Self-realizations and a bit of Philosophy

I came to a surreal and shocking realization this weekend. As the death throes of winter sputter out and are exorcised by the warming weather and the blooming white and pink flowers, I realized that (1) I am extremely happy, and those that know me should be shocked at not only my ability to admit this but also at the sheer rarity at which those words come from my mouth. And (2), I am entertained, and those of you that know me should be shocked at this because I am usually the one in the corner bored to tears at any particular event.

I am not sure what brought about these sudden realizations whether it be the weather or the fact that I have finally turned introspective since arriving here in Japan. I am not sure. But I had a conversation recently where I said, without hesitation, that coming to Japan was the best decision I could have ever made. I am not someone who usually regrets many things he says or does, because I usually am very careful about what I say and do. But on more than one occasion I have experienced the emotion of "buyers remorse" for my actions, as we all do. Being as close to perfect as any human being can be, I feel those emotions very rarely, more rarely than most other humans, I would suppose. And thus the surreal experience of self-realization and introspection. When one believes oneself is the gods gift to humanity, as I often consider myself, it is a strange moment indeed to examine one's soul. Stranger still, to find things you were not expecting, like complete comfort and confidence in the path one walks.

Maybe these new emotional and intellectual responses to my, up until recently, unexamined essence are the result of finding things that I truly enjoy doing and friends I have grown to love and trust completely. That is not to say that my life, up until now, and my friendship, up until now, have been disingenuous in anyway, merely that I have come to see the grandness in companionship in a new light.

------Philosophical Speculation Below, Stop Reading Now--------

There is a poignant line in a bad movie which I always seemed to expound as an utilitarian philosophy for life: "What good is a flower? You can't eat it...It does nothing for you."

This point of view, that usefulness is always preferable to the solely aesthetic, was my mantra for a long time. And I prided myself on the "sensible" nature of this line of thinking. Of course, limiting oneself to the narrow path of usefulness alone is a self-handicapping philosophy. I now ask myself, "Why can't it be both?" I have come to believe that the beautiful and the useful can be just as easily intertwined as they can be stripped apart.

Let's look at the flower from the movie quote. What good is a flower to human beings? (Aside from the strictly scientific answer that says that the flowers germinate and spread pollen through bees and so on and so on. But that in itself is an answer) Well, there is no utilitarian purpose to the flower, where humans are concerned. As the quotation says, we can't eat it, it doesn't bring me a newspaper like a well trained dog, or juggle flaming bowling pins like a jester on television or an ill-trained buffoon. What then is the utility of a flower? So many people are allergic to their pollen and despise their smell, yet what makes the millions, and I　mean millions, of people come to Kyoto or Washington D.C. to see a flower? Even as I sit here looking out my window at work, there are hundreds of people crowding around the canal and the handful of さくら(sakura) cherry trees. They are all happy, smiling, talking, strolling, photographing, remembering, reminiscing, and breathing. Those people sitting out on their blue tarps are truly living. Each breath an enjoyable adventure, filled with the promise of new and coming experiences and the recollection of their own short lives, made evidently clear by the truly sad and mockingly short life of a sakura blossom.

And thus, that is the purpose, the utility, the whole point of the existence of a flower, from a human's point of view. It is for enjoyment. The flower's momentary existence mirrors the short and also rather useless existence of a human. The 10 days lifespan of a flower is a relative pin prick in the existence of a human who will live more than 295,000 days. And the existence of one human who will live 295,000 days is a relative pin prick to the over all history of the Earth who has already lived 1,460,000,000,000 days and will likely live that much more again. And Earth's meager existence is a mere pin prick in the overall history and expanse of the universe.

And thus, what is the purpose, the utility, the whole point of existence of a human, from the universe's point of view? Do we bud, cluster, and bloom for the enjoyment of the universe? Do the gods, the universe, or whatever we believe in look down on these old and young people, clustered together under these cherry trees like the blossomed and still budding flowers they admire so much, and smile in ironic omnipotence? Maybe. That sure would be funny.