Chasing Sunshine, on the Skin and in the Heart
Waking up in an Internet café in Nagano after a hasty overnight stay to avoid the downpours, I was refreshed in excitement as I went back onto the streets at 6am. The clear blue sky offered not a trace of clouds, and the empty morning streets were completely devoid of any moistness. Breathing in the crisp (and cold…I can see my breath!) morning air, the traveler would not have known that incessant rain made the town as bleak as it can possibly be just a few hours ago.
An adventurous traveler can be offered nothing more exciting than fine weather. As long as the weather does not slow him down, the traveler seems to have the entire world to his own. As the sun introduced a bit of warmness to the chilly morning air, passions and energy are reignited, and the traveler just cannot wait to run through the streets, putting his full-packed day of travel planning into execution mode.
It is just too unfortunate that everyone who wants to travel has to suppress the urge to do so during weekdays. Building up both the financial capital and the yearning for hitting the road after sitting monotonously in the office for days in a row, the traveler has to let it come out on the weekend. Eagerly leaving behind the concrete jungle filled with bad memories of work and social awkwardness, he temporarily leaves behind his regular life and for once, just become an observer to the daily lives of everyone else in a faraway land.
Surely, I must not be the only one to have that urge of getting away from it all, even if it can only be for a short while. Of course, hitting the road on a slow train to nowhere may not be the favorite activity of everyone out there, but everyone can find a way to create an alternate life to their monotonous working self (especially true for all the salary-men), to make themselves feel much more worthy than just another grunt selling their souls for social status and economic stability.
For instance, I have been rather surprised to meet a few salary-men in Tokyo who are DJ-ing as a hobby outside of work. The individualistic “putting your own style out there for the public” attitude so essential for a successful DJ cannot be any further away from the “shut up and unquestioningly follow the orders from above” attitude demanded from a successful salary-men on the way up in big corporations.
No matter how the existing system tries to suppress it, individuality is something inherently held by every human being. If the individuality cannot be displayed at work, it has to be shown elsewhere. For me, it is widely displayed for the public in my blog as the others chose to show uniqueness for the general public through DJ-ing. Individuality is like a guerrilla fighter successfully battling against the overwhelming system of mass organizational conformity: it can run and hide, but cannot be sought out and taken out.
Moreover, the individual will tolerate his or her individuality to be ruthlessly suppressed and trampled upon by the conformist system only when the socio-economic benefits of doing so outweighs the mental costs of limiting the individuality to an absolute minority of occasions in this workaholic society. When the system can no longer provide incentives for the individuals to feign conformity, the individuals will gladly and immediately break free from the control of the system.
Deep down in our hearts, we are all waiting for that moment, at some point in our lives. For some, the process may have came a bit too quickly, while for others the end results may not be the most happy of outcomes. But either way, what is necessary for each one of us is to be always reminded of our individualities, the moments that we feel free, eager, and excited to be ourselves, doing what we most loved to do.
For me, the joy of individuality now is sitting in this train, typing away on my PC as the incoming sunshine warm me both inside and outside the body. Yet, do realize that the sunshine can just as likely be metaphorical and mental as it is physical, happening on a rainy day or middle of the night as it is in the midst of a cloudless sunny day. What is important to find it, remember it, and chase it no matter how little time you have. It is that personal sunshine that will always be there, in whatever adverse situation, to cheer you up and reignite you with the energy to live...
An adventurous traveler can be offered nothing more exciting than fine weather. As long as the weather does not slow him down, the traveler seems to have the entire world to his own. As the sun introduced a bit of warmness to the chilly morning air, passions and energy are reignited, and the traveler just cannot wait to run through the streets, putting his full-packed day of travel planning into execution mode.
It is just too unfortunate that everyone who wants to travel has to suppress the urge to do so during weekdays. Building up both the financial capital and the yearning for hitting the road after sitting monotonously in the office for days in a row, the traveler has to let it come out on the weekend. Eagerly leaving behind the concrete jungle filled with bad memories of work and social awkwardness, he temporarily leaves behind his regular life and for once, just become an observer to the daily lives of everyone else in a faraway land.
Surely, I must not be the only one to have that urge of getting away from it all, even if it can only be for a short while. Of course, hitting the road on a slow train to nowhere may not be the favorite activity of everyone out there, but everyone can find a way to create an alternate life to their monotonous working self (especially true for all the salary-men), to make themselves feel much more worthy than just another grunt selling their souls for social status and economic stability.
For instance, I have been rather surprised to meet a few salary-men in Tokyo who are DJ-ing as a hobby outside of work. The individualistic “putting your own style out there for the public” attitude so essential for a successful DJ cannot be any further away from the “shut up and unquestioningly follow the orders from above” attitude demanded from a successful salary-men on the way up in big corporations.
No matter how the existing system tries to suppress it, individuality is something inherently held by every human being. If the individuality cannot be displayed at work, it has to be shown elsewhere. For me, it is widely displayed for the public in my blog as the others chose to show uniqueness for the general public through DJ-ing. Individuality is like a guerrilla fighter successfully battling against the overwhelming system of mass organizational conformity: it can run and hide, but cannot be sought out and taken out.
Moreover, the individual will tolerate his or her individuality to be ruthlessly suppressed and trampled upon by the conformist system only when the socio-economic benefits of doing so outweighs the mental costs of limiting the individuality to an absolute minority of occasions in this workaholic society. When the system can no longer provide incentives for the individuals to feign conformity, the individuals will gladly and immediately break free from the control of the system.
Deep down in our hearts, we are all waiting for that moment, at some point in our lives. For some, the process may have came a bit too quickly, while for others the end results may not be the most happy of outcomes. But either way, what is necessary for each one of us is to be always reminded of our individualities, the moments that we feel free, eager, and excited to be ourselves, doing what we most loved to do.
For me, the joy of individuality now is sitting in this train, typing away on my PC as the incoming sunshine warm me both inside and outside the body. Yet, do realize that the sunshine can just as likely be metaphorical and mental as it is physical, happening on a rainy day or middle of the night as it is in the midst of a cloudless sunny day. What is important to find it, remember it, and chase it no matter how little time you have. It is that personal sunshine that will always be there, in whatever adverse situation, to cheer you up and reignite you with the energy to live...
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