I think it is important to be aware of the fact that it is almost a miracle, beyond our conceptual understanding, that each one of us is alive here and now. As far as I am concerned, I have come through many occasions where I might have been dead if something had gone wrong at those times. In my infancy, I lived in Osaka under heavy bombardment from frequent air raids. In my childhood, my family were very poor because my father could not get a good job after the war. Finally he got a job of school janitor and he finally got a small but secure income, but we remained very poor. My parents did everything to protect me and feed me. I can tell this only now. Those days I was complaining of the fact we were so poor that I could not get new clothes or shoes. After I grew up, I lived in foreign countries for a long time. Now I can tell my life was sustained by the people of the places I lived in. How could I have lived through now without those visible and invisible helping hands extended to me?
After World War II, many of the former air force pilots became civil aviation pilots. I once read an article on the newspaper on an interview with such a pilot. The reporter asked him if it was easier for him to fly a passenger flight than fly an air fighter. He said when he was on an air fighter, he had only to take care of the safety of his own life, but now he had the responsibility for the safety of hundreds of passengers. I have travelled on an airplane many times and realize that my life has been protected by the pilots and flight attendants each time. We hear or read the news of untimely deaths of many people in traffic accidents or by criminal acts. We never know what danger is in store as we live our daily life.
Geology and paleontology have proved that there have been many catastrophic events in the history of the earth in which more than 95 percent of earthly life went extinct due to change of the climate or collision with another heavenly body. The dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago when an asteroid or a comet fell on a part of Yucatan Peninsula in Central America. Mammals became the dominant form of life on earth only after that, and human beings grew up through severe struggle for survival with other animals. It is greatly due to uncountable chance occurrences that humans have become such a dominant figure on earth as now. We must be grateful to the succession of events that led to the advent and prosperity of human beings but must not say that we are the most advanced form of life and that we are entitled to rule other living beings on earth. Other living beings are equally entitled to enjoy their lives on this space ship called earth.
2007年10月13日土曜日
「またおいでのし」 Come Again!
今回は日本語で始めますが、私がおそらく３才くらいの頃、戦争中とはいえ、まだ余裕があったのだろうと思いますが、私は母と祖母に連れられて和歌山県の御坊に行きました。「行きました」と言っても、その時は「行った」という意識はなく、あとで母から聞いて、その時のことなんだ、と理解しただけなのですが、私が覚えているのはただ、その家の庭にミカンの木があったことと、祖母の母(ひいばあさん）の温かさです。そして分かれるときにひいばあさんが私に「またおいでのし」といってくれたのを確かに覚えています。子ども時代にもそれだけはしっかり覚えていて、時々母と話題にして懐かしんだものです。ひいばあさんがそれをどこで言ったのか、家を出ると気に入ったのか、汽車の窓ごしに言ってくれたのかは全く覚えていません。とにかくこの言葉は私にとっては人生の最初に私の記憶に刻まれた言葉になりました。母や祖母の記憶とも重なって、今でも私を温かく包んでくれます。自分が気がつかなくてもいろんな人のお陰で私は生かされているのだな、と思う証明にもなります。
It is hard to translate and explain the nuance of this short statement mentioned in Wakayama dialect, meaning "Come again." Probably I was 3 years old, or possibly 2 years old. It was during World War II, but I assume it was about late 1943 or early 1944 when there was still some calm and order in daily life. My mother and grandmother visited my grandmother's original home at Gobo in Wakayama. I don't remember anything about our visit except a nice big tangerine tree in the yard. When we were parting, my great grandmother said to me, "Mata oide noshi" in Wakayama dialect. Somehow it was imprinted in my memory so clearly that I sometimes remembered it in my childhood and talked about it with my mother.
I was never able to meet my great grandmother again but the word remains in my mind as an epitome of human warmth. I don't remember her face at all, but it reminds me of the fact that we are enabled to live, sustained by uncountable numbers of people as well as other beings, animate and inanimate, even if we are not aware of our indebtedness to them.
It is hard to translate and explain the nuance of this short statement mentioned in Wakayama dialect, meaning "Come again." Probably I was 3 years old, or possibly 2 years old. It was during World War II, but I assume it was about late 1943 or early 1944 when there was still some calm and order in daily life. My mother and grandmother visited my grandmother's original home at Gobo in Wakayama. I don't remember anything about our visit except a nice big tangerine tree in the yard. When we were parting, my great grandmother said to me, "Mata oide noshi" in Wakayama dialect. Somehow it was imprinted in my memory so clearly that I sometimes remembered it in my childhood and talked about it with my mother.
I was never able to meet my great grandmother again but the word remains in my mind as an epitome of human warmth. I don't remember her face at all, but it reminds me of the fact that we are enabled to live, sustained by uncountable numbers of people as well as other beings, animate and inanimate, even if we are not aware of our indebtedness to them.
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