Humanity, Forever Consuming the Earth

 A late-night NHK documentary on Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon left me reflecting on how deeply—and perhaps inevitably—humankind consumes the planet.

 

Last night’s NHK Special was a documentary about Indigenous people living deep in the Peruvian interior.

The program touched on the ongoing development of the Amazon, and it left me with a heavy feeling.

Slash-and-burn agriculture has long been an issue, but large-scale deforestation has become even more serious.

The footage of massive trees—grown over centuries—being felled one after another was truly shocking.

But this simply means that the Amazon is now the one being cut down.
Human beings have consumed timber for survival since ancient times.

And what we consume is not limited to wood.
We devour every kind of resource the Earth provides, to the point where it sometimes feels as though humanity might swallow the entire planet.

Environmental issues have finally begun to draw wider concern as climate change grows more severe, but they have long existed in different forms across the world.

Perhaps we have become a little more sensible through these painful experiences—but even if the pace of destruction slows at times, it never truly stops.
As long as human beings exist, we can do nothing but continue consuming the Earth.

All we can do is live with an awareness that we are entirely dependent on this planet.

I often heard the phrase “Let’s protect our irreplaceable Earth” when I was younger, but it seems to have faded from everyday conversation.

I want to keep that message in mind once again.

The Earth is not infinite.

 

So This Is What Happens When a Hawk Rises to the Top

 A quiet autumn day in Kamakura, yet the news has been anything but quiet.

 

Chrysanthemums are blooming everywhere now.

At Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, the leaves are turning deeper shades of red and gold, reminding me that autumn is already well underway.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Takaichi’s remark in the Diet — that a Taiwan contingency could become a “situation threatening Japan’s survival” — is making headlines.
I say “making headlines,” but to be honest, I don’t really understand the details well enough to judge what’s right or wrong.

I certainly don’t know enough to pretend I do, so all I can do is watch quietly from the sidelines.

Even so, the fact that China has called for its citizens to refrain from traveling to Japan as of today — that’s no small matter.
The tourism industry, which depends heavily on inbound visitors, must be hurting.

On the other hand, Taiwan and Japan have been drawing closer economically, each for its own reasons, and that trend will likely continue.

Prime Minister Takaichi has long been known as a hawkish politician.
So when someone like that becomes the leader, perhaps it isn’t surprising that these things start happening.

Her approval rating is apparently over 60%, and people still seem to welcome her leadership for now.
But if the situation starts to smell even a little “dangerous,” who knows how quickly that mood might change.

As voters, maybe we need to accept that choosing a hawkish leader comes with consequences, and keep that in the back of our minds.

I often hear people lament Japan’s declining presence in the world.
Maybe that’s why we cheer so loudly for stars like Ohtani or Yamamoto, or for the national soccer team — symbols of Japan still shining on the global stage.

Life isn’t made only of good things.
And when it comes to politics, we citizens probably need to face it a little more seriously, whether we feel ready or not.

 

What Makes a Good Politician?

The idea of a “good politician” feels increasingly elusive. As society grows more complex and voices multiply, what qualities should we truly expect from those who lead us?

 

Prince Shōtoku is said to have been able to listen to ten people speaking at once.

Whether this means he literally distinguished ten different voices or that he could handle numerous petitions at the same time, the point is clear: such a capacity is what leaders have always been expected to possess.

As the Diet convenes and political debates dominate the news, I often realize just how many issues confront this country.

A cabinet minister must grasp every matter within their jurisdiction and respond accordingly. A prime minister, who oversees them all, carries an even heavier burden.

In a society where countless individuals can freely raise their voices, politicians today are expected to wield abilities many times greater than those attributed to Shōtoku.

Yet human nature and human capacity have hardly changed in the 1,500 years since his time.

That is precisely why scandals occur endlessly, from the national level down to local politics.

So what, then, are the qualities of a good politician?

Being a politician is not simply about engaging in politics. Integrity grounded in fairness, and an ethical compass befitting a public role model, are essential.

But I doubt many people embody all these qualities. Most excel at something while falling short elsewhere.

And holding strong convictions inevitably creates contradictions. Stand on the right, and one cannot be entirely fair to those on the left—and vice versa.

What, then, motivates someone to become a politician in the first place?

Are they politicians for the sake of politics? Politicians for the people? Or politicians because “politician” happens to be their chosen profession?

To me, these elements seem to blend together indistinguishably, making it hard to discern a clear image of what a politician should be.

Some may say that education doesn’t matter, scandals don’t matter—just win elections and deliver results.

But even if “politics is about results,” how those results are viewed varies across a full 360 degrees. Evaluation changes dramatically depending on where one stands.

What are the qualities of a good politician?
And, more fundamentally, what is good politics in the first place?

It’s Only Natural for Our Expectations to Be Disappointed

A rainy night, a soaked bedsheet, and an unanswered questionnaire—small reminders that expectations rarely unfold the way we imagine.

 

It must have rained sometime during the night. When I stepped onto the balcony to take a photo, the deck was wet.

The bedsheet my wife had hung out to dry overnight was soaked through, and later I heard her cry of dismay when she discovered it.
To make matters worse, the forecast says it will be cloudy all day, so recovering any dryness during daylight hours seems unlikely.

Since this happened at home, it’s hardly someone else’s problem. It’s troubling—very much our own doing.

When my wife asked last night whether she should hang the sheets, I casually said, “It should be fine,” without even checking the weather forecast. So half the responsibility is mine.
In that sense, I’m just as disappointed as she is.

