Musings about Japan

Warning: this post will probably be a little rambling and may seem aimless, but bear with me!

This weekend, as I mentioned before, I went to my friend's new family lake house. It was a beautiful location, with tall trees that stretched farther toward the sky than the squat live oaks we have here. As the name would entail, we were right beside a massive lake, although I was mildly depressed when I discovered it was manmade. The calming beauty was dampened, however, by the catastrophe in Japan that I heard of from my mom when we were beginning the 4 hour drive to the retreat. I can't imagine an earthquake, what it must feel like when the ground beneath you (the one thing we think of as solid) is actually quavering. I can't imagine what it would be like to see a rolling tower of waves rushing toward you, literally swallowing every thing you own. But the thought makes me sick. It would make any of us horrified if we actually took the time to think of the implications were we in their shoes. So many of us (I would venture to guess 80%, at least) suffer from what I call "The Bubble Syndrome." We constantly separate ourselves from any train of thought that doesn't seem comfortable or applicable to our own lives. We don't even attempt to truly imagine what someone else is thinking or feeling. Right now you're probably thinking that you're not "one of those people"...you actually sympathize with people around the world dealing with tragedy. If you are, think again. Do you honestly even take the time to see a situation from your brother's viewpoint or try to understand an argument from your best friend's mind? Probably not.

I believe it was the British poet, Matthew Arnold who conveyed similar sentiments in one of his poems, lamenting the unavoidable isolation we all face in life. You may feel extremely close to someone, but then you realize that you can never truly be of one mind. Individuality is a wonderful thing, but it can also be an excuse for narcissism. It can be used as a tool to further separate "us" from "them." We seem to view others through a pane of glass, their pain isn't real to us. Why? Because they're aren't me, and I'm not them. That's how our minds work...I guess.

This past winter, my worldview widened considerably. While in Minnesota, I met two college students who were on the same delayed flight to Tokyo Narita airport (the very airport that was flooded with water from Friday's tsunami). They were from Japan. One was an American who had grown up at the U.S. military base in Okinawa, heading back to spend Christmas with her family, the other was a Japanese girl born and raised in Tokyo, returning from studying. When the incident occured on Friday, I was thinking of them. And also all the other people from Japan that we spent hours with when our flight was delayed for two days. The idea that someone I had seen or spoken with or smiled at is dead from this natural disaster was shocking to me for some reason. Not only that. How many (if any) have family members or friend unaccounted for? Were any of the people I saw headed to Tokyo from Sendai or one of the towns washed away? It wasn't just the people I met in Minnesota that made me feel so deeply about this, though. For going on two years I've been thinking and wanting to teach English or live in Asia when I graduate. Japan was one of the places I've been considering, so when I heard that an American girl who had been teaching there for 3 years was missing after the tsunami the thought occured that her and I are not so dissimilar. (Thankfully, she contacted her parents after 4 days of being unable to communicate--she's okay :) Also, when I was watching the news coverage in the aftermath, an American correspondent was being interviewed over the phone from Tokyo. It shook me to my core when I heard his voice quivering as he related the earthquake. Realizing how deeply it affected him (someone I don't even know!) was...strange. He and his friends were in the newsroom going about their day when the world fell apart. He said that Tokyo was the more fortunate of the cities hit and that people were mostly dealing with the psychological blow. How could they not be reeling from the shock?

There are thousands of people still unaccounted for in Japan. Thousands. And now they're also facing a nuclear disaster. Even though it's impossible to imagine the gravity of the situation, I dare you to try. Burst the "bubble" that separates you from the rest of the world. What really makes us so different?