Paper and Pen Still Help Memory Stick

 In an age of PDFs, screenshots, and digital slides, it is easy to assume that paper and pen have become old-fashioned tools. Yet during medical conferences, I often notice capable young doctors still writing things down by hand. Perhaps there is a reason for that. Taking a photo of a slide may feel efficient, but it does not always leave much in memory. Writing, on the other hand, seems to make something settle more firmly in the mind.

 

It was the first clear, refreshing morning in quite a while.

But unlike the “average seasonal temperatures” we had until yesterday, it seems the heat will return from today.

My body has not quite caught up.

Still, work begins again.

Last week, I had three conferences, and I was rather tired by the end of it.

A conference between pathologists and clinicians is, basically, a place where pathologists explain histological findings to clinicians.

Clinicians may look at tissue sections and not immediately know what is there, so the pathologist has to explain the findings.

Of course, the reverse is also true.

Pathologists do not know everything about clinical medicine.

We understand the essential nature of disease, but we do not always know which treatment is used for which condition, or how those treatments are actually performed.

We can examine a resected stomach specimen, or tissue after part of the heart has been ablated.

But we do not really know how the stomach is cut, or what kind of instrument is used to ablate part of the heart.

During one of those conferences, I noticed that quite a few doctors were writing notes while I was talking about microscopic findings.

I had assumed that fewer people carried paper and pens these days.

Apparently, that is not entirely true.

In the end, writing something down with a pen on paper may still be the best way to make it stay in memory.

I often see people taking photo after photo of PowerPoint slides, or even recording them on video.

I wonder if they ever really look at them later.

Doing that can make you feel as if you have already understood the material.

In my case, when I was studying for exams, I used to highlight textbooks and handouts with markers.

That alone made me feel as if I had understood everything.

But when the exam came, what remained in my memory was often only the colors—pink, yellow, and so on.

The actual content had disappeared.

Back in my student days, the friends who did well were the ones who filled their notebooks with writing.

When I studied subjects I was good at, I also wrote a lot in my notebooks.

In this paperless age, printed materials are rarely handed out at meetings anymore.

PDF files are distributed, we view them on our own computers, and the same slides are projected on the screen as the meeting proceeds.

Later, I often forget the contents of the meeting completely.

To remember them, I have to search for the file and pull it out again.

Perhaps this is simply because my memory has declined.

Even so, when I occasionally print out the materials, bring them with me, and write notes on them, I remember them surprisingly well.

Paper and pen still matter.

Perhaps I am simply old-fashioned and unable to keep up with advanced technology.

Still, many young doctors who seem capable are writing things down during conferences.

There is, of course, a concern that if you are writing, you may miss what you should be looking at.

But there will be many similar opportunities in the future.

There is no need to remember everything from a conference.

If even part of it remains as a firm memory, that may be enough.

For that, paper and pen are still useful.

Some things still enter the mind best through the hand. 

・・・

Vocabulary for Learners

• histological findings：組織学的所見
• clinicians：臨床医
• pathologists：病理医
• tissue sections：組織切片
• ablate：焼灼する、焼く
• PowerPoint slides：パワーポイントのスライド
• highlight：マーカーを引く、強調する
• paperless age：ペーパーレスの時代
• printed materials：紙の資料
• firm memory：確かな記憶、定着した記憶

 

Preparing for a Memorial Service and Taking a Hike

 A quiet day spent preparing for my father’s seventh memorial service, tending the family grave, planting flowers, and later walking through a hilly park in Fujisawa. Sometimes, a day without much thinking is exactly what one needs.

 

I cleaned the family grave in preparation for my father’s seventh memorial service.

I bought flowers that can withstand dry weather, then cleaned the area and planted them.

In the evening, I visited Shinbayashi Park in Fujisawa.

I walked the full hiking course, with its surprisingly steep ups and downs, and broke a sweat for the first time in a while.

 

I did not use my head much today.

But once in a while, that is probably just fine.

Some days are better spent moving quietly than thinking too much. 

・・・

Vocabulary for Learners

• memorial service：法事
• family grave：先祖代々のお墓、家のお墓
• withstand dry weather：乾燥に耐える
• steep ups and downs：きついアップダウン
• break a sweat：汗をかく
• once in a while：たまには

 

 

Why I Stopped Reading Manga as I Grew Older

Manga is now one of Japan’s most powerful cultural exports.
But for those of us who grew up with it long before the world discovered it, manga was not “content.”
It was a companion, a secret room, a way of dreaming.

And then, one day, I stopped reading it.

Japanese pop culture—manga, anime, and everything around them—has been admired around the world for quite some time now.

I belong to the generation just after Ashita no Joe. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call mine the Black Jack generation.

As for anime, my childhood ran somewhere from Star of the Giants to Mazinger Z and Time Bokan.

I preferred Champion to Jump.

I also enjoyed girls’ manga. I even liked Ohayō! Spank, the one with that enormous dog.

In junior high and high school, I was more of a literature boy, so most of the manga I read came from friends who lent me their copies.

By the time I was at university, comics were in their golden age. I read a lot, especially Big Comic.

They called it gekiga—dramatic pictures—and many of those works were better written than ordinary television dramas. The fact that so many of them were later adapted into TV series proves the point.

So, for a long stretch of my life, I lived alongside manga. At one point, I read almost anything I could get my hands on.

And yet, for the past ten years—perhaps even longer—I have stopped reading manga.

These days, manga seems to be something people read on tablets and phones. On trains, I see young people swiping through panels with their fingers. Sometimes I glance over, but nothing really pulls me in.

I am sure there must be excellent works out there.

Still, I do not feel like reading them.

Even Golgo 13, which once felt eternal to me, suddenly disappeared from my life at some point. So I do not think this is a matter of whether today’s manga is good or bad.

Why did this happen?

Perhaps it is because I no longer daydream.

Or rather, perhaps I have become unable to daydream.

As we grow older, we become more realistic. It is a little sad to feel one’s imagination grow dull.

On the other hand, perhaps I have learned to taste reality more deeply.

Our tastes change with age.

That is a lonely thing.

But if I have been released from manga, then perhaps I have also become, in some small way, free.

To stop reading manga may not mean losing a world.
It may mean finally waking up inside another one.

・・・

Vocabulary Notes

• cultural export：文化輸出品
• companion：人生に寄り添うもの
• secret room：心の中の隠れ部屋
• daydream：夢想する
• dramatic pictures：劇画の意訳
• golden age：全盛期
• nothing really pulls me in：どうも惹き込まれない
• once felt eternal：かつて永遠に続くように思えた
• grow dull：鈍くなる
• taste reality more deeply：現実をより深く味わう
• released from manga：マンガから解放された
• in some small way, free：少しだけ自由になった

 

 

The Fear of Something Unknowable Called Human Beings

 On a morning of heavy rain and distant thunder, my dog Anne followed me around the house in fear. Watching her tremble at sounds she could not understand made me think about the fears human beings also face—and about the most frightening source of all.

 

This morning, in addition to heavy rain, I could hear the sound of thunder from time to time in the distance.

Our flat-coated retriever, Anne, is not good with loud noises.

Ever since she noticed the thunder, she has been restless, following closely behind me wherever I go.

As soon as I realized there was thunder, I hurriedly closed the windows and even the lace curtains. But a dog, with hearing far sharper than any human’s, was never going to miss the sound of thunder, however distant it might be.

She followed me around, making frightened little sounds.

Today was the collection day for cans, bottles, and plastics. In weather like this, I could hardly let my wife take Anne with her to the garbage station, holding an umbrella and carrying a large bag. So I went instead. Anne followed me all the way to the front door, and only turned back when she saw the heavy rain outside.

The rain was so hard that even sorting the cans and bottles felt unpleasant, but I somehow managed to finish and came back home safely. My wife, who had been making my lunch while I was gone, told me that Anne had been whining the whole time I was away.

And then Anne began following me around again.

Last night, there was a fireworks display in Zushi, and my wife told me Anne had a terrible time throughout it.

I remembered that last year, when we had gone out to see fireflies, the sound of fireworks reached us from somewhere nearby, and Anne became terribly frightened then as well.

From a dog’s point of view, of course it must be frightening when a loud, incomprehensible sound comes falling from the sky.

Even for human beings, thunder has long been counted among frightening things. In Japan, there is an old saying: “earthquakes, thunder, fire, and fathers.”

Lightning can cause power outages. If it strikes you, it can kill you.

We know that thunder is the sound produced by a discharge of electrical energy. More than anything, we know that it will pass. So we endure it for a while and wait it out.

But a dog cannot understand any of that.

During that time, Anne must be fighting a fear far greater than ours.

Poor thing.

Yet frightening, unknowable things are not limited to dogs. Human beings have many of them too.

Air raids in war. Robberies committed by anonymous, fluid criminal groups.

Both can threaten one’s life, and in the sense that they may be impossible to avoid, they may resemble thunder for a dog.

But earthquakes and thunder are natural phenomena. There is little we can do against them.

War and crime, on the other hand, are caused by human beings themselves.

When I think of it that way, I cannot help feeling that human beings may be the most unknowable, and the most frightening, existence of all.

Perhaps the most frightening unknown is not nature, but humanity itself. 

・・・

Vocabulary for Learners

• distant thunder：遠くで鳴る雷
• restless：落ち着かない、そわそわした
• whining：クンクン鳴くこと
• incomprehensible：理解できない、得体の知れない
• wait it out：過ぎ去るまでじっと待つ
• air raid：空襲
• anonymous criminal groups：匿名性の高い犯罪グループ
• unknowable：知り尽くせない、正体のわからない
• humanity itself：人間そのもの、人間性そのもの

What We See, and What We Put Into Words

 On a foggy night in Kamakura, followed by a humid rainy morning, I found myself thinking about newspapers, television news, and the difficult work of filling blank space. Some days, the news seems thin, yet journalists still have to find something, gather facts, and turn them into words. In a way, pathology is not so different. A pathologist does not simply look into a microscope and offer impressions. The real work lies in noticing what matters, understanding what it means, and putting it into language. AI may help organize information, but the first act of seeing meaning in what lies before us still belongs to human beings.

