Life   of   Tara 

  My father enters a nursing home for the aged

    25/12/2013

（今まで3年間、介護してきた父が老人ホームに入ることになりました。少しは自由になりますが、私のシンプルライフは変わりません。これからもタラでの生活を充実させると同時に、私なりに考えなければならないことを書き留めていきたいと思います。同じようなことは「やまぼうしブログ」にも掲載しました。）

 One morning, my father took out frozen food from the refrigerator and had struck them mightily on the cutting board. He said that he had eaten nothing since that morning. But a dish with which he had had a breakfast was left in the kitchen. Perhaps, he had a breakfast at midnight and tried to have a breakfast again early in the morning. However he insisted that he had not had a breakfast. Furthermore, one night, when he went to bed, he put the heavy furniture on the door so that nobody was able to enter his room. I was very sad to have seen his deed and I thought that it is already a limit that I care for my father. Therefore, I determined to start searching for a nursing home for my father.
 I think it a little pitiful that I enter my father in a nursing home. However, if our situation is as it is, my stress will build up more and more. I thought that I was not able to retrace my steps any longer. Therefore, I had to study the way how my father should spend his life from now on.
 I visited four nursing homes and looked around their facilities. I reported that result to my wife. Economically, our life will become severe but my wife insisted on entering my father in the nursing home. At one of nursing homes where I visited, a general manager said to me that I had done my best for my father so far. I have been filled with tears to hear it, unintentionally.
 Maybe, I will become free than before but I will have more responsibility for doing something significant. I will make a new plan for my short remaining life. Thus, I determined entering my father in the nursing home.

 Yesterday, I contracted with the nursing home without problem. Therefore, I entered into a new phase. However, my basic way to live will never change. A simple and abstemious life is a basic life for me as ever. But, for fulfilling my website and for rebuilding my Tara, I have to do my best from now on.
 I am going to reconstruct my daily life gradually without overworking myself. Within the limits of my capability, I have to express modestly what I should consider on my website. Especially, I have to restart writing an article about 'What is time?'. I have neglected to write the continuation of the series for a long time.
 Tentatively, I am going to write about 'Bergson and time' on my website within next January.

  The friend came from far away

    21/11/2013

（友、遠方より来る。今年は高校時代や大学時代の友人がタラを訪れてくれました。若かりし頃の思い出や、お互い残り少ない人生について、静まりゆく秋のタラで語りあいました。将来タラはどうなるのだろう。友人達は再びタラを訪れてくれるようです。）

 A friend of mine came to Tara from far away. He is a friend from my high school days. On that day, I went to the nearest station to meet him but he didn't appear there at the appointed time. He arrived at the station behind schedule because he missed the planned train while he got confused in a crowd at Tokyo station. A countryman is easily confused in a crowd of townsman. Such things often happen. I picked him up at the station and went to Tara. The friend was surprised at quietness around Tara though he is a countryman. In autumn, deep silence drifts around Tara. We were watching a faraway mountain range from Tara for a while without a word.

 We talked about our younger days. That is, we recalled having talked about agonies of young love at that time. And we talked about our old age. How many years can we live straight from now on? Is that about ten years? Yes, probably, only such years are left behind so that our brain is active and is able to achieve something significant. But nobody knows what kind of years are left behind for each of us. Some of our friends have already died. We watched a faraway mountain range again in silence.

 The friend asked me how I was going to use Tara from now on. I answered laughing as follows. I will come here, watching mountain, listening to birds' chatting and maintaining Tara as long as my physical strength is maintained. And I hope that our children and grandsons follow my task at Tara in the future. Of course, any time Tara will be open for people who is thinking about the coming human society.

 The friend told me that he would like to visit Tara again. I drove him to the station, saying that spring at Tara is splendid as well as autumn.

  Democracy and Capitalist economy (8)

    18/10/2013

（秋は思いに耽る季節です。民主主義と資本主義社会については７回にわたって雑多な思いを綴ってきました。人間社会は少しずつ変貌していきます。秋の夜長、耳を澄まして来るべき社会へのわずかな足音を少しでも聴きとりたいものです。）

 In the heart of the mountains, deepening of autumn came to be felt even in Japan. I have described 'Democracy and Capitalist economy' seven times. I would like to finish describing it this time.
 I have described various problems about capitalist economy so far. That is, capitalist economy has not been able to solve the gap between rich and poor all over the world as ever despite its ultimate accumulation of wealth. A French TV producer who showed us low price competition among companies stressed distressful circumstances of workers in the low price competition. He also predicted that every human being itself would become a kind of low price thing all over the world in the future. Unemployment rate of youth has been increasing all over the world. As a result, young people have no future. 'Black company' (Sweat shop) drives workers hard on the outskirts of law-breaking. Workers in such companies are given severe norm and are forced to work unpaid overtime. They have no choice but to achieve hard schedule given by business manager. They have no time for themselves and they can't afford to do what they want to do truly for self-actualization on their own way.

 Then, can we find a clue about solution of such a situation? Is democracy which is sustained by capitalist economy an eternal social system? Is fighting for a better human society completely meaningless? That is not meaningless at all. However, we should prepare ourselves for spending excessive amount of time to fight under the circumstance where various problems of our society conflict intricately. How do we have to live under such a situation? We should aim at a local community as a self-supported economic region. People will have self-sufficient economy there. Communities that is self-sufficient as much as possible as for the lives of the people who live there, are considered ethnic communities or same language communities for the time being. But such communities would have to continue to be formed in a way that they dismantle the state which is the base of the present monopolistic capitalism and get over it.

 I have described as above so far. Probably, we will need still long time, in order to move forward toward the society beyond capitalist society. However, people will become aware of emptiness of a society where they have difficulty to attempt self-realization and will come to think that they must change the mechanism of a nation and the economy. Under these circumstances, a character and a group that obtain a lot of people's sympathy and lead people in the desirable direction will appear from various regions. It is necessary for us to listen carefully for such a movement. At the same time, we every person must attempt self-realization even in the current difficult society by accelerating such a movement. I would like to think about this problem from a different angle again in the future. 　
 

Feelings guided by Tara

    24/09/2013

（私たちの感覚や、身の回りに漂う空気の振動や表情というようなものを素直に受け入れること。そこから言葉もまた呼応し、思想がかたちづくられていきます。Taraはそのような感覚や空気が漂う場所です。）

            Feelings guided by Tara

         My thought walked around Tara.

         My thought is a feeling drifting around Tara.

         Tara is a place where my loneliness is comforted.

         Furthermore, Tara drives me to the future.

         Because my thought breathes and beats toward the future.

         My thought is not an individual but a thing as air drifting around Tara.

         Tara lies between past and future.

         And my feeling wanders back and forth between past and future.

         Pain of human beings' past and pain of my past.

         They make my mind strong.

         They drive my mind toward the future.

         However its form has not been completed yet.

         Now, I am not lonely.

         I am alive between my mind and people’s minds.

         And living things around Tara, such as a thrush, hornets, a bull frog

         and a white snake, give me their blessings.

         My thought drifts around Tara

         and it spreads towards the west across a far-off mountain range.

  Thinking about various things at Tara

    18/08/2013

（今年の夏の暑さは格別です。タラの前に雑草は一気にはびこります。除去に

　大汗をかきますが、心地よい風が吹き抜けていきます。社会の出来事と自分の

　短い人生と、いろいろと考えてみました。）

 The worst heat wave in these days has attacked all over Japan recently. Therefore, weeds grew thick and has covered the road in front of Tara before I knew it. So, I have to cut weeds repeatedly, sweating like a pig during this summer. But after weeding, I pour water over my head, rest in the living room of Tara trough which comfortable wind runs and enjoy watching a splendid mountain view. 　

 A recent government poll showed that 71 percent of Japanese people are satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their current lives. Indeed, our life has improved greatly compared with prewar days or postwar days. Maybe, this percentage will increase more in the future. It is good thing for human beings. But we don't know whether it shows material wealth or mental wealth. Anyway, material wealth is great important for human life. Almost people of developed countries have been enjoying mass consumption society. 　
 However I don't know whether they have a chance for self-actualization on their own way in this mass consumption society. What is self-actualization? Is every person searching for a true self-actualization consciously? Or is only a special person searching for it? I don't know about it. But I think that we human beings should search for not only material wealth but also mental wealth. So, it's very important to feel something empty even in this wealthy world and to try to search for a clue for a true self-actualization.
 The fact that 71 percent of Japanese people are satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their current lives shows that almost 30 percent of Japanese people are not satisfied with their lives. Especially, young people are suffering from difficulties for getting a good job. They cannot get married because they cannot dream a stable life in the future. This fact casts a negative shadow on our present society. From a global perspective, in developing countries like Africa, the gap between rich and poor has been increasing as I said earlier. 　
 We have no choice but to understand these facts on their own way. Some people insist that we have to fight against the gap between rich and poor because our prosperity connects with poverty of developing countries in this globalized world. But some people are against that idea, saying that first of all, we should concern close problems around our daily life and we should not get involved in other countries far from our land because each citizen fights truly in one's land on one's own way. We cannot deny both ideas. But it is certain that our daily life connects with things in the world more closely economically or culturally than that of old days. That is because capitalist economy is making mass consumption society permeate all over the world and is making the life style in the world homogeneous. Of course, it is freedom of each person how to catch this fact. 　
 Then, where are human beings trying to go? Where does human society in which human desires swirl go? Time flies on and on while we question such things. A week has already passed. A month has already passed. A year has already passed. A life of a man will have passed away before he knows it. That is the life of a human being. But time flies far from such trifle things of each person's short life. Nevertheless, a human being faces against difficulties which attack him till he dies. 　
 Time makes him struggle for carrying out self-actualization toward the death. Then, is it possible for him to win original himself till he dies? He doesn't know it. What is an original oneself for a human being? Is it a mere process which he follows between life and death? If so, we are not able to decide whether we carried out self-actualization or not, because we already died at that time. Again, what is self-actualization? Is every person searching for a true self-actualization consciously? Or is a special person searching for it? Anyway, I am searching for self-actualization at least now. Of course, I don't mind even if I fail to find a true myself till I die. If so, it is my fate. Nevertheless, I will fight against such fate till I die. That is the life of a human being.　
 

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