Keep your head up.

            “You’ll understand when you’re older.” I’m sure everyone has heard this a few times. Most the time it brings about a desire to be older, to understand what I can’t comprehend now. Then there’s the always fun “remember when we were younger?” It’s wonderful to reminisce about great times you had and all the things you can do as a kid without consequences. I find it strange however that it’s not often that on an average day for someone to reflect on what can be done today, now. We often find ourselves in this binary of what has been and what may be and it’s not the only one that many of us get stuck in every day though most are not so light hearted. How do we transcend these binaries and help ourselves grow into more responsible individuals is the question. Insights to this question and life in general can be found in works of two great authors.

This first novel we can take a message from is An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel is a narration by Mr. Ono, who seems to be a middle/upper class retired artist living in post WWII Japan in a district of Nagasaki. In the first sentence of the novel Ono describes his grand house at the top of a path leading up from a small wooden bridge known as ‘The Bridge of Hesitation’. The Bridge of Hesitation is an important symbol introduced by Ono because it stands as a physical comparison to events in his life; past and present. A bridge can be thought of as an ends to a mean of moving from one area to another separated by some void, but often we find ourselves stuck in this void, or binary, as does Ono in his story.

An example of this is apparent in Ono’s relationship with his nephew Ichiro. Ono is stuck in an area between disciplining and passing his knowledge and love for art to Ichiro with another side of accepting Ichiro’s interests and letting him continue with his desired path. We first see this in the middle of page 30 when Ono tries to explain that pretending to be a Japanese hero would be much more fun than pretending to be a western cowboy. When Ichiro does not listen to his grandfather’s attempts to interest him Ono snaps at Ichiro shouting his name in protest for him to be quiet. As Ichiro recoils in shock Ono questions his actions and apologizes saying “I’m sorry, Ichiro, I shouldn’t have interrupted. Of course you can be anyone you like. Even a Cowboy. You must forgive your Oji-san. He was forgetting for a moment.” Ono seems to be making a conscious effort to move toward a side of letting Ichiro follow his own desires, but it is inherent in Ono from his father that his discipline should be taught to the next generation.

The message I want to take from this story and relationship between Ono and Ichiro is simple. Live in the now. It makes no difference if Ono disciplines Ichiro or lets him lead his own path. What does make a difference is how much time Ono spends with Ichiro while he is still young and for that matter while Ono is still young as well. Time never stops and we constantly lose moments of our lives. From Ono I have learned also that you need to constantly re-evaluate your surroundings before judging them on your old standards.

The next message that I feel goes hand in hand with Ishiguro’s comes from Salman Rushdie’s short story “The Harmony of the Spheres” in the collection titles “East, West”. In this story there are two main characters. Eliot Crane is the topic of the novel and events in his life leading up to his suicide. He is a schizophrenic writer who is depressed when he not writing and goes crazy when he is. The second main character is Mr. Khan who is one of Eliot’s better friends and is also the narrator of the story. Mr. Khan is perceived to be an average person living an average life.

Throughout the story Mr. Khan narrates a life that seems normal for a few sane individuals carrying on in a normal life and helping out their crazy friend along the way. However through the story Mr. Khan’s wife Mala tells her husband that Eliot is “bad for you.” Also in what seems to be one of Eliot’s crazy fits he tells Mr. Khan about sexual fantasies he has had with his wife; however Mr. Khan brushes it off as insanity. After Eliot’s death Mala reveals to Mr. Khan that everything Eliot had told him about their sexual encounters were not fantasies. It seems strange that a crazy man had more control over his life than a sane man.

I fell that Rushdie’s message in this story is that everything isn’t as cryptic as we make it out to be. The contrast with the insane man and the average Joe that can’t see what’s happening around him. All we need to do is be aware of who we are and what were doing, and ask ourselves if we are being consistent with our surroundings and who we want to be.

So how do we transcend binaries and help ourselves grow into more responsible individuals. This question presents a binary in itself of not knowing, or knowing how to be a responsible individual. The truth is we’ll never fully know because situations and circumstances are always changing around us. What once may have been considered an honorable path may later be seen as an evil one. Since the world and people are constantly changing we must heed the message of these two authors.  To be more responsible you must do what you can today and always be alert to what is going on around you.