Japan
Most people I know, including myself, generally associate Japan with weird things. And maybe not even any weird thing in particular, but just the idea of being weird. And recently I’ve become increasingly fascinated by the Japanese culture. I believe they’ve really challenged convention, more than a lot of alternative people here. I also enjoy how they’ve really welcomed technology into their lives. I’ve been reading Tim Rogers’s posts about Japan on kotaku.com, and they are very enlightening. It’s almost as if the Japanese are so in tune with technology that they are progressing to a scientifically better society. If you can scientifically decide what the optimal response is to certain life situations, then you have a conversation that is a paper-cutter conversation, which is one thing that Tim Rogers talks about in “Japan, It’s Not Funny Anymore.” I can’t really decide whether it is better or not to live this way, but it is certainly interesting. On the one hand, my science-loving self says it must be better if it’s optimized. And yet, the human side of me says that it is contradictory to life and freedom. And then, there are aspects of Japanese life that seem highly unordered, and no cookie cutter could produce the variety of cultural elements coming out of Japan. All I know is, I really want to go to Japan now, and see for myself what their lives are like.
I see Japan as a place where you could explore the possibilities of human existence. And no one would question you.
I’m curious if you ever made it to Japan. It probably won’t be what you expect.
Well, I’m actually going to Japan in August for a month. I can’t wait to see how Japan compares to my impressions of it.