 

Last night, Kamakura was wrapped in dense fog.
And this morning, rain has been falling since early in the day.

The seasonal rain front is stretching across the Japanese archipelago, bringing weather that feels like an early hint of the rainy season. It is terribly humid.

There are days when I read the newspaper and feel that there is hardly anything I want to read.
No major incidents, no particularly striking topics, and yet the pages are dutifully filled with words.

When I see such pages, I think how difficult the work of a newspaper reporter must be. They have to find something, go out and report on it, and then turn it into words to fill the blank space.

I sometimes think the same thing when watching television news.
A news anchor, with a perfectly serious expression, reads out a topic that makes me wonder whether this is really something that needs to be broadcast over the public airwaves as news.

Whether it is radio or television, empty time has to be filled with sound or images.
Filling empty space, after all, must be hard work.

The work of a pathologist has something similar about it.

Pathological diagnosis is not like a newspaper article or a news program in the sense that it exists to fill pages or airtime.
Still, it is similar in that a blank space has to be filled with words.

A pathologist cannot simply say, “This looks like this,” or “This seems rather bad,” as if offering a casual impression.
The work depends on how well those observations can be put into language.

Beyond the microscope, there are tens of thousands of cells.
They have different faces and form different shapes.

To understand what kind of tissue they make up, and what kind of biological behavior they may show, we look at the appearance of each cell, consider the overall picture, review the clinical findings, and move toward a diagnosis.

Diagnosis is the act of integrating all the information taken into the mind.
That, I think, is the real work of a pathologist.

We pick up findings, integrate them, and put them into words.

But if we do not understand what those findings mean, there is no way to integrate them.

With AI, a diagnosis can probably be organized to some extent.
But the stage before that is where the true skill of the pathologist lies.

From the outside, we may look as if we are sitting still.
Inside our heads, however, all kinds of specialized knowledge are turning around and around.

The same may be true of newspaper articles.
A reporter has to gather material, investigate it, and then integrate it.

If several facts are given to AI, it will probably turn them into something that looks like an article.

But AI will not go out and report.
The gathering of material still depends on a capable reporter.

In that sense, the work of finding something meaningful in the society spread out before one’s eyes may resemble the work of considering what pathological condition is suggested by microscopic findings.

And then, to put it into words and fill the blank space is difficult work.
It is where skill is tested.

AI can arrange collected information into a plausible piece of writing.
But it is still the work of human beings to notice, first of all, where something feels wrong in the tissue under the microscope, or what in society deserves to become an article.

To fill a blank space is not simply to increase the number of words.
It is to find meaning in what is visible, and to give that meaning language.

Filling a blank space begins with seeing what truly matters. 

・・・

Vocabulary Notes for Learners

• dense fog = 濃霧
• seasonal rain front = 梅雨前線
• dutifully = 律儀に、きちんと
• public airwaves = 公共の電波
• casual impression = 何気ない印象、感想
• biological behavior = 生物学的態度、ふるまい
• integrate = 統合する
• plausible = もっともらしい
• where skill is tested = 腕の良し悪しが試されるところ
• what truly matters = 本当に大切なこと、意味のあること

If We Really Wanted To, Perhaps We Could Even Achieve World Peace

 Hydrangeas are already in full bloom in Kamakura, and even the fireflies seem to have arrived early this year. Watching the recent Japan–South Korea summit on television, I found myself wondering: if people truly decide to get along, perhaps peace is not as difficult as we imagine.

 

The hydrangeas in front of Kamakura Station are already in full bloom.

The same goes for the fireflies. Perhaps the seasons are moving faster this year.

On television, I saw Prime Minister Takaichi visiting South Korea and speaking with the president there in a friendly atmosphere. I found myself oddly surprised, thinking, “So we can get along after all, if we decide to.”

The news narration said that differences in historical understanding still remain between the two countries. That may be true. Problems are problems. But even while carrying them, it is still better to get along.

As the saying goes, things are often easier done than feared. Once people actually try, they may find that it can be done.

There are many science fiction novels and films about world peace.

In some of them, peace is actually achieved.

Sometimes it is achieved through authoritarian rule. Sometimes through AI.

There are also stories in which people grow tired of the peace they have finally obtained, or rebel against being managed, and end up destroying it.

Leaving aside how each of those imagined stories ends, perhaps peace itself may be surprisingly easy to obtain if humanity truly decides to live peacefully.

When I look at the conflicts happening around the world today, I wonder where the legitimate reasons really are.

