Fight for life, it's worth it! [Extra long, just text]
I just finished watching Letters from Iwo Jima, Thanks to Audience0Killer> who loaned it to me when I went to her place to have an Arashi fangirl night with her. I think it's really a brilliant movie, but it's so sad...
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My roommate and his friend Dave (who's staying here for the week because he just broke up with his girlfriend and their 3½ is currently too small for both their wounded egos, so) are laughing at me because I'm shaken by it. I feel guilty for having all I have, all my little comfort in my daily life when people on the other side of the planet are lacking everything and yet, they struggle to keep their lives, because they believe that life is worth living, even when you have nothing left but life itself. Is it me who's being silly or is it them that are insensitive, I can't decide. I found it mean and rude when they said (it was a joke to them) that my mealoaf -that I had cooked at their request for supper- was a Japanese brain and they kept saying such ineptic remarks and I could have just smashed them whole unto the floor, but I'm doing my best to refrain from expressing my inner violence uselessly. It drives me nuts to hear any kind of segregationist talk. I consider myself a citizen of the world. Skin color, origin, religion are all very unimportant to me, so to me, war is an abomination and an attrocity caused by men's unability to respect different visions in others and by refusal to even TRY and understand each other's point of view. Some people just don't put any efforts into that and just judge from the start. You can't judge someone until you've learnt the way they came to you through. I think that the people life puts on your way are there for a reason and you have to find out what the reason is because these people are there to help you grow into a stronger individual.
I found it traumatising to think that some of the Japanese officers actually thought that the rules of the bushidô could apply to a war with the Americans and their heavy war machines, and found it more patriotic and useful to their country to commit suicide than to stand up and fight. But I guess I might have my vision warp when I consider my own ancestors resisted a 20 years siege before they gave up their stronghold, but you know, that was in 700-something A.D., so, I have no clue what they would have done in place of the Japanese. The movie made me realise how different the visions of the East and the West can be. And it was even stressed in the movie by the Japanese officer Kuribayashi, who had been in America before the war and you see a part of the movie where he's having dinner with American friends and they give him a gun as a farewell gift and one of the guys' wifes jokingly asks how would he react if Japan and America came to war and he replies he would have to fight for the honnor of his homeland and the wife turns to her husband and tells him, laughing at the improbability of the thing, in her mind "Honey, you're dead!". And it's not just for the movie, you know, things like that really DID happen and they still happen and I think the movie kind of explores the part of human nature of those would fight to remain alive and those who fight for other reasons and end up losing their reason in the process of being faced with the inhumanity of survival in a war environments. I can still here Kazunari Ninomiya's character, the baker, writting to his wife about the bassess of innamable things they had to do to survive. This is actually probably the character that I could identify with the most, he's really proeminent in the movie and I think that's why they chose him to be the main one we follow. Because from a Westerner's perspective, it stresses that Japanese and Americans were alike, because you know, the part where his character tells about how the war ruined his business and all, well, I've heard similar stories told by my great-grand-parents and people their age when I was a kid. Each day in my life that I wake up and that I realise all that some people have to go through in their daily lives to just stay alive and that I've never had to do any of these things, I feel truly blessed that life has always provided me with everything I *really* needed in order to survive, especially when I have encounters with people like my ex, Mike, who's survival was based only on his own desperation and he had nothing to live for, really, except the faint hope of ever having a REAL family. I'm glad I could somehow fulfill that need for him, to make him discover that it's useless to be rich, even though he kept thinking when we met that he would be happier being Cresus than being himself, I guess I showed him that real families who deeply care for each other were life's true richess, and from the few conversations I've managed to have with him after he started dating Judyth, well, I'd say I positively influenced his life and I'm glad I've done my all to save him. I has been the most meaningful era of my life, up o now.
I guess my coming 25th anniversary got me thinking about a whole lot of things about me that I had carefully chosen to ignore in the past. But to know where you're going in lie, you have to acknowledge where you came from, no matter how shameful you find it. You have to face your own failures and decide what to do to in order to right the wrongs and get that train back on its rails. You have to work towards the greater good, and not your own vain gains. You have to fight 'til death, deciding to give up on life before it gives up on you is a bit selfish, in my opinion, unless you're stuck with something incurable or something due to age that won't ever come back, but as improbable as it may seem, I've seen people come back from all sorts of illnesses and diseases that had seemed incurable, and ended up dying in transports accidents or in a really stupid way, like taking the wrong pills (my great-grand-dad actually died from taking his wife's medicine in the drawer instead of his because he hadn't put his glasses on. That's a true story.)
But I digress...