“To have one’s expectations disappointed” means that a prediction or hope is betrayed and things don’t go as planned.
Implicit in this is the presence of an “other”—a person, nature, or circumstance that does not move according to our wishes.

It is essentially the same as “being let down.”
Whether the object of our expectation is another person or the weather, when reality fails to match what we hoped for, we lament that our expectations have been undone.

My wife took care of the household chore of hanging the sheets at night.
Her modest hope—that it wouldn’t rain until morning—was simply overturned by the rain that came after midnight.

No one did anything wrong.
It’s not as though God decided to tease her by sending rain in the night.

I’ve been circulating a questionnaire to members of a subcommittee for a certain academic society, but the responses have been slow to return.
This, too, is another case of disappointed expectations.
It never helps to expect too much from others.

In life, expectations are bound to be broken.
Perhaps it’s better to live with that understanding—so that the shock, when disappointment comes, will be gentler.

Has Our Social World Become Smaller — or Wider?

 As our lives move deeper into the digital realm, the way we connect with others keeps changing.
Sometimes it feels as if our world has shrunk, and yet, in another sense, it has expanded beyond measure.

 

Lately, I often feel that my circle of human relationships has grown remarkably small.

At work, I have one junior pathologist and four or five laboratory technologists.
I’ve known the pathologist for two years now, but we’ve long since run out of small talk; these days we mostly stick to work-related conversations.
Our values differ in many ways, and that can’t be helped.

As for the technologists, we work in separate areas, so we hardly talk at all.
Most of them are in their twenties, and our topics of interest don’t overlap much.
It’s only natural—after all, we’re almost a generation apart.

Other than them, the only person I regularly interact with is my wife.
She is, of course, my greatest supporter and companion, and our conversations never seem to run dry.
When work is over, I go straight home, and I truly love the home we’ve built together.

Unlike me, my wife is sociable and has many acquaintances in our neighborhood.
She may not have many people she’d call close friends, but her social world is far broader than mine.

Somehow, my own society has quietly narrowed over time.
The ease of email and social networks surely plays a role.
When I wonder how someone is doing, it’s easier to send a message than make a call, and by scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, I can “force-feed” myself bits of their recent life.

This blog doesn’t reveal much about my own daily details, but—

“Well, it seems Coloken is doing fine.”

—might be the sort of vague impression I leave.

Human connections, and the society they form, have in one sense become smaller, yet in another, vastly expanded.
Whether one feels loneliness in that shrinking space, or builds a new kind of community within the digital world, depends on the person.

As for me, I still long for real, face-to-face interaction.
Perhaps it’s because I was born and raised before the digital era—a member of the old human race.

We Humans Shouldn’t Just Keep Taking

 In our daily lives, we often receive far more than we realize. But taking without giving back — that’s not how life should be.

 

When I don’t get a reply after asking someone for a favor by email, I start to worry.

Maybe they simply forgot to respond.
Or perhaps they want to decline my request but don’t know how to say it.
There could be many reasons — maybe their computer just broke down.

Of course, I don’t enjoy doing these troublesome tasks myself.
It’s just something I got involved in, a kind of volunteer work that I can’t easily step away from.

The other day, a junior colleague from my department asked me to review a paper.

He said he had already asked several people, but everyone turned him down before finally reaching me.
Even if it feels like being drafted in the lower rounds, once you’re called, you have to accept — especially for a younger colleague you care about.

Still, peer review is pure volunteer work.
You spend your limited time and energy, squeezing out what intellect you have left, all for the simple reward of having your name printed in a journal’s reviewer list.
Most likely, he himself is on the editorial team — which means he’s also volunteering.

Human society is built on give and take.

There’s a simple saying: “No work, no pay.”
But volunteer work is different — it’s “Work, with no pay.”

Even so, when I think about all I’ve gained and received throughout my life, contributing in this way feels like a small act of repayment.
It should never be seen as a loss.

As humans, we shouldn’t just keep taking.
Before we die, we ought to return what we’ve been given.

If we can break even — a perfect zero-sum — that’s already an achievement.
And if we ever try to escape without giving back, surely fate will find a way to catch up with us.

 

Of Detachment, Resignation, and Life Itself

 It’s Monday again — another new week begins. Yet when we look closely, do things really change that much from week to week, year to year? Perhaps not.

 

Again, Monday.

But this marks the beginning of another week.

What makes this week different from the last one, from the previous month, or from the same time last year?
When I think about it carefully, not much has really changed.

The cast of characters keeps changing, yet the essence of human relations remains the same.
Somewhere in the world, wars continue.
Because of human actions, other living beings are driven from their homes.
People fall ill, and many leave this world.

Such things repeat endlessly — and perhaps it is better that they do not change.
Even though we know what humans are, we still carry envy and jealousy within us until the end.
Human beings are, indeed, complex creatures.

There are two Japanese words — takkan (達観) and teikan (諦観).
They sound similar but differ in nuance.
達観 (takkan) means to understand the essence of things and to accept them calmly, with a broad and positive mind.
諦観(teikan), on the other hand, means to realize that something cannot be changed, and to let go of further struggle or hope — a more resigned way of seeing the world.
So, takkan is a positive outlook; teikan is the act of giving up.

Which is better? 

There is no single answer.
 

We may approach some things with detachment, and others with resignation.
Perhaps life itself moves gently back and forth between the two.

At the very least, as long as one has not fallen into despair —
that alone is reason enough to keep going.