that this was the job they were most suited to (you hope those people never become your dentist!). So in a way my strategy of being absolutely honest shows strength of character but will no doubt do nothing for my wealth.
The world really isn’t ready for naked honesty and if everyone went to their bosses tomorrow and told them absolutely honestly how suitable they were to do their jobs or what the reasons were that they did their jobs then it is quite possible that society as we know it would collapse as everyone pursued their hearts desire and bosses faced the reality that their employees would rather be doing something else. Let’s face it most of us work for the money and it’s a bonus if you enjoy it or are good at what you do. If you are genuinely one of those people who don’t care whether you are paid at all, because you have such a deep and abiding love for what you do (I have met such people before), then good luck in the evolutionary ferment.
My boss surprised me by suggesting that construction work might be more suitable for me -he does a bit of stud walling and carpentry. Although, possibly more skilled in construction than he is, having extensively renovated several houses and landscaped gardens etc. in my time, becoming a construction worker had not really occured to me particularly as I am more inclined towards being a writer or University/College Lecturer than anything else. The bizarre thing is he is not the first boss i have had who has suggested this. Mind you, I have to say I have always looked good in a tool belt in a way that physically less well endowed guys, such as my boss, can never hope to emulate without a course of powerful steroids (I don’t even need the super deluxe model) so I will give the construction worker thing some thought (even if it is just to dress up in occasionally!). I am not certain what kind of work my boss is most suited to as it appears that he is still working that out (I don’t think he has ever been management material) but he did recently mention an interest in a team meeting that he might like to take that in hand and pursue it on his own.
I actually do like my job a lot but I am realistic about my own limitations and also my own work preferences. The job has not been mentally demanding in the least but it has been physically and emotionally demanding. So as of now I am tidying up my CV and looking for something else which in Japans unemployment capital could be a bit tricky. I am rich inside even though my bank balance is a bit lowuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. This was when I woke up and realised I had fallen asleep on the keyboard from shear exhaustion.
Written in August 2007