Are they not simply being carried out under convenient slogans, by politicians or companies trying to protect themselves?

Perhaps most of them are things that make us think, “Is that really worth all this?”

Peace should be something we could obtain rather easily, if only we stopped this and that, and tried to get along a little.

The fact that we cannot do even that is a rather sad thing.

Peace may be closer than we think, and that may be the saddest part of all. 

 

ーーー 

Vocabulary for Learners

• hydrangea：紫陽花
• fireflies：蛍
• historical understanding：歴史認識
• authoritarian rule：強権政治
• grow tired of：〜に飽きる、倦む
• convenient slogans：都合のよい大義名分
• get along：仲良くする、うまくやる
• world peace：世界平和 

The End of Pax Petroleum: When Oil Shortages Reach Medical Supplies

A notice about the proper use of medical supplies made me realize how deeply our lives depend on oil. From plastic containers to hospital materials, modern society is built on petroleum products. As tensions in the Middle East threaten supply chains, the question is no longer only about energy prices, but about how fragile our everyday world really is.

Yesterday, a mass email arrived, urging us to use medical supplies appropriately.

Of course, this was because of the shortage of petroleum-related products caused by the crisis in the Middle East.

The government says that there are reserves and that there is no need to worry.
But if that is true, why are prices rising, and why are some items becoming difficult to obtain?

Without a sufficient explanation, the anxiety of ordinary citizens like us only grows.

Brazil, Azerbaijan, and other oil-producing countries.
I find myself surprised, rather belatedly, to learn that there are so many oil-producing nations in the world.

Japan is now apparently rushing to import oil from countries we had not paid much attention to before.

Will that be in time before panic spreads at home?
No, it has to be in time. Otherwise, we will be in serious trouble.

Now that things have come this far, I realize once again that almost everything in front of us depends on that liquid called oil.

Even from the viewpoint of energy, coal is a solid, and uranium is difficult to handle.

As for everything else, there is hardly any need to say it.

Products related to pathology work will also be seriously affected.
Or rather, most of the containers in this world depend on naphtha, a petroleum-derived product.

When I think about it that way, I begin to imagine a world in which “containers” themselves may disappear.

That would mean not only medicine, but almost every industry in Japan coming to a halt.

Even if a ceasefire agreement were reached between the United States and Iran, and even if the Strait of Hormuz were reopened, that strait would no longer be what it once was.

It would remain a risk factor incomparable to anything we had imagined before.

Perhaps we will no longer be able to obtain cheap Middle Eastern crude oil as a matter of course.

There may have been something cartel-like about the oil-producing countries.
Even so, the world peace supported by oil — something we might call Pax Petroleum — may never return in the same form again.

People around the world are now facing a situation that cannot be solved simply by changing their own behavior.

How are we supposed to live from here?

Thinking about such things, I continue to live today, surrounded once again by containers made from oil.

 

We may have been living inside Pax Petroleum all along, without ever noticing its walls. 

 

・・・

Vocabulary for Learners

mass email　一斉メール。職場や組織全体に送られるメール。

medical supplies　医療関連用品、医療材料。

petroleum-related products　石油関連製品。プラスチック、溶剤、容器などを含む広い表現。

ordinary citizens　一般国民、一般市民。少し社会的な文脈で使いやすい表現。

oil-producing countries　産油国。

belatedly　遅ればせながら、今さらながら。

naphtha　ナフサ。石油化学製品の原料となる重要な物質。

petroleum-derived product　石油由来の製品。

come to a halt　停止する、滞る。

Strait of Hormuz　ホルムズ海峡。中東の原油輸送における重要な海上交通路。

risk factor　リスク因子、危険要因。

as a matter of course　当然のこととして、当たり前のように。

cartel-like　カルテルじみた、カルテルのような。

Pax Petroleum　「石油による平和」という意味の造語的表現。Pax Romana などに似せた言い方。

without ever noticing its walls　その壁に気づくこともなく。見えない構造の中で生きていた、という余韻を出す表現。

The Showa Generation Learned Love and Heartbreak Through Songs

Popular songs from Japan’s Showa and early Heisei eras often told stories of love, heartbreak, longing, and marriage with surprising emotional depth. Listening to those old hits during a weekend drive, I found myself wondering whether our generation learned more about romance from music than we realized. This is not a simple nostalgia piece, nor a claim that the past was better. It is a quiet reflection on how songs once gave shape to love, parting, and the hope of being connected to someone.

 

Over the weekend, I was driving with my wife sitting beside me, and the background music was made up of what people would probably call old popular songs.

On Apple Music, I have created a playlist called “Japanese Hits I Love,” a name that sounds extremely Showa-era in spirit. It includes not only songs from the Showa period but also some from the Heisei years, gathering together the hit songs of my youth.

Recently, the number of songs in the playlist has grown quite a bit. When I play it while driving, it now lasts long enough to keep us entertained for a good while.

Whether it is Yuming, Seiko Matsuda, or Miyuki Nakajima, they all sang about women’s feelings with great care.

Yuming, in particular, was exceptional.

It is said that almost all of her lyrics were inspired by her feelings for her husband, Masataka Matsutoya. Even so, the way she placed such deep emotion onto such light, graceful melodies is truly remarkable.

My personal favorite is “Navigator,” though there are many other wonderful songs as well.

Seiko Matsuda is one year older than I am, so she is almost of the same generation.

It was the golden age of idols, including groups such as Candies. At the time, idols somehow felt a little distant to me, and I did not pay much attention to the lyrics. But when I listen to them carefully now, I realize that many of those songs were saying something quite meaningful.

I tended to prefer male singers, so I often listened to bands such as Bakufu Slump and Kome Kome Club.

A song like “Under the Big Onion” could easily bring tears to my eyes, because I saw in it something of my own awkwardness in love.

Some people mock those days as an age when romance was placed above everything else.

To be sure, there must have been people who felt suffocated by an atmosphere in which love and marriage were treated as almost natural and inevitable.

It is not hard to imagine that there were people who could not ride that wave.

Even so, it was also a time when the story of falling in love, sometimes parting, still loving someone, and eventually being joined with the person one loved flowed naturally through society.

Looking back now, I cannot help feeling that perhaps it was not such a bad thing.

Of course, the rise in late marriage, lifelong singlehood, and the declining birthrate today cannot be explained away by saying that popular songs alone could have changed everything.

The issue is not that simple.

Still, I wonder whether society might benefit from having a little more room for songs that treat love and marriage as one natural story within a human life.

Since I do not know much about today’s music, perhaps it is a mistake for me to write as if I understand the matter.

I also do not know whether the Showa generation, raised on songs like these, was truly happier.

Of course, it is important for each person to live strongly in their own way.

Even so, people fall in love, lose their way, part from one another, and still come to love someone again.

For those of us in the Showa generation, I think songs taught us quite a lot about how to love, and how to say goodbye.

Perhaps we learned love and farewell not from textbooks, but from the songs playing quietly beside us. 

 

・・・ 

Vocabulary for Learners 

1. heartbreak　失恋、心が傷つくこと。

“love and heartbreak” で「恋と別れ」「恋愛の喜びと痛み」という自然な表現になります。

2. longing　切ない思い、憧れ、慕情。

日本語の「情念」「思慕」に近いですが、英語では少し柔らかく詩的な響きがあります。

3. with great care　丁寧に、細やかに。

“They sang about women’s feelings with great care.” は「女心を丁寧に歌っている」に対応しています。

4. exceptional　秀逸な、並外れた。

“Yuming, in particular, was exceptional.” で「とくにユーミンは秀逸だ」というニュアンスです。

5. graceful melodies　軽やかで優美なメロディー。

「軽やかなメロディー」を、単に “light melodies” とすると少し薄くなるため、ここでは “graceful” を加えています。

6. awkwardness in love　恋愛下手、不器用な恋愛ぶり。

“I saw in it something of my own awkwardness in love.” で「恋愛下手だった私に重ね合わせた」という意味になります。

7. suffocated　息苦しさを感じる、圧迫される。

恋愛や結婚を当然視する空気に対して使うと、現代的な読者にも配慮した表現になります。

8. ride that wave　その流れに乗る。

“people who could not ride that wave” で「その波に乗れなかった人」という自然な英訳です。

9. lifelong singlehood　生涯未婚。

“late marriage, lifelong singlehood, and the declining birthrate” で「晩婚化、非婚化、少子化」に対応しています。

10. not from textbooks, but from...　教科書からではなく、〜から。

最後の一文では、歌から人生を学んだという余韻を出すために使っています。

 

Fireflies, Hydrangeas, and the Quiet Strength of Early Summer

Early summer in Kamakura brings gentle breezes, deepening green hills, fireflies along quiet streams, and hydrangea buds preparing to bloom. On an evening walk with my dog, I found small signs of life everywhere — in the air, by the water, and even in plants I had thought were lost to winter.

Over the past few years, whenever the long May holidays came to an end, strong winds seemed to blow just as the season was shifting forward.

This year, however, there has been nothing like that.

Only a gentle breeze.

The temperature and humidity are just right.

The green of the mountains is slowly becoming deeper.

It is a season filled with life.

 Last night, while taking Anne for a walk, I went to see the fireflies in the neighborhood.

In Kamakura, more and more small streams have been cleaned and cared for, and places where fireflies can be seen have gradually increased.

There is one quiet stream with very few people around.

I had a feeling there might be quite a few fireflies there, so I went to take a look.

And there they were, flying in good numbers.

After enjoying them for a while, I came home, not wanting to disturb the neighbors.

Hydrangea buds are also growing larger here and there.

I wonder how much longer it will be before they bloom.

I am looking forward to it.

