An Excerpt From Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book

I was supposed to be finishing up the first draft of an article I will be submitting to a magazine.  I'm close to finishing, but I couldn't help myself.  I hadn't posted anything on this blog for close to a month, and I might not have time to write here again until another month from now.  I decided I wanted to post a brief excerpt from my copy of Sei Shonagon's millennium old text The Pillow Book.  My copy came in the mail about a week after I began this blog.  I've only skimmed some of the book.  Besides writing short descriptive pieces of things in her life and in Japan 1000 years ago, Sei Shonagon wrote down a lot of lists. She seems to have been a finicky, but poetic and honest lady, someone I would enjoy chatting with over a cup of tea or coffee or whatever the drink of choice was in her day, as long as it didn't contain alcohol.  I don't drink alcohol.  

I was just looking through her book trying to relocate a description she wrote of the emperor gathering his friends at night and playing his favorite musical instrument for them.  She claims listening to him play at night was quite pleasant.  Hopefully she wasn't being sycophantic, but from the little I have skimmed, she probably wasn't or at least not completely. 

Here is one of her lists, an excerpt from her book, as translated by Ivan Morris.  I like her lists because they give a hint about her personality, skills of observation, and her poetic spirit.

Elegant Things
A white coat worn over a violet waistcoat.
Duck eggs.
Shaved ice mixed with liana* syrup and put in a new silver bowl.
A rosary of rock crystal.
Wistaria blossoms.  Plum blossoms covered with snow.
A pretty child eating strawberries.

*The leaves and stems from the liana vine were used as a sweetener before the introduction of sugar to Japan, according to the notes in Ivan Morris' translation of Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book. 

My Old Car and Some Saved Lives

Today I went to have my car checked out for some possible problems; I was hoping that whatever was wrong was not a serious or expensive problem.  I hate debt. I don't need anymore debt.  I fear debt.  Now that perhaps sounds un-American, but a lot of what I say and my views don't jibe with the standard outlook in this country.  I'm a pragmatist, not really an optimist.  I do not have the "I think something therefore it is  because I want it to be that way" belief system.  I look at all the possibilities beforehand so as not to be overly disappointed; I confess I do take the pessimistic view first.  If all goes well, I give silent thanks to God and wait for the next crisis and disappointment.  

No, from what I've read and heard, many of my fellow countrymen and women don't see things that way.  I guess I'm more Eastern in my outlook, some what. I'm a realist. I've had a hard time (not as hard as many millions), but to me and when I was experiencing all the bad, it was blatantly hard, difficult, etc., if you will.  I know my hurts and my feeling.  I can't be in denial.  That's just how I am.  I can't deny my attitudes, good or bad; I know my own shortcomings.  Someone once said or wrote, "Know thyself." To my own self I try to be true, except when I'm procrastinating, which is a habit I've working on to alleviate before I face disaster.

Well, late this morning I went to Tires Plus which is a car service company which not only sells tires, but does car repairs.  Yesterday after coming back from a brief out of town trip with my mom and a Turkish friend to see some of my relatives who live far out in the rural, when I had gotten about two miles from home, my car switched off at the traffic light on one of the major highways in town.  I was terrified.  My car had never shut off before.  There were cars behind me and beside me when the light changed from red to green, and my car had gone silent.  Fortunately, I was not so panicky that I didn't think fast. I turned on my emergency lights. Then  I put my car in park, put on the emergency brake, and then re-cranked it.  It started back immediately, and mom and I went on our way.  

I was uneasy following that incident.  I mulled about whether something was seriously wrong with my car's engine.  On the dashboard I had noticed when I re-cranked my car that the symbol that looks like an oil can with a drop of oil coming out of it lit up.  I know almost nil about cars.  I got out out my car manual yesterday right after I got home.  I even checked online, but just as when I don't feel well, I didn't want to speculate or try to make a diagnosis of what might be wrong.  I decided to go to the professionals to find out the truth even if I had to pay $1500.  It turned out this morning that the problem was minor.  Carbon had gotten on some part under the hood (I can't recall the part) and they had to clean it.  Also there was come corrosion on or near my battery, and they took care of that as well.  In the end I was charged less than $100.  

