[trans] Shige's essay #24: Myojo 2008-06 - Two
The folk on shigesuki have already seen this, but I'd like to post it here as well - Shige's new essay! Have fun reading! :)
#24: Myojo 2008-06 - Two
Right now, I have the feeling that the number 2 is all around me. This column is also nearing its second anniversary, I'm 20 years old at the moment and have started walking into the life of the twenty-year-olds.
The number 2 is bigger than the number 1, but it is also smaller. It's an obvious statement, but you can't buy things worth 20 000 yen for 10 000 yen. But if you're in a championship of some kind, no other rank will make you feel more joy than you feel at number 1. Be it a marathon, a relay race, swimming. I guess number 1 is what everybody should be aiming for.
Of course, 1+1=2. But maybe, this equation carries even more weight than just the number 2. It's when you're together with another person that you feel more at peace than when you're alone. If that person is family or your lover, it's even more so. The number 2 is a number that can soothe anyone.
Lately, I often unwittingly encounter meetings and partings. It's not as if only meetings were good things, there are good and bad things in partings as well. The occasion which made me truly realize this was when I had a fight with a close friend recently. The reason for the fight was something petty. We got into a heated discussion of our favourite pro-wrestlers and ended up defying everything the other said. While we became more and more upset and shouted at each other, we started dragging private matters into the discussion, snapping at each other using dirty words, as if venting pent-up anger. In the end, he said, "I was always alