Dreams

"A dream... I am seeing a dream.
A dream I see every day. The endless dream..."

The closest humans could reach to the world of fantasy, the nearest a mere mortal can experience the world beyond the limits of physics, a theater of supreme surrealism... How could one not remember the extremely romantic, yet ever so evanescent notion of a dream?

A dream could take on two common meanings: Either the plunge into a world of imagination of extreme realness when a person is sleeping, or the state for which a person very much desires to be in, some kind of achievement or change to the world supposedly (perhaps the word aspirations would be a good synonym). Despite the fundamental difference between these two types of dreams, one being rather uncontrollable and one quite the opposite, there are overlaps between these kinds of "dreams". In any case, a dream is irrational, for it violates the bounds of physical laws, which are quite well modeled by theories and laws derived from reason. A person literally substitutes his own mind for the real world (subconsciously) in a dream. It follows that once a person gives up the notion of reason, or regard for physical existence, he could end up in a state not much different from being in a dream.

I have remarked on the fact that I seemed to have drifted into a state of mind not far from "being in a dream" recently, most likely because of my preoccupation with emotions. While a person tasked with tasks requiring rational thinking (evidently, such as students) are "daydreaming" would quite surely be considered to be in a non-optimal state, to say the least, I found that this concerned me no more. This is strange, for I have always been quite aware of what people think of my work (sadly a major proponent for me to work). To exist in a dreamy state liberated me from the tethers of expectations and fear. Though this dream stems from something quite frustrating and melancholic, the feeling of longing, it nonetheless carries an abstract beauty within its mist, free from the sharp edges of reality.

To be able to dream means to be able to create an entirely fictional context (though based on fragments of reality). I suppose we can also call this creating a whole universe, for it is not much of a difference between an egocentric view of the world, which is not entirely unsubstantiated if you consider the fact that every one is the dead centre of his/her own observable universe. If sleeping suspends the consciousness of a person, dreaming moves this consciousness to a new plane. This whole process, even more remarkably, occurs under the covers of subconsciousness, and is not a form of expression: what one dreams only concerns oneself. Sleeping may seem to be a blunder in evolution, a necessity because of the inability for a body to function continuously, but the act of dreaming seems to grant a meaning to the act of sleeping, of slipping the conscious self into a plane where no external influence is present. It is probably the closest a person comes to playing god.

I feared the notion of dreaming when I was a child, mostly because of the frequent nightmares I had. For the week or so following the occurrence of a nightmare, I would try to stay awake as late as possible, to prevent myself from plunging into the abyss I was in during the dream, or being killed by the monsters present the day before. Nightmares did not decrease as I grow up, though now, obviously I have learnt to shake them off since I know they are not real. Yet, just as there are no villains without heroes, there is a certain beauty in nightmares, being the manifestations of negative emotions in real life. It is in these bad dreams that I truly see what I fear, and why I fear it. The IB exams seemed not quite scary when you ask me when I am fully awake, since I know I have already taken numerous exams before, and have prepared amply and satisfactorily to my standards, up to what I can possibly do. Yet, my nightmares are mostly based on going to the exams late, missing an important event etc. In other words, there is no denial in the world of dreams. All the subconscious desires and fears are fully reflected in this film staged in the plane of dreams. This brutal and uncontrollable honesty is perhaps why dreams possess beauty.

Dreaming is also a hallmark of humanity. Not only are robots almost invariably incapable of emotions, one that forms random arrangements of its memory every once in a while is not too helpful of an attribute. Though a lot of effort has been spent on on intelligence that can emulate and interact with humans past the uncanny valley, imitating the functions of a human brain, I do not suppose dreaming is a goal that would be pursued or prioritized any time soon.

Yet, dreaming has been a large part of my life, and should be for a lot of people, or at least should have taken quite a bit of their time. Even though it might not contribute to anything concrete in reality, it could be regarded as a rest for the emotional faculties of the mind, an emotional counterpart for the physical rest that sleeping grants perhaps. Most importantly, dreaming allows one to face his emotions and fears upfront, and, even after the details or traces of the dreams disappear, the motivation it grants does not fade.

I have been in the state where my emotions take over my reason for so long that I have started to find this rather romantic.

"Yesterday, I had a dream,

A dream of long ago.

Within the dream, the two of us
were still thirteen...

standing on the vast field blanketed in snow 

as far as eyes could see.

In the distance, the lights shimmering in houses
were set sparsely, far and wide.

All that was left upon the newly fallen snow 

were our footprints.

Just like that,

we wished without hesitation, that one day...

The two of us would be able

to see the cherry blossoms together again"

---

ED Discussion 10: Welcome to the NHK ED, Modokashii Sekai no Ue de

"Though this world is tiny, why is it too big for my hands?
Though this world is endless, why is it too small for my hands?
Hey, in this irritating morning light, I want to laugh with you together."



For most of my time, I suppose my world, just akin to Satou Tatsuhiro's in Welcome to the NHK, is confined by the four walls of my room. In the current age, everything can be done and expressed through the Internet (including my thoughts here), and as a result a person as lazy as I am can treat this 10 metres squared space as my world.

Being quite the shut-in, I have been engaged in a positive feedback loop that always increases my fear of the external and the unknown. Introversion has accentuated my thoughts of self-loathing and has thus increased my insecurity about talking with others, closing myself off, which leads to even less contact with the outer world, leading to even more inability to and fear of conversing with others.

Of course, it is easy to blame the external world for this, like Satou blaming "the conspiracy by the NHK", and Yamazaki blaming the opposite gender. After all, it is natural to fear and antagonize the unknown, the unfamiliar and that which is different or alien. Watching the pair (especially Satou) living a life of delusions is rather comedic, but, just like the protagonist, the "realization" when the mirage of self-worth pops is immediately followed by serious self-deprecation. In the confines of loneliness, it is difficult for the mind not to wander. Thus, like a schizophrenic, the emotions of a person that barely moves at all can range from extreme to extreme in the course of barely a day.

Yet, this ED is very calm. So calm in fact that it is quite unfitting to the madness displayed in the journeys into Satou's mind in the show. The reason I chose this song as today's discussion is the strange feeling of familiarity that it gave me recently, one that creeps at me and gave me a surprise at how much it manages to convey. [1] Why, indeed, that when we can travel to places almost instantly compared to people from centuries ago, when the world is shrunk to within two days' travelling, that I feel only comfortable in these four suffocating walls? Why, when there is so much to explore, so many people to talk to in this world, do I feel that it is often inaccessible and quite uninteresting and boring? These two lines almost perfectly sums up my thoughts when the "realization" hits.

These paragraphs do seem quite depressing, but I do want to use this opportunity to trace out what I think my inadequacy is. There quite some instances where I feel that I am an insufficient person, not deserving of the nice friends and wonderful environment that I reside and learn in. And indeed many a times I have been told that I should travel and explore what is unknown, and I would ponder upon my apparent anomaly. Yet, this insufficiency in my character has been such a great obstacle to overcome that, being a lazy person, I have not the will to attempt to do so. There is nothing too special in this ED, and the tone is strangely calm and light for such sombre psychological topics this anime discusses, but it manages to create this unsettling feeling that has stuck with me in the past few days.

[1]: This song technically comes from the voice of Misaki Nakahara, the girl who tries to get Satou out of his "hikkikomori ways" but it was revealed that she has problems of loneliness akin to Satou, so I guess her thoughts are still quite apt.

---

Bonus Music: So Ra No Wo To OP, Hikari no Senritsu

(I meant to discuss this OP at length in the main section for a few posts already because of its stunning visuals and music, but every time I start I find myself lost for words and unable to continue. So here it is.)

"Sound of the sky, echo high and transcend all sorrows.

Everything reflected in your eyes are part of reality.

Even tears have no chance of holding you here.

From the cascading radiance, call forth the morrow."

Probability and Determinism

[Some probably (heh) uninformed ramblings about probability and its philosophy]

"I knew it all along
that words were nothing but lies
Easily forgotten
Uncertain and vague."

In the most basic sense, there are two extremes to statements: Truths and falsities. Most of what we hear every day lies somewhere in between, whether it is fully truthful, a partial truth, or straight up lies. Of course, some truths are not very meaningful, while some fictional accounts are quite illuminating and reflects even greater truths than simple statements can ever hope to achieve.

Probabilistic statements, dictated by the axioms of probability and measure, however, seem to exist on another level above this spectrum of truth. While it is mathematically true, it is not illuminating to most who are going to make a decision based on the measures. Moreover, since observation, a human action, is regrettably restrictive and finite, there is no objective testament to the truthfulness of probabilistic statements. We say that the probability of getting heads from a fair coin is 0.5, yet to make a decision we only flip it once, and once flipped, the outcome is fixed. There is no more uncertainty, and so the probabilistic statement we made is no longer relevant and useful at all. This stems from the fact that we are only concerned about one of the infinite flips that could be conducted. This is impractical at best, and frustrating at worst to decision makers guessing the conditions of reality (randomly distributed) and making judgments based on such conditions, since the statement may skew judgment, but by no means prohibits any possibilities, no matter how small its probability is, from happening. No matter how advanced the underlying science and sophisticated the mathematics are, luck cannot be outsmarted.

Yet, are we actually talking about luck? Sometimes, probability seems to me as a shortcut out of complexities that we fail to fully comprehend and control. Examples of such uses are plentiful: Modelling noise in communication channels, motion of gas particles in a room, forecasting weather etc. In classical physics, every particle can technically be tracked to infinite resolution, provided we know the particle's state at a certain time. In other words, the world is deterministic according to classical physics. It makes no sense to say that the state of a system is randomly distributed when its evolution stems from deterministic phenomena. Thus, probabilistic statements made on these cases are not even technically truthful, but may be rather informative and has been held to be quite accurate. Yet again, human observations are quite finite, so we are not concerned with possibilities that are so small that they are not expected to happen at sensible time scales.

And then, there is this oddity called quantum physics, stating that the world is fundamentally probabilistic. This took the world by surprise in the 20th century, because we no longer know exactly what a measurement is. What is so special about the act of measurement, or the action at the infinitesimal time frame we call the "present", that transforms future events, randomly distributed, to history, definite and theoretically infinitely resolvable and tractable? There are plenty of theories on this, but I shall not go too deep into this. The result, however, is that probabilistic statements have yet again taken the throne of theoretical truthfulness.

Despite the efforts to reconcile quantum physics with macroscopic theories such as general relativity, it still remains as a theory for subatomic particles, and at best predicts behaviours of molecules. We know that our size is too large that there can be little to no influence of quantum physics on our daily lives. Can we then still say that the world, and, more precisely, the human society, is (practically) deterministic? In a reductionist point of view, societies are but interactions of minds, which in turn is the electrical impulses of our brains. Assuming that this is still quite a macroscopic phenomenon, it seems strange that we would have to resort to guesswork to predict what the future of our society will be, barring influences from nature. This is quite reminiscent of the problem of "modelling" complicated classical systems, except that treating each person as a particle is in itself an oversimplification, making this problem even more unattainable.

Even as we abstract from the microscopic world, in this society of every growing size, we meet strange faces almost every day. Having the necessity to interact with the outside world, a model of human behaviour must, to some extent, exists within every person. Rather as we cannot start to fully grasp the complexity of natural systems consisting of far too many variables, we take chances in all our endeavours with other humans, complex structures of little neurons which fire multitudes of signals every second in a way we still have yet to be able to fully understand.

Could probability be considered as an excuse to ignorance then? I would have to say that I am very guilty of using this excuse, evident from the frequent use of words such as "perhaps" and "possibly" in my speech. Yet, at the same time, theories such as hypothesis testing seems to inform us that probabilistic statements are not only different from absolute truths, but exist at a higher plane, and contains much more information. Once we are ordered to make a decision, we reduce a probabilistic statement to an absolute one, effectively throwing away the richer spectrum that is offered by the former. And, p-value testing, a human and rather arbitrary standard, may result in a spurious result, and as a result create a falsity out of truth, so to speak.

The study of probability also made me go back into thinking about something I have put down for quite a while: determinism. I believed that since nothing macroscopic is inherently probabilistic (since we, living in the macroscopic world, are way too large for any quantum effects to matter), there is only one way things will turn out. Are theories objecting determinism simply excusing ignorance with chance then? Moreover, if the world is non-deterministic, then it must be that the human mind is something very special, since it is the only agent capable of altering the path of the universe, bearing in mind that determinism and free-will revolve around highly anthropocentric matters. I found this quite difficult to accept, since I believe that the mind can be viewed in a reductionist perspective. Evidently, the argument between determinism and free will boils down to the nature of probability itself, if I were to hold the premise of the non-uniqueness of the human mind.

Many have abhorred the use of probability in scientific discourse, such as the famous Albert Einstein himself. Yet, probability, initially thought as the mathematics of gamblers and opportunists, have made into the hall of applied mathematics, and is used widely in physics and engineering. Could this be the answer to the struggle of humans with the inherent complexity and uncertainty of nature, and of the future that lies before them? It seems quite an escapist answer to such a profound but essential question, but until we are able to finally unlock the power to model every single particle in the universe, this theory will suffice.

Perhaps.

---

ED Discussion 9: Kill la Kill ED, Gomenne, Iikoja Irarenai

"Sorry… I’m nothing like the honor student you pictured
Two of my shirt buttons aren’t buttoned
Like a path through a back alley, the unknown is a sweet temptation
Tonight, I’ll let you in on my secret that I haven’t told anyone"
  

I am bad with words.

This means that my character is often quite opaque. A lot of people around me have remarked on this fact, or perhaps simply do not bother to interact with me at all because of how cold I look. This is, I surmise, one of the reasons why I rather involuntarily put on another more presentable face in front of others to maintain the possibility some form of conversation and hence companionship (the other reason being that there is no way someone would accept my full personality I keep to myself).

Indeed, sometimes assuming multiple identities is not voluntary, but rather determined by the traits and fate of the character himself. Consider Ryuuko Matoi from Kill la Kill, a rather strange show to start with. Typically the role of this heroic protagonist, starting with nothing but bravery, fighting against some insurmountable edifice for a simple moral cause would star a male character. Yet, we see Ryuuko assuming this role instead, with even greater and exaggerated forcefulness than expected. Same goes for Kiryuuin Satsuki. Disregarding the obvious excuse for fan service, the choice of female characters could be said to be feminist.

However, is this their true identity? After the whole crisis caused by Ragyo, they return to their normal lives. And by normal lives, I mean very typical, perhaps slightly tomboyish schoolgirl characters, those of which to be expected from typical SoL series. It is at this point that I was reminded that Honouji Academy is, after all, a high school. It is therefore fate and milieu that have transformed the faces of the sisters, from typical students to iron-clad warriors fighting for truth and power.

Hence, to the first episodes of this show, this ED seems out of place. We are talking about war here, matter of life and death, scaling of unreachable heights and tales of heroic strife. The ED instead portrays Ryuuko as a normal high school delinquent, walking along the streets of an ordinary town, gazing at a wedding dress and having a crepe like normal teenage girls do. So normal that it was unnerving at first. The painfully ordinary setting around Ryuuko makes her stand out like a sore thumb. Yet, to think of Ryuuko as simply some incessantly fueled gladiator is a wild oversimplification. This is where the character of Ryuuko really shines: To be able to adopt an apparent persona, the fearless warrior in the show, but deep down is but a typical student, perhaps tired from what others' are constantly expecting of her. This is where she really becomes a character.

As I have established earlier, many may think that since I have some slightly better exam results, I am a workaholic, and that I am fully devoted to studies and is a staple good student. Yet, deep down I know this is not true, that I am nothing like the honour student you imagined I am. I only happen to be good at exams. As a result, I have built this false mirage of success that has fooled many, and sometimes fools myself as well. As time progresses, I have found myself to be a rather lazy, unorganized, irrational, emotionally intoxicated person. When will I finally be able to find someone I can hold dearly, who would be willing to understand my deepest feelings that have never been heard?

Credit to /r/AnimeThemes

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Bonus Music: Byousoku 5 Centimeter (Post-)ED, "End Theme" a.k.a.  想い出は遠くの日々

"But Tohno was always looking far beyond me. Far beyond me, towards something in the distance.

I'm sure I would not be able to give Tohno what he truly desires. But still... despite that... Tomorrow, the day after, and even beyond that... I know I will still be hopelessly in love with him.

While thinking solely of Tohno, I cried myself to sleep."

Hyde

I recently disturbed the universe.

Of course, for anyone who upturns an entire universe, he would know what the outcome is, and what it really feels like. However, there seems to be a great amount of people who could achieve this without failure, without having to resort to such direct methods that hurts not only me, but to a large extent, her. 

I grew to hate them. I had always disliked people who seemingly have no difficulty with this business. Out of jealousy, perhaps, but more prominently, out of the disconnection between me and them. It certainly feels that they are a different race of humans altogether, or, even, that I am the weird human, the mutation that should not have existed at all. 

I had to say I expected nothing from this ordeal. I was simply set into motion when I realized that I could not bear the sight of her "interacting with others extensively", so to speak (I am such an evil being). The rational voice is completely muted by pure desire to possess, that I decided that this is the end of all uncertainty, that I must find out what the truth is.

How could one be disappointed when one expected nothing? This is a question I cannot answer. The most logical explanation would be that I had some expectation. I told myself to not care, but evidently that is a premise I violated blatantly. I would not put myself into such an outlandish situation, so uncharacteristic of my normal self, that would warrant words that could severely hurt someone. The truth is, I like her, and I would never do such a thing to someone I like.

Two weeks and counting have passed since, but it felt like an eternity, to put into cliched terms. Indeed, these kinds of situations are so often depicted in the media: A character, rather obtuse and foolish, seeks someone whom they love, and of course fails completely and miserably. We all laugh at these kinds of shows, thinking that there is no way a reasonable human would act like that.

Turns out I am quite foolish indeed.

I had come to terms that no one possibly gives a damn about my sadness. Humans abhor sadness, since it hinders their thoughts and actions, and is rather contagious in fact. They do not want to fall into melancholy, so being depressed is not considered a professional behaviour, not what a well behaved human should do. But there is a definite piece of me that is missing after this ordeal, and, whenever the gales of Cambridge starts to hit me, the gap widens, an endless chasm of nothingness opens up.

I wanted to cry, but no tears would come out. I suppose this is such a laughable matter that even my body would say it is not worth producing tears for.

But that is enough of me. This post will not be shared, and to those who stumble upon this, thank you for reading through. I know that I am pathetic, and I really deserve not much sympathy from having this selfish desire, but this is part of who I am, as a naive child stuck in time. This is the Hyde to the Jekyll you perhaps think I am.

And if you are reading, by some inconceivable chance,

Sorry. Since we may never meet again, I wish you a happy and successful life ahead.

Jekyll

"While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.”

There is a great emphasis on rationality in the study of almost every subject. Needless to say, the scientific method demands absolute rationality in the collection, processing and interpretation of results. Many disciplines have since adopted this successful protocol. Perhaps quite surprisingly though, I find that "art" subjects such as literature and music demanding a certain degree of reason, particularly in the interpretation and analysis of works, which, arguably, is the biggest component of the effort spent in the study or research within these fields. 

A person who has a damaged faculty for reason is thus considered insane. Edgar Allan Poe describes this fact quite well in his short story The Fall of the House of Usher, where he details the downfall of Roderick Usher's sanity, using parallels to the slow collapse of his house. As hard as Usher tries to contain the secret of his sister's burial, he eventually is overcome by his subconscious guilt and loses his ability to control himself as his emotions flood out uncontrollably. The most memorable things that retained in my mind about this story, ever since I took an exam on it about one and a half years ago, is the ample imagery and rich atmosphere that gives a clear and unmistakable image of a haunted mansion. With the sickly residents and the dreary weather, it makes any living thing lose its will to live. To sum the "message" of the story up, I guess it is best to say that Poe is telling us that the loss of control over our emotions is a bad thing, certainly an unpleasant sight to most. (Wildly bastardizing the story here on multiple levels. Sorry Ms. Jessup) 

When we look at the average human being, then, we know that they are not insane, simply because they exhibit traits of rationality. They interact with others with an aim in mind, and expect a reasonably apt response. In a sense, what we encounter on a day to day basis is quite ordinary, hence the enticement of adventure to some. And by ordinary, I mean rational, clearly tractable lines of thought that emanate from purpose, with style or method that conveys meaning, and anticipates reactions. All is rational. Yet, is rationality and irrationality so clearly distinguished from each other? Could it be that there are indispensable propensities for human to act so irrational? After all, throughout history, people who have contributed to the fine arts or literature are considered, for lack of a better word, heroic. Their works, however, could really barely be called rational: Most often full of symbolism and enigmas, or straight up stream-of-conscious journeys into their minds. Bar a few, we know that authors and artists are members of the society as well. What then drives some to act so irrational, yet still avoiding insanity? 

For me, it is affection, also known as, probably, love. I hesitate because I, for one, know nothing of this mysterious feeling, despite claiming to like stories of romance (as I explained earlier, I like romance stories and shows simply because they show a less dark side of humanity. More in previous posts). The past week had me quite literally splitting into two: A rational me, and an irrational me, arguing whether confession is a good idea. Of course, the irrational self is more than willing: It craves attention, someone that could give me warmth in this world of cold reason and never ending labour. The rational self, however, actually also wishes to remove the uncertainty and, more importantly, the role of irrationality who is simply impeding all my work. It reached a conclusion: Just do it to get it over with. Note how rationality agrees with irrationality here. This had me spinning in circles, wondering what went wrong. 

There could be nothing wrong at all: This is indeed what I wanted, and is what I got eventually. However, there is also the possibility that everything is wrong here, that there is something my brain or body could not really comprehend: Is it really affection, or simply infatuation? I do not wish to hurt someone I like. How would she react? What would she actually think of me as a person if I decide to break the silence? These are all questions I could not find an answer, and, well, while some are answered empirically, some remain as mysteries forever. 

After being taught in the scientific mindset for such an extended period of my life, I had considered myself a very rational person, that emotions are simply bursts of unnecessary anomalies in thought. But, perhaps this is another pair of duality I have discovered. This time, it exceeds beyond the fact the irrationality must exist to let rationality shine. It simply is another totally dominant system of thought, and could even be thought of as the driving force of rationality, who takes the back seat to the vessel of thought. I eventually reached a decision. Whether it was a bad one or not, I do not care. What is more important is that I realize that when my rational self and irrational self agree, there is no stopping of an action. This is why the world is interesting, I suppose. After all, how boring is a world full of perfect decision makers! [1]

---

ED Discussion 8: Bakemonogatari ED, Kimino Shiranai Monogatari [2] 

"Since when I wonder, 
Have I been chasing after you? 
Somehow, please, Don't be surprised 
and listen to these feelings of mine."



Since when, I do wonder, have I become so emotional? Indeed, truthfully, I have had some fantasies that could be classified as infatuation, but this time there is no mistake that an unprecedented wave of emotions hit me. The boundary between reality and dream blurred, as I barely rested over the past weeks over this... feeling.

This is perhaps, stretching the definitions a bit, somehow what it feels like to exist in the world of the Monogatari series. After all, the art style points towards a very dreary world, full of fantasy. We never see any other person except the main characters, and the surroundings are simply blended into a surreal world, with actual words representing objects, repetitive imagery of the same monotonous symbols over and over again (to good effect), where magical powers exist but are not questioned at all, and mysteries are resolved in the most bizarre fashion, by being wished away it seems. The visuals of this ED extends such technique to a world sketched by an artist, further driving in the effect of the dreamlike portrayal of the world.