Come to think of it, there was also an avocado plant that my wife had carefully grown from a seed.

We had thought it had withered away in the cold of this past winter. 

But today, to my surprise, I noticed a new side shoot growing from it.

 

Then I wondered how the others were doing.

When I looked, the banyan fig and the rubber plant had also put out fresh new shoots.

From a human point of view, it feels like a miraculous comeback.

But from the plants’ point of view, perhaps it is simply what they were meant to do.

Maybe this is what vitality really means.

The winter cold was not insignificant, but this year the seasons seem to be moving very clearly.

If only it does not become as hot as last year, I would have nothing to complain about.

But then again, what kind of summer will this year bring?

 

For now, early summer is quietly showing us how life returns. 

 

・・・

Vocabulary for Learners

gentle breeze　穏やかなそよ風。本文では、初夏の気持ちよい空気を表す表現です。

humidity　湿度。日本の季節感を英語で書くときによく使う単語です。

fireflies　蛍。単数形は firefly です。

stream　小川。river よりも小さく、静かな流れの印象があります。

hydrangea　紫陽花。日本の梅雨前後の風景を表す代表的な花です。

wither away　枯れてしまう、しおれてなくなる。植物だけでなく、希望や力が失われる場合にも使えます。

side shoot　脇芽。植物の茎の横から出てくる新しい芽です。

banyan fig　ガジュマル。英語では banyan や banyan fig と呼ばれます。

rubber plant　ゴムの木。観葉植物としてよく知られる表現です。

vitality　生命力、活力。今回の記事の中心にある言葉です。

miraculous comeback　奇跡の復活。少しユーモアを含みながら、驚きを表せる表現です。

 

How an Old-School Man Should Drink After a Hangover

A workplace welcome and farewell party, a little too much alcohol, and the familiar regret of a hangover the next morning. This essay reflects on how drinking culture has changed, especially for older men who grew up in a different era. What once felt normal—second parties, karaoke, and casual drinking invitations—now requires much more care. Alcohol can make people happy, but it can also make social situations complicated. Sometimes, even the photos left on one’s smartphone the next morning are enough to remind us of that. In the end, perhaps the safest and happiest way to drink is simply at home, with one’s wife.

 

Last night, there was a welcome and farewell party for the laboratory department. As usual, I drank too much, and today my head hurts a little.

“Why did I drink so much?”
That is what I always think on the morning after drinking, but regret always comes too late.

Of course, I was meeting the new staff members almost for the first time. Even with the others, if they belong to different sections, I hardly know their faces. We may talk only a few times a year.

So when the conversation starts to flow, the alcohol also starts to flow, and before I know it, I am more drunk than I expected.

Even so, I did not drift into karaoke afterward, which would have been quite normal before the pandemic. I simply went home.

After the first party ends, wandering around and waiting for someone to say, “Come on, let’s go to the next place!” has always seemed a little shabby to me.

On the other hand, I have always thought that people who quietly disappear before anyone notices look somehow cool.

Now that I no longer have the physical energy to feel like going to a second party, perhaps that is not such a bad thing.

Above all, the longer a drinking party goes on, the higher the risk of harassment becomes.

Even asking someone at the first party, “Would you like another drink?” or “Are you a good drinker?” can be risky these days.

For an older man, simply sitting next to a woman can feel like a warning flag has already been raised.

And then there are the photos.

Some photos from last night are still on my smartphone. I look red-faced and very happy, but I will leave the rest unsaid.

That is another reason why one has to be very careful at drinking parties.

At a party, one has to stay awake and then somehow get home properly afterward. Perhaps because of that, the mind becomes strangely alert, and that is when unnecessary things may happen.

Alcohol can make us feel happy, but it is truly troublesome.

The best way is probably to drink at home with my wife, get pleasantly drunk together, and then simply fall asleep.

 

Perhaps the safest drinking companion is the person waiting at home. 

・・・ 

Vocabulary for Learners 

welcome and farewell party　歓送迎会。職場などで、新しく来た人と去る人を迎え送る会。

hangover　二日酔い。　例：I have a hangover this morning.

regret always comes too late　「後悔先に立たず」に近い表現。直訳ではなく、自然な英語表現。

the conversation starts to flow　会話が弾む、自然に進む。
この文では、酒が進むことと重ねています。

drift into karaoke　流れでカラオケに行く。　“drift into” は「なんとなく流れていく」

shabby　みすぼらしい、さもしい、少し格好悪い。

quietly disappear　いつの間にか消える。　飲み会から自然に退席する感じ。

warning flag　危険信号、警告のサイン。

red-faced　顔が赤くなった、赤ら顔の。

leave the rest unsaid　あとは言わないでおく、以下省略。

troublesome　厄介な、面倒な。

pleasantly drunk　心地よく酔った状態。　泥酔ではなく、楽しく酔っている感じ。

How Should I Live the Limited Time I Have Left?

 As retirement begins to feel less distant, the balance between saving money and truly living becomes more complicated. During Japan’s long holiday season, I spent quiet but meaningful time with my family — visiting my son, seeing my mother for Mother’s Day, traveling with my wife and daughter, and celebrating my wife’s 60th birthday. None of it was extravagant by modern standards, but all of it reminded me that good health, family gatherings, and ordinary happiness may exist only within a surprisingly limited window of life. This reflection is about aging, uncertainty, desire, and how to spend the finite time that remains.

 

This year’s long holiday season was a rather relaxing one for me.

I visited my son (who thankfully does not live very far away), went to see my mother in Tokyo for Mother’s Day, traveled to a hot spring resort with my wife and daughter who had temporarily returned from New York, and celebrated my wife’s 60th birthday.

All of these occasions involved a certain amount of expense, of course, but every one of them became a memorable experience.

As I think about life after retirement, I know I need to be more careful about spending money.

But if I focus too much on saving, eventually I may end up doing nothing at all.

At the age of 62, the fact that I can still walk comfortably, gather together with all four members of my family, and enjoy life with our two-year-old Flat-Coated Retriever, Anne, may actually place me in a rather fortunate moment of life.

Perhaps this is the last relatively carefree period I will ever have.

Eventually, my back will bend, I will need a cane, either my wife or I will become ill first, and Ann too will grow old.

The time left to me is finite, and probably much shorter than I imagine.

If I knew exactly when these things would happen, perhaps I could prepare myself accordingly. But such things are known only to God.

That does not mean I should live in fear of them.

To spend every day fearing illness, aging, earthquakes, or typhoons would also feel somehow wrong.

If the amount of time I have left were suddenly made visible, what would I actually do?

There are countless things I still want to experience before I die.

If I started listing them all, there would be no end to it. Worse still, I might spend so much time dreaming about life that life itself quietly passes by.

In the end, people live because there is always something they still want to do.

But simply following desire alone does not help us grow.

By continuing to carry the burdens that naturally come with life — studying, working, struggling, learning — perhaps I can make the limited time I have left into something truly meaningful.

 

Time may be limited, but perhaps that is precisely why it deserves to be lived carefully. 

・・・

Vocabulary for Learners

• finite — 限りのある
• carefree — 気楽な、心配のない
• accordingly — それに応じて
• countless — 数え切れないほど多くの
• quietly passes by — 静かに過ぎ去る
• burden — 負荷、重荷
• meaningful — 意味のある、充実した
• in the end — 結局のところ

Rethinking Our Standard of Living in an Age of Endless Price Increases

 From pet food delivery fees to software subscriptions, price increases have become part of daily life in Japan. Even when prices stay the same, products quietly shrink in size. Behind these small frustrations may lie something larger — the limits of maintaining the high standard of living Japan built during the bubble era. Perhaps the time has come not only to complain about rising costs, but also to reconsider what kind of　life we truly need.

 

The day before yesterday, I received an email saying that the delivery fee for my dog’s food would be increased.

Yesterday, it was the price hike for my Office subscription.

None of these things come with negotiation or explanation.

If you cannot afford them, then stop using them and find something else — that is probably the logic behind it all, but there is something remarkably merciless about it.

As for dog food, perhaps I could simply go buy it myself.

But even driving costs money these days, so in the end, small price increases have to be accepted.

Office software used to be something you bought once and kept using until the next version came out.

You could protect yourself a little by skipping every other upgrade.

But once everything becomes a yearly subscription, there is almost no room left for self-defense.

And since I use it for work, stopping is not really an option.

After driving earlier word processors out of the market and achieving a near-monopoly, companies can now raise prices almost unilaterally, while users have very little means of resistance.

In any case, prices keep rising day after day.

Even products with unchanged prices often contain less than before.

“Stealth inflation” used to be subtle enough that people barely noticed it, but recently it has become rather shameless.

There is talk about lowering the consumption tax in Japan, but prices are rising faster than any possible tax reduction would help, so in the end it may amount to almost nothing.

At the same time, considering Japan’s enormous national debt, some international organizations even suggest that the consumption tax should eventually be raised instead.

During the bubble era, Japan’s standard of living reached one of the highest levels in the world.

Since then, Japan has continued trying to preserve that standard while maintaining its place among the world’s advanced societies.

But perhaps that, too, is reaching its limit.

Maybe the coming era will not be about seeking even greater convenience, but about maintaining the social infrastructure we already have — the Shinkansen, the highways, and the systems built over decades.

And honestly, perhaps that is already enough.

We ourselves may also need to stop assuming that our current standard of living is something permanent and unquestionable.

Perhaps we need to learn how to live a little more modestly.

Still, once a way of life has expanded, making it smaller again is never easy.

The difficult part is not enduring a poorer life, but accepting that “enough” may already have been reached.