The repair guys were impressed by my 12 year old car.  They had checked the computer system, and there were no problems.  I just gotten an oil change less than 2 months ago. I bought my car new in 2001 right after I'd had a minor accident in the same model car that was also new.    In the accident the front axial of my car had been broken, so I was told it would just be cheaper to get a new model.  My insurance allowed it.  

My present car looks kind of beat up, but it only has a little over 51,000 miles on it.  It sails down the road.  Even though I'm a good defensive driver, and I have an excellent driving record of no speeding tickets, etc., (my last parking ticket was over 20 years ago when I was a university student), I don't enjoy driving.  I never miss my car when I'm working and living abroad.  I loved riding the bus in Turkey. I enjoyed to be in the midst of humanity instead of isolated and insulated in my own little box on wheels.  There were times when men would get up and offer me their seat, some older people would offer me some of their snack, or a someone would strike up a conversation with me. I loved riding on the ferry across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul.  I enjoyed riding on the bus from the town where I was teaching in Botswana in the early 90s to the capital city.  Those long rides, views of semi-desert, low mountains, the women with their babies, the hawkers of chips (french fries) that got on the bus...  I remember being invited to cram myself into a mini-van with 14 or 15 people in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana.  "Come on! Come on!"  They'd smile and beckon, and some lady wouldn't mind even if I had to sit on her lap.  Everyone understood that the driver wanted to make as much money as possible. Sometimes I think of some funny lines from a book I read some number of years ago called 
 The Demonic Comedy and a character says, "I live in air-conditioned box.... I drive to work in air-conditioned box.  I work in air-conditioned box.  I come home to air-conditioned box.  A rat he live better." 

But I'm rambling.  I've seriously looked at the correlation to how much people drive and the wars in the last decade.  I was never was an excessive driver, since I don't love driving and my identity is not wrapped up in my vehicle.  There are complex reasons for the wars this country is in, and one of the many reasons is control of the world's oil and natural resources.  It's not about they hate us for our freedoms. That's shallow propaganda. It's not about we have to save them from that evil dictator.  They aren't saved when the military blasts its way in.  I just don't buy the humanitarian war rationalization either.  

But one reason and problem is we are gluttons for their oil and other resources.  I have come to realize from my research, listening to scholars and independent journalists on the subject, not mainstream media TV personalities, ex-CIA, and colonels and generals, that like the Spanish empire that was a glutton for gold four or five centuries ago, like the Africa slave trade that enriched so many in the Americas, a lot of it boils down to having enough oil and resources to keep the American economy functioning and making a small class of people obscenely rich.  I realize that if I drive less, that means someone might not get bombed so quickly in the long run.  It's just a tiny hope. I just try to do my part, not add to the problem.  

I don't want to contribute to anyone's destruction if I can help it.  It's the same for gadgets and other items that many hold dear. Research coltan and other minerals which go into the making of our computers and other gadgets and how people in parts of sub-Saharan Africa are mining and suffering so we can past the time or communicate with people we know or don't know, play games, do business, etc.  Read about the cocoa/chocolate industry and child slave labor in places like the Ivory Coast.  The Ivory Coast was invaded last year by UN and French troops, and the elected president was overthrown. Do research and develop some critical thinking skills.  I love chocolate, but it's fattening.  I limit eating it even more now since some kids in the Ivory Coast might be kept out of school and beaten so they can gather cocoa and chocolate companies in the US and Europe profit from it.  

I care about people who suffer.  I love the oppressed, not the bigwigs that many people look up to and are told are the pinnacle of success.  The oppressed doesn't have to be related to me and mine for me not to want to add to their suffering.  Those guys at Tires Plus who praised the fact that my car was like new under the hood had no idea of how I feel about my beat up car and now why I drive less and less.  Driving is not my hobby.  When I go somewhere I'm not just out to be out there.  I'm going to a destination.  I feel I have a duty to not add so much to others' demise or suffering, so I don't drive so much, and I'm keeping my 12 year old car as long as I can.