Philosophy

So, there's a certain philosophy I've come to live by recently. Some of you already know (Yes, you, Mr. Snow.), and some of you don't yet. It's part Gurdjieff and part Buddhism and part Joe as well. Anyway, the amalgamation of all three of those parts tends to go something like this (I didn't want to use a Matrix analogy, but that's really the best way to get the point across):

Life is like living in the Matrix. There is a real world and a fake world. Everyone lives in the fake world without realizing it until their eyes are opened and they can finally see the falseness of the world they live in. However, that is very difficult to do for many people. And once your eyes are opened, it becomes very tempting to close them, so you have to find something special every day that reminds you to keep your eyes open and live in the real world. Usually the distinction becomes "people who are sleeping" versus "people who are awake."

Since adopting this philosophy, I have always thought--not to brag, of course--that I've been awake. It is mostly due to the fact that I see so many sleeping people around me everyday. College really opened my eyes in several ways, and I like to think that I've stayed awake since then, but Japan has done more for my awakeness than I can possibly say. I'm awake enough for the entire country I think. I'm almost so awake that it hurts.

The reason that I bring this up is that I've come across countless "eye-opening moments" while I've been here and I have the feeling that this blog is going to begin to focus on those as well as my observations while I am in Japan. The following blog entry (even though it's listed above this one) was the first of my "eye-opening moments."

By the way, if a lot of people are interested in hearing more about the awake/asleep thing, let me know and I'll elaborate. I'll even try to diagnose you if you like. Let me know!