The girl with her hands open, featured prominently in the ED, is most likely Hitagi Senjougahara, which essentially resonates perfectly to the story of episode 12.

"That's all I have. Being able to help you study, a cute junior and a brusque father. And this starry sky. That's all I have."

And of course, with her hands open, she is showing all she had to offer. Nothing sophisticated, flashy or particularly surprising. Is this truly what love manifests as? It seems so simple, yet the intricacy and force behind such sentiment is immense, enough to delude and corrupt. On one extreme, we have stories such as Miki Sayaka's, while on the other end is this seemingly simple occurrence. After all, emotions are subjective, by definition. They only affect directly those who feel it. For some, it may be a commonplace feeling. Yet, for some it is enough to take the all life out of a walking body.

I am glad I have yet to turn into Sayaka, or Nadeko. But I could not stop wondering whether I am treading the path of these characters, the stories of which are blatant warnings. This wound (for which I inflicted upon myself) will probably take a long time to heal. Or it may never at all, in which case I will never be able to get out of this trap I have set for myself. In any case, I am going to take solace in the fact that I am most likely not alone in this fight against the fundamental flaw of humans.

It is about time to wake up.

---

[1]: I have been jumping out of the distant stories of "him" and the deliberately obscured symbol-filled narrative style and started to talk about me as an actual person. That is to say, I feel that my emotions are becoming more and more concrete as I age. Is this a natural thing? Is it a good direction to head to? We will have to see.

[2]: I feel that I need to remind everyone that this section is not a review, nor an analysis, but a reflection, or discussion, as you may prefer.

Wishful Thoughts

"[H]e placed his hands on the desk and took one long, slow breath–'what I would like to do for a lovely young fairy such as you is to grant a wish you might have, to make your wish come true. Anything. Anything at all that you wish for–assuming that you do have such a wish.' "

Do you have a wish?

Most people do. Even if you are not willing to admit it easily, you secretly wish to alter something about this world. The world is filled to its brim with imperfections, misfortune, disagreement and tragedy that there must be something which, in anyone's eyes, would need improvement. It is the nature of humans to seek betterment, and wish-granting offers a shortcut from objective to results without resorting to the often overly complicated, arduous or simply impossible methods and steps to achievement. Thus, wish-granting is often considered a miracle, perhaps wished upon by many to be true in itself.

The beginning of this post features a quote from Birthday Girl, a short story by Haruki Murakami (numerous other quotes in previous posts here are from his short stories). The story revolves around a waitress girl, working part-time, and definitely not out of ordinary. She does not even have a name, as with many of the characters in Murakami's short stories. She probably represents any average person we know, or any stranger on the street. One day, the manager who takes care of the boss, residing in an office on top of the restaurant, was sick, and the waitress was called to deliver food to the boss. Perhaps surprised by the extra-ordinary arrangement, the boss invited the waitress into the office. Upon hearing that the waitress had her twentieth birthday on that day, he granted the waitress a present, a wish. 

Perhaps, in an ordinary story, the focus would be put on whatever the waitress wished. After all, a wish is an instant method to gratification, as mentioned above, and an opportunity to make an arbitrary wish can possibly be the highlight of one's life, forever altering the course of one's fate and fortune. It could, to stretch it a bit, be a prime opportunity for humans to, for once, outsmart fate herself. So, what did the waitress wish for?

It seems that we would never know, because Murakami never tells us. It is simply revealed that it is not something a normal girl of her age would wish for. When her friend and she reminisced about this later in the story, it was also told that the wish takes time to come true. Other than these pieces of information, nothing concrete about the wish itself was described. And, though the waitress herself confessed that she was not taking the wish totally seriously, and that wish-granting is quite out of the premise of the realistic setting of the story, it is plausible that the wish was actually granted, since it is characteristic for Murakami's story to, in quite cliched words, "bring out the supernatural out of the natural".

So, was this a bad story? I had an inclination to this judgment, with the story being quite unfocused and blurry in its main message, until I read the last line: 

"That's because you've already made your wish." said the waitress.

This was the response to her friend, who, when asked about how she would have made her decision in the waitress' place back in the boss' office, said she "can't think of anything". Thus, the "wish", under Murakami's pen, suddenly disappeared under everyone's close scrutiny to find out its true identity. Softly and thinly, it blended into the air, like the fading fragrance of perfume as the lady leaves. What is Murakami trying to say here, then?

Wish-granting, being the stuff of fantasy, is no stranger to anime, a rather fantastical genre. In Bakemonogatari by Nisio Isin, the Suruga Monkey arc features Kanbaru Suruga, a rather normal schoolgirl to start with. Being ridiculed by her inability to run fast in sports classes, she wished upon the monkey hand that her mother gave to her to be the fastest runner, and thus win a race against her classmates. In the end, she did win the race, but not the way she intended: She ended up being possessed by a "rainy devil", that assaulted other competitors during the night before the race. The new competitors were not as competent, but she was so guilty of the incident that she actually put effort into improving her speed. The rainy devil manifested itself again when Kanbaru was (subconsciously, or not) infatuated with Senjougahara, and saw Araragi as her rival. 

One could dismiss this as the devil twisting the aspirations and dreams of people, being a Dionysian character after all by definition. Yet, Isin pointed us towards another viewpoint: that wishes themselves are inherently evil. After all, to fulfill a wish means a satisfaction of a certain condition that benefits a certain individual, from the said individual's viewpoint. What might be considered optimal for one person may vastly differ from others. More importantly, since humans are most connected with themselves, barring extreme cases, there is no other way to make a wish without a degree of greed and selfishness. To wish for a jackpot means to deprive it from the original "rightful" winner; to wish for a place in a prestigious university means to snatch it away from someone more capable and more deserving than you are. Running along the same thread, to wish for a victory in a race means to remove the possibility of others winning the race. What many might think is, idealistically, that the wisher would suddenly gain immense ability and win the race with such ability. Yet, this is not the wish: Kanbaru did not really wish for her to be fast; she wished for her be the fastest. In other words, if others were slowed down by some unfortunate incident, her wish would be granted. And how would you guarantee that she indeed wished for the former?

