Saturday 15 March 2003
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Pic of the day: Surprise surprise! A desert picture from ... Daggerfall! It's sure been a while. Another several year long obsession that's faded through time. Fading?
Looked at with cold eyes (Get over by Dream, as translated by Elite-Fansubs, in their translation of the anime Hikaru no Go.) ***I was walking home, carrying 30 blank CDs and a chocolate. I was listening to intro and end music from some of my favorite anime, and one of my absolute favorites came up. This was Get over from Hikaru no Go, the animated TV series about a boy learning to play Go with the help of an old ghost. Like so many others who had watched it, I had decided to learn Go. Not to become a professional obviously, but to a level where I could understand the complexities of the game as seen by real players. I used to play a training game every night against my computer. While I was always playing at very low levels, I started to improve a little bit. And then I got other interests, as I always do, and it faded. As the inspirational music surrounded my brain, I thought to myself: "I am Magnus Itland. I can do this too. All I have to do is set aside a little time each day." And then I heard myself answer: "It is too late. I am fading from this world. This is not the time to take on new interests, but to decide on which to lay off. Perhaps if this spirit returns again in another lifetime, it will be time to learn new things. But this life is winding down. If I could live forever ... but I cannot." And then I listened to the song, which is in Japanese, and remembered the translation. It may not be exact, but right then, it sounded very exact indeed. "I am blown by the winds of a dry age." I felt the dry desert wind blowing past ancient tombs into the present and touching my soul, making it dry up and shrivel. I felt the sadness of the parting to come, and the quiet resignation of the unavoidable end. A slow process perhaps but one against which there was no shield. And then more of it came back. "Looked at with cold eyes" ... indeed, and are those not the only eyes I use? The eyes of reason, clinical, detached. Let us look at the facts. The fact is that in the long run we are all dead. May as well adjust to it. Looked at with those eyes of reason, I am indeed blown by the winds of a dry age. But there is another side, a Janus face if you will, facing in the opposite direction.
Looked at with cold eyes ***I am still not sure that I should spend my remaining lifetime (if any) playing Go. (Although it seems to be a popular pastime for the elderly in the Orient. Then again, everyone there believes in reincarnation, so they may not feel the pressure of time as intensely as we do. Perhaps.) There may be other paths to walk. But there won't be any standstill. I have been there before, and again. As my strength and my will are drained and my soul grows thinner, something starts to show through it. There is something or someone inside, a strength waiting eagerly for my weakness. A core of glowing embers, waiting for me to grow dry enough to blaze into fire. I wish I could say it was a good thing, but it scares me with its sheer hubris ... heading higher than anyone else. I don't know how to feel. I try to cling to my doubt, but I fear that my courage may win. I am afraid that decades of carefully laid down humility may crumble again. Even more than the darkness within, I fear the blinding light that shouldn't be there according to the books. But in perspective, I guess playing Go is a harmless and humble hobby for my fading years ... certainly better than playing God. |
Sunny, but some clouds, mostly from planes. |
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