 

・・・

Vocabulary for Learners

• merciless — 容赦のない、無慈悲な
• subscription — 定額契約、サブスク
• monopoly / near-monopoly — 独占 / 寡占
• stealth inflation — ステルス値上げ
• consumption tax — 消費税
• national debt — 国家債務
• social infrastructure — 社会基盤
• modestly — 質素に、控えめに
• unquestionable — 疑う余地のない
• maintain its place among ~ — ～の中での地位を維持する

 

The Motivation Behind a Pathologist’s Work

 Pathologists rarely meet the patients whose lives are affected by their diagnoses. Unlike clinicians who speak directly with patients and witness pain, recovery, or gratitude firsthand, pathologists work quietly behind microscopes, often with little more than tissue samples and brief clinical data. Yet every biopsy and every diagnosis belongs to a real person waiting anxiously for answers. This essay reflects on how a pathologist maintains motivation and empathy despite that distance, and why remembering the patient behind the specimen matters so deeply.

 

Outside of pathology outpatient clinics, pathologists rarely interact directly with patients.

Even during a code blue, I have hardly ever gone to the scene, because I would probably only get in the way.
(Just to be clear, if someone collapsed in the street and an AED was needed, I would of course join the rescue effort.)

Clinicians, on the other hand, stand before patients who are suffering right in front of them.
Naturally, they want to relieve that pain and distress as quickly as possible, and they are also able to share the effects of treatment with the patient.

Pathologists do not have that experience.

When diagnosing biopsies or surgical specimens from malignant tumors, kidney or liver biopsies, or even small skin lesions and moles removed by clinicians, the information we receive about the patient is often limited to age and sex.

Of course, there are many other data points—height, weight, blood pressure, laboratory findings, and so on.

But regardless of how much information exists on paper, the patient themselves is not standing in front of us.

And because of that, there are moments when, despite working for patients, a pathologist risks losing a sense of emotional connection with them.

That is why we must constantly remain aware of it.

For the patient, a pathological diagnosis may be a once-in-a-lifetime event.
They are waiting for the result, hoping to understand what is happening inside their own body.

A pathologist must never forget that while looking through the microscope.

We pathologists, too, are working for patients.

 

Even behind a microscope, pathology is still about people.

・・・ 

Vocabulary for Learners

• Pathologist — 病理医
• Code blue — 院内緊急蘇生対応
• Biopsy — 生検
• Surgical specimen — 手術検体
• Malignant tumor — 悪性腫瘍
• Emotional connection — 感情的なつながり
• Remain aware of — 常に意識しておく
• Once-in-a-lifetime — 一生に一度の
• Look through the microscope — 顕微鏡を覗く
• Relieve pain and distress — 痛みや苦しみを和らげる

 

Why So Much Waste Exists in Modern Society

 Our daily lives are filled with things that seem unnecessary — direct mail, excessive packaging, piles of paper no one really needs. Yet many of these “wastes” continue because they serve some hidden purpose in business, psychology, or society itself. Sometimes what looks pointless from one angle may still have value from another.

 

When I return home, there is almost always a piece or two of direct mail waiting for me.

I can no longer remember where or when I became connected to the senders, but the mail keeps arriving year after year.

I will probably never buy anything from them, and sometimes I even feel the advertisements may continue arriving long after I am gone.

Of course, not all of them are completely meaningless, but still, it feels like an extraordinary amount of waste.

Years ago, when preparing materials for an academic meeting, I was surprised to learn how expensive printed booklets actually were.

Judging from those prices, these advertisements must also cost a considerable amount of money.

Naturally, some of the products being advertised are sold for dozens or hundreds of times more than the printing cost itself, so perhaps the expense is insignificant to the companies involved.

Even so, it is not free.

Ninety-nine percent of those direct mail advertisements are never used — never leading to any purchase — and are simply thrown away as waste paper.

Paper also accumulates quietly in my workplace.

We have been promoting a paperless system, and the speed of accumulation has certainly slowed, but somehow documents still pile up around me before I even notice.

At times, I feel it is not because I am untidy, but because unnecessary things keep arriving from elsewhere.

Eventually, they too become garbage.

Something may be necessary for someone, but if it has no use, it becomes waste.

Recently, a confectionery company announced that it would switch some product packaging to black-and-white printing because of concerns over shortages of printing materials.

But does colorful packaging really count as waste?

Are attractive colors designed to stimulate our desire to buy truly unnecessary?

Or do even seemingly useless things exist for some reason after all?

The line between waste and necessity may be more difficult to understand than it first appears.

Perhaps even waste exists because someone, somewhere, still believes it has value. 

・・・

 

Vocabulary for Learners

• direct mail — ダイレクトメール
• accumulate — 蓄積する
• paperless system — ペーパーレス化
• confectionery company — 菓子メーカー
• stimulate desire — 欲求を刺激する
• meaningless — 無意味な
• significant — 重要な／かなりの
• waste paper — 古紙、紙ごみ
• line between A and B — AとBの境界線
• necessary / unnecessary — 必要な／不要な