Perhaps this is why when a lot of people make a wish, say a birthday wish, they would wish for general, and rather all-encompassing wishes: World peace, healthy life (even with no apparent risk of sickness). I used to think that these wishes are quite meaningless, and is a huge waste of an opportunity to express for want of something: In any case, world peace might differ from person to person, and I do not foresee myself having any major illness any time soon. They might as well be branded as mannerisms, along with the countless other meaningless expressions that constitute the deadweight of language. However, after some thought, the only wish that one can possibly make without falling into the paradox above is to wish for nothing, for the world to stay the same as it is, to continue its path along the cosmos as it is intended to. After all, all wishes are either not a good idea, or malicious to others. Daily misfortunes are but another dot in the never ending timeline that the universe treads through, slowly but surely. Altering such path would just be foolish, leading to equally as many unfortunate outcomes, if not more. Rather fatalistic, but quite true.

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OP Discussion 7: Bakemonogatari "Mayoi Snail" OP, Kaerimichi

"Let's join our hands and return.
Together, let's return home.
I'm sure our destination is always there,
And with you, I'll discover it."

 

There is something about this show that is so enchanting, even though its plot is not very apparent at times and the animation is, should I say, alternative and unconventional. On one hand, it fits in some messages about the nature of humanity that leaves a lasting mark, while on the other hand it also unabashedly displays fan service of all characters. It is a digitally produced medium, specifically an anime, a medium which harnesses the power of novelty and fantasy, yet it stylizes itself as something like a staged performance, a play, with deliberate references to conventions of the genre (title cards, scripts, overabundance of dialogues and still shots etc.) and even employs real life shots occasionally. The feast of contradictions, however, did not cause cacophony, but rather amplifies the refreshing nature of this show, making it ever more attractive.

Anyway, there is also an abundance of OPs in this series. I picked this one up because of how much it initially resonated within me, and also how it, upon closer examination, brings up even more to think about. Hachikuji Mayoi (in Bakemonogatari at least) has only one simple wish: To return to her home. And indeed, the title of her theme reflects this clearly (Kaerimichi (帰り道) = path to home). However, the matter complicates as Araragi tries to help her, assuming she is just a lost child: Firstly, the destination is deliberately obscured from the viewers. Second, no matter how they dwell through the town, they could not find the address and the corresponding house that Hachikuji describes. What seems like a simple task of going home turns out to be another mystery that Araragi has to solve.

The feeling of returning home is something to behold. Upon returning home, I know that I have reached my destination, that I am free from the gazes of the public, that I can relax and gather my thoughts of what happened during the day. It is a relief from uncertainty, a sentiment that could be described as the diametric opposite of fear. Perhaps I have the mentality of a grade school student in this aspect, but going home is an important part of my day, which is probably why I do not like traveling. Being an international student simply boosts this feeling of homesickness to the extreme and, upon hearing this song, a strange feeling of acceptance and identification swept over me. At the end of the day, through the stresses of expectations and judgments, I only have a simple wish: My tummy is growling, let's go home.

The closer examination comes in the department of visuals for this OP. Maybe I am not very astute in my analysis initially, but the only character present in this OP is Hachikuji. Her schoolmates are herself, the teacher is herself, even the crying lost child that she "saves" is herself. Despite the cheerful and innocent tone of the song, the realization of this fact gave an overwhelming sense of loneliness. This could all as well be her own imagination: The fun times she had in school, the shenanigans with her friends, and having someone appear from the skies to save her from her plight. Indeed, being lost is the loneliest feeling: even the inanimate town, the buildings, the roads are conspiring against you. Nonetheless, the contrast between the audio, the surface of the visual (the fun times of her day) and the deeper layer of the visuals (her helplessness) brings up a spring of optimism, that even if the odds are against you, that even if everything seems to be going wrong, at the end of the day, it would be possible to return, that all roundabouts and detours will resolve themselves and yield a path to home.

Maybe I am just homesick.

Credits to /r/AnimeThemes

Liking

" 'Like' and 'don't dislike' are millions of light-years apart, you know."

When my piano teacher told me I liked music, I was genuinely surprised.

First of all, having someone tell you what you really like is already a deviation from the norm. Supposedly, the person who knows me the best should really be myself. To have someone telling me what I like is probably considered a failure on my part by many, especially in this competitive globalized world where talent must not only be possessed but also presented aptly. Secondly, the statement comes off very strange to me since no one has mentioned it before. It is hard to get me interested in something, as I have figured out these years, let alone like something and actively display traits of an enthusiast subconsciously.

Throughout my earlier years, music has been rather like a burden. It was not that I despised music, somehow like a typical over-stressed Asian child under the influence of their parents would say, or how Kousei would cry in front of his mother in Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. My parents put much greater emphasis on academics than extra-curriculars, which perhaps saved my already desolate interest in music slightly. Yet, I was more than glad when I got my grade 8 certification in violin, meaning that I do not have to partake in this extremely paranoia-inducing process of musical exams. The same feeling was produced when I was emancipated from the grasps of the primary school orchestra and, to some extent, the Chinese orchestra that plagued my time in junior secondary (cf. The Missing Beat). Many might think that because I study science and do relatively well academically, I must be very organized and determined. In fact it turns out I am quite impulsive and prone to giving up unless I am forced to stay in a particular activity, during which I will begrudgingly drag myself on, but that would fall wide of the area in which one would consider someone "interested in what he is doing".

To this apparent paradox, I turned towards the very root of the problem: What does it mean for someone to "like" something? First and foremost, it is important to distinguish between liking something and liking someone, a topic I do not wish to discuss at length here. However, there are some significant similarities between these concepts, some of which might appear here or in future posts.

It is often the case that when someone claims that he likes something, and keeps talking about it with flashy facts and dazzling enthusiasm, he would appear to be rather ill-informed and possibly will be ridiculed by real experts in the field. Indeed, some consider "liking" something to be fully encompassing the attractive aspects as well as the boring and tedious aspects of the thing of interest. This would not be a bad description of liking, somehow mirroring the commitment required for "loving" someone, and coincidentally would quite definitely put me in the camp of "not really liking music", since all I had in mind was to pursue music as a side hobby and not devote my entire attention to it (or even, the majority of my attention). I only wanted to be able to play something to entertain myself, not endure the hard practice to be an absolute expert.

You might be able to sense something wrong with the last sentences of the last paragraph already. If "liking" something means to be able to put up with the nastier attributes, does a hobbyist like what he is doing? Here, I refer to hobbyist as in someone who is not ready to give up his entire life, somehow opposed to "professional" or "die-hard fan" if you will. There is limited commitment, and the prime reason for this limitation would be, exactly, the unsavoury work that one has to overcome before reaching the results of enjoyment that one seeks in a hobby. This is why the description of hobbyist is often used to contrast that of an expert, because a hobbyist would not be able or willing to put in the efforts to train himself to be an expert. Given that the hard work required to be an expert vanishes, which hobbyist would not want to be one?

It is perhaps because of precisely this that I have been somehow avoiding over-commitment in music (running away, as Shinji would put it). I do not want to go into the circle of people who actually "like" music, as per described above, and find myself sticking out like a sore thumb, unable to fully commit to this cause. Also because of this, I was afraid to admit that I like anything, for fear that someone might have the impression that I am willing to commit my full attention to something, when in fact I am merely a hobbyist, and will come up as a disappointment when I fail to meet their expectations. This is perhaps why the statement that I like music caused such resounding feeling. It turns out that this feeling stems from fear of expectations, perhaps one of the most prevalent feelings in my life so far.

In this world of exhibitionism, a person with no interests, or who "likes" nothing, is often considered a deadweight to the society, since he cannot contribute to anything with his full enthusiasm, and someone more enthusiastic must take up all the hard work behind the eventual results. The hobbyist, therefore, is often deemed a lazy person and would attribute to nothing constructive. Along with the lack of creativity, the lack of interest is one of the things that this world would no longer accept in the face of globalization. Where would be the escape for the hobbyist? This is something I no longer know, and no longer bother to find.

---

OP Discussion 6: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu OP, Bouken Desho Desho?

"The answer is always in my heart"

I suppose that around this time, the time for instrumentality and the Third Impact, I should really be discussing the OP/ED of NGE, but I feel that I have more to say about this piece instead, and after all this is also the OP of the movie (Disappearance), which occurs around the time of Christmas, so I would say that it is an apt and festive choice as well.

The OP starts off with a shooting star, a symbol of wish and fantasy, stuff of legends perhaps. Immediately we are thrown into an atmosphere that is mystical, magical almost, with a hand of god prhaps reaching out to grab Haruhi, who gladly accept the invitation to the mystical realm of the night skies, now brilliant, abreast with hopes and dreams of the supernatural. It mirrors the event which kicked Haruhi into motion, into her eccentric yet relentless search of the extraordinary, the night of the Tanabata detailed in Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody. It could be inferred that the hand is then Kyon's/John Smith's. Regardless, this short segment sets the entire tone of the adventures in the show, just as effectively as it serves as a foil of Kyon's opening monologue.

While a lot of non-action themed OP's serve us still shots of characters, or simply shots where the character is not in a great deal of motion (cf CLANNAD), this is not the case here. Haruhi is rather restless, as one might say, always walking or cheering, being active that is, while characters such as Nagato are not filled with motion at all. Not to mention the various visual cues of the characters' "real identities", the OP is a clear reflection of the characters we can expect in the show.

The most memorable part, and indeed what makes this OP one of my favourites, is from 0:48 onwards. With Haruhi waking through what seems to be the universe of her imagination, and various characters she manifests, it almost seems to revive a part of the innocence lost with these years, bringing back memories of the time when nothing seems to be hindering us from dreaming about impossibilities.

When I say that Haruhi saved me from the darkest moments I had last year around this period, I refer to the energetic optimism displayed in the show, and that is especially well encapsulated in this brief OP. This is why I would say it is this 10-year-old classic which brought me into the world of anime (and becoming a damn weeb).

Credits to /r/AnimeThemes.

Turbulence

"Once the mountain of records had disappeared from his house, Tony Takitani was really alone."

1. Seasons

"不以物喜, 不以己悲"

This is what the greats in ancient Chinese think that a truly dutiful and useful person would be: Abstained from emotions based on trivial matters. One of the most trivial matters that almost seems too easy to neglect is the weather, or the ever changing seasons around us. It is so easy to look up at the sky and utter a simple comment: The sky is clear. It is overcast. Bad day isn't it? It is the lowest form of discussion, a filler I suppose, when one fails to find something more meaningful to discuss but don't want to cease the conversation. Since I, as you should all know, am the most banal, seasons and weather do form a great part of my emotional well being. Therefore, I deem it quite strange that this topic has never appeared on this blog, and shall therefore right this anomaly here.

I had always hated spring in Hong Kong. It is perhaps the only season where rain never ceases to fall. Every time I looked up to expect some sunshine, I was greeted by miles and miles of grey misery. Unlike in the UK, rain always falls in torrents, always necessitating an umbrella. The stereotypical reawakening of all things bright and beautiful does not quite occur, for Hong Kong is a tropical city. There is no wilting and hibernation to start with, thus nullifying any meaning in blooming. The temperature is the most awkward, trapped in a limbo of the stifling summer and demoralizing winter. The lukewarm temperature, combined with the barely oxygenated air, makes me feel rather like a dumpling in a basket, ready to be steamed. I can find no motivation to work under this constant horrible weather, and hence this is a season of idling, or as I already remarked in an earlier post, a season of introversion and sorrow. This is accentuated by the fact that, again appealing to stereotypes, spring is a season of love. The sense of helplessness and loneliness simply overwhelms me.

If I say that I hate summer back home, I would be telling only a partial truth. The humidity and suffocating heat originating from spring becomes even worse here, and it is quite impossible to go out without necessitating a shower immediately afterwards. Thanks to air conditioning, all is not lost. Summer is also when my memories of the blue sky are most pronounced. Though horribly hot, the pure sky never ceases to calm me, and for whatever reason, the summer blue sky is the most romantic, allowing me for forget my worries, and imagine that I can relive my childhood without the psychological strains.

Autumn used to be my favourite: The misery of rain fades after the final storm around September, morphing into a crisp dry breeze that doesn't yet feel excessively chilly. The warmth encased within the refreshing air never fails to motivate me for another day of work. There might not be the exciting sight of a thoroughly covered crimson ground of maple leaves. Hong Kong, being the ever-running city, continues to be a rather underwhelming sight. Yet, such scenery does not need to manifest in front of me physically for me to be placed within the appropriate mood.

Recent years of climate change has raised the autumn temperature quite a lot, and I no longer feel the crispness of this wonderful season. In some sense it is regretful for me to have to shift my favourite season to winter, the time where I had to cope with increasing realization of loneliness again. Traditionally this is the case, and it is rather overtly emphasized as people attempt to compensate for this through the abundance of festivities: Christmas, Chinese New Year to say the least. In some cases, the lack of heating in my hometown brings out the momentary warmth when I cuddle up in a thick blanket. Therefore, it is safe to say that there are plenty of romantic traits about winter, despite its threatening to shut our warmth down.

Of course, moving to the UK has changed my perception of seasons quite a bit. However, no matter how long I stay here, or, in the future, wherever I shall wander to, I will be that boring guy who reminisces constantly about the sobering Novembers, the Decembers full of joy and illusions, the lazy summers. It doesn't take much for me to talk about my perception of these ever so common phenomena, and no one can object, doubt or question me for doing so, or my personal thoughts. It is reassuring to know there is something in the world you can talk about with no one being able to challenge or judge you, isn't it?

2. Re-encounter with the pixie fairy and her magic

Recently, he has encountered the pixie fairy that he had tried to forget again.

He has no idea whether this is good news. One thing is certain though: the fairy's charm has not ebbed anyhow: Same refreshing perfume, same luminous figure, same warm words. She is nothing less than perfect, at least to him. This re-encounter probably means nothing to her. He is simply a speck of dust in her life full of colours and joy. It is not that he annoys her, but that he is so insignificant and featureless.

Yet, for him and his grey-smeared life, she is the only colour he sees. Amongst the depressing cold hue of the lifeless deprecated buildings, the unspeakably dull walls of bricks that surround him every day, the thought of being with her provides a certain kind of relief, yet incites unlimited regret and anxiety, that one day the days of seeing her would cease, and he would no longer exist in her world, not even as a speck of dust.

What should he do? Should he simply wait it out, or should he upturn the universe, and wake up the slowly dying patient? There might be a chance, that if he fails, she would always notice him as a speck of dust, ever so annoying, and would try to get rid of him. This is something he would very much like to avoid, for obvious reasons.

He hates his falling into this trap called love again and again, but he is human after all, and it is all too human to have emotions. This he can understand, but can pixies understand this? Will there be time for this man to spend? Will he finally decide to eat a peach?

These are questions whose answers only exists with the fairy tales he grew up hearing about. After all, pixies are objects of such fantasies, right?

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OP Discussion 5: CLANNAD OP, Megumeru ~cuckool mix 2007~

"Even on the day of a cold morning
 I'll move forward unhesitatingly
 While I turn pain and sorrow
 Into my allies"

It certainly feels nice to finally be able to get around to one of my favourites.

To this day, I am still not sure what inspired me to like romance shows so much. It is definitely against the stereotype of what a male teenager should like (not that, in the current age, one should care about), or rather against my occasional disdain for humanity. It might simply be the amazement I feel that when the vices of humanity are temporarily put aside, all the selfishness, callousness, ignorance seem to fade when there is only another human in one's mind. It is an aesthetically pleasing subject, probably why it has been talked of so much in the past by the sentimental. This truly is a subject whose wonder escapes my tongue. But I digress.

The visuals of this OP is decidedly adequate for a visual novel (VN) adaptation. Being a very character centred show (another trait I appreciate greatly), an opening showcasing the characters is quite appropriate. Warm colours are used throughout, hence even though the OP shows a transition from the desolate winter (which represents the illusionary world aptly), the hope and growth that the coming spring promises is dominant, or rather, emphasized through contrast.

Despite appearing to be a rom-com at first glance, this show is heavily themed on the bitterness of life. The protagonist Okazaki Tomoya seems to be well aware of this, taking a jaded view of his present and indeed his future. Meeting Nagisa changed his view greatly, granting him maturity and a solid outlook to life, yet also simultaneously plunging him into much deeper despair as fate took what he now loves dearly, his sole bases of his meaning of life, one by one. This show is not a light hearted comedy at all, and touches on very sombre topics. Yet, the song played throughout is upbeat and hopeful. If I were Tomoya, this would be a difficult song to sing in the tides of tragedy that befell.

Is this OP a successful one then? Definitely. What I mentioned above neglects the fact that the true message of the show lies underneath the apparent themes. Many complained about the apparently contrived ending to the second season, as Nagisa revives in a rather Deus ex Machina fashion. However, symbolically it makes total sense. It is at this point that Tomoya recognizes the true nature of his life, which is to be ever optimistic and courageous in the face of adversity, to defy fate and create one's own meaning within the grey world of great tragedy. This is what the show is really about: To define the hallmark of maturity and resolve the paradox between the apparent optimism and the objective tragedy that seem to coexist harmoniously. The quote I mentioned above perfectly encapsulates this spirit, so I had to put it in even though it is not actually in the song for the OP (it is in the long version).

We live in a world of constant shock and disappointment. We believe that peace has descended upon us upon the cessation of the Cold War, that globalization will be smooth and war will never happen again. Yet we are proven gravely mistaken over and over again. Regardless, are we able to bravely face the future that is so uncertain, that might terminate humanity at any day without warning, like Tomoya does?