Now, back to this movie, neh? I've seen a lot fo war movies with my dad and with my ex, but this one is certainly the best one I've been given to see, it hasn't been over-romanced to sell it to the female audiences like other movies, it stayed true to the nature of its subject and now, I can see why Clint Eastwood deserved an oscar. I'll definitely get my son to watch it when he's old enough to understand all those complicated things and complex feelings.
I was shaken watching the movie because I actually know a guy whom I went to school with, who was a bouncer at the college partys the students' union would organise and I came accross him the other day, before Xmas, he came to my bistro and we chatted a little, because he was with an older gentleman who was there to have him fill a form and stuff, so our time was pretty limitated, but he told me that he was still in the military, that he felt it was truly his calling and all, and I was glad for him, because all his college days, he'd fight with Yelle and other guys over lack of meaningfullness in his life and uselessness and he's fighting for what he thinks is right. He said he was being sent back to Afghanistan the next day. Now, I know I said I was against war, I truly am. I know that the Canadian soldiers are going to shoot at the people they think endanger the survival of the rest of us, the civilians in Afghanistan and those in every other country around the planet.Because our lives are all intricatetly interrelated, and somehow, we're all responsible of the future of mankind, no matter how much we try to fool ourselves into thinking that our measly little life will never affect the lives of others, I say : nu-uh, think again! I'm sure your own life has affected those of other people around you. That some kid that you might never have even noticed in school when you were there took some interet in you and your actions. They might never had the guts to go out there and tell you about it, question your actions and all, but definitively, you've had an effect on them. Your life is never in vain, my friends. Take it and make something with it that will make you take pride in yourself so that your brethren can also take pride in you, and follow your exemple. Be a model of staying true to yourself.
And François Sylvestre, because you're there, away, fighting to help others take charge of their destinies, it gives me strenght to carry on, and to become a better mother for my kid. Thank you.
And to end up with the movie subject, I had to watch some Arashi PVs to dedramatise all that and get back to a normal mood so I could keep on. I could only think that I feel lucky being who I am, in the moment in time and in space where I am, but I felt I was put on Jo and dave's paths because they need to regain some humanity in those empty shells they drove themselves into being.
It was nice to hang with Julie. It had been over 6 months since we last saw each other, but we got along great. She convinced me to write to Sho because it seems he's the most not convinced there are non-Japanese Arashi fans. You should have more faith in your friend Kazunari, Sakurai Sho!
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My roommate and his friend Dave (who's staying here for the week because he just broke up with his girlfriend and their 3½ is currently too small for both their wounded egos, so) are laughing at me because I'm shaken by it. I feel guilty for having all I have, all my little comfort in my daily life when people on the other side of the planet are lacking everything and yet, they struggle to keep their lives, because they believe that life is worth living, even when you have nothing left but life itself. Is it me who's being silly or is it them that are insensitive, I can't decide. I found it mean and rude when they said (it was a joke to them) that my mealoaf -that I had cooked at their request for supper- was a Japanese brain and they kept saying such ineptic remarks and I could have just smashed them whole unto the floor, but I'm doing my best to refrain from expressing my inner violence uselessly. It drives me nuts to hear any kind of segregationist talk. I consider myself a citizen of the world. Skin color, origin, religion are all very unimportant to me, so to me, war is an abomination and an attrocity caused by men's unability to respect different visions in others and by refusal to even TRY and understand each other's point of view. Some people just don't put any efforts into that and just judge from the start. You can't judge someone until you've learnt the way they came to you through. I think that the people life puts on your way are there for a reason and you have to find out what the reason is because these people are there to help you grow into a stronger individual.
I found it traumatising to think that some of the Japanese officers actually thought that the rules of the bushidô could apply to a war with the Americans and their heavy war machines, and found it more patriotic and useful to their country to commit suicide than to stand up and fight. But I guess I might have my vision warp when I consider my own ancestors resisted a 20 years siege before they gave up their stronghold, but you know, that was in 700-something A.D., so, I have no clue what they would have done in place of the Japanese. The movie made me realise how different the visions of the East and the West can be. And it was even stressed in the movie by the Japanese officer Kuribayashi, who had been in America before the war and you see a part of the movie where he's having dinner with American friends and they give him a gun as a farewell gift and one of the guys' wifes jokingly asks how would he react if Japan and America came to war and he replies he would have to fight for the honnor of his homeland and the wife turns to her husband and tells him, laughing at the improbability of the thing, in her mind "Honey, you're dead!". And it's not just for the movie, you know, things like that really DID happen and they still happen and I think the movie kind of explores the part of human nature of those would fight to remain alive and those who fight for other reasons and end up losing their reason in the process of being faced with the inhumanity of survival in a war environments. I can still here Kazunari Ninomiya's character, the baker, writting to his wife about the bassess of innamable things they had to do to survive. This is actually probably the character that I could identify with the most, he's really proeminent in the movie and I think that's why they chose him to be the main one we follow. Because from a Westerner's perspective, it stresses that Japanese and Americans were alike, because you know, the part where his character tells about how the war ruined his business and all, well, I've heard similar stories told by my great-grand-parents and people their age when I was a kid. Each day in my life that I wake up and that I realise all that some people have to go through in their daily lives to just stay alive and that I've never had to do any of these things, I feel truly blessed that life has always provided me with everything I *really* needed in order to survive, especially when I have encounters with people like my ex, Mike, who's survival was based only on his own desperation and he had nothing to live for, really, except the faint hope of ever having a REAL family. I'm glad I could somehow fulfill that need for him, to make him discover that it's useless to be rich, even though he kept thinking when we met that he would be happier being Cresus than being himself, I guess I showed him that real families who deeply care for each other were life's true richess, and from the few conversations I've managed to have with him after he started dating Judyth, well, I'd say I positively influenced his life and I'm glad I've done my all to save him. I has been the most meaningful era of my life, up o now.
I guess my coming 25th anniversary got me thinking about a whole lot of things about me that I had carefully chosen to ignore in the past. But to know where you're going in lie, you have to acknowledge where you came from, no matter how shameful you find it. You have to face your own failures and decide what to do to in order to right the wrongs and get that train back on its rails. You have to work towards the greater good, and not your own vain gains. You have to fight 'til death, deciding to give up on life before it gives up on you is a bit selfish, in my opinion, unless you're stuck with something incurable or something due to age that won't ever come back, but as improbable as it may seem, I've seen people come back from all sorts of illnesses and diseases that had seemed incurable, and ended up dying in transports accidents or in a really stupid way, like taking the wrong pills (my great-grand-dad actually died from taking his wife's medicine in the drawer instead of his because he hadn't put his glasses on. That's a true story.)
But I digress...
Now, back to this movie, neh? I've seen a lot fo war movies with my dad and with my ex, but this one is certainly the best one I've been given to see, it hasn't been over-romanced to sell it to the female audiences like other movies, it stayed true to the nature of its subject and now, I can see why Clint Eastwood deserved an oscar. I'll definitely get my son to watch it when he's old enough to understand all those complicated things and complex feelings.
I was shaken watching the movie because I actually know a guy whom I went to school with, who was a bouncer at the college partys the students' union would organise and I came accross him the other day, before Xmas, he came to my bistro and we chatted a little, because he was with an older gentleman who was there to have him fill a form and stuff, so our time was pretty limitated, but he told me that he was still in the military, that he felt it was truly his calling and all, and I was glad for him, because all his college days, he'd fight with Yelle and other guys over lack of meaningfullness in his life and uselessness and he's fighting for what he thinks is right. He said he was being sent back to Afghanistan the next day. Now, I know I said I was against war, I truly am. I know that the Canadian soldiers are going to shoot at the people they think endanger the survival of the rest of us, the civilians in Afghanistan and those in every other country around the planet.Because our lives are all intricatetly interrelated, and somehow, we're all responsible of the future of mankind, no matter how much we try to fool ourselves into thinking that our measly little life will never affect the lives of others, I say : nu-uh, think again! I'm sure your own life has affected those of other people around you. That some kid that you might never have even noticed in school when you were there took some interet in you and your actions. They might never had the guts to go out there and tell you about it, question your actions and all, but definitively, you've had an effect on them. Your life is never in vain, my friends. Take it and make something with it that will make you take pride in yourself so that your brethren can also take pride in you, and follow your exemple. Be a model of staying true to yourself.
And François Sylvestre, because you're there, away, fighting to help others take charge of their destinies, it gives me strenght to carry on, and to become a better mother for my kid. Thank you.
And to end up with the movie subject, I had to watch some Arashi PVs to dedramatise all that and get back to a normal mood so I could keep on. I could only think that I feel lucky being who I am, in the moment in time and in space where I am, but I felt I was put on Jo and dave's paths because they need to regain some humanity in those empty shells they drove themselves into being.
It was nice to hang with Julie. It had been over 6 months since we last saw each other, but we got along great. She convinced me to write to Sho because it seems he's the most not convinced there are non-Japanese Arashi fans. You should have more faith in your friend Kazunari, Sakurai Sho!