Non-attachment

I’ve begun one of the most surreal endeavors I think I have ever set out to accomplish. That is, I’ve jumped head first into learning katakana – the set of characters used in Japanese to write foreign (mostly English) words. Each character represents a consonant followed by a vowel. (There’s another set called hiragana and then there’s kanji, which are symbols that depict an entire meaning and are super complex and beautiful). So here I am, sounding out words in my head all over town only to be left often with no clue of what the word says. For example, I see this sign every day on the way to Chloe’s school:



It sounds out: Su-te-ki. Took me a minute to realize it spells “steak” (the picture of the cow helps). In sum, I’ve learned a set of Japanese characters to sound out Japanese pronunciations of English words. Bizarre indeed but thoroughly enjoyable. Nick described it best when he said it’s like staring at a puzzle until its meaning reveals itself. Other examples: miruku (milk), supa (supermarket), pasokon (computer), jaketo (jacket), mafula (scarf). My favorite so far was on a taxi. It said “kado OK”, which means the guy accepts credit cards. Awesome.

There are plenty of things about Japan that I love. One is that the main religions -- Shinto-ism and Buddhism -- teach admiration of nature and non-attachment, respectively. I think the two actually complement each other nicely as when you observe and honor the changing seasons, you can respect the beauty of the moment while realizing the ephemeralness of it all. I guess the Buddha taught that we should not even become too attached to our notion of the self as we are constantly changing, like a fire whose flames transform every second.

Non-attachment is tricky in our consumer-centric cultures. Observing my toddler and soon-to-be-one year old bicker over toys (or really whatever the other one currently has in her hands), I can safely say that we are born with a strong desire to possess. Yet, this desire to possess leads to anxiety and a fear of losing whatever it is we covet. I guess I’m practicing non-attachment to my understanding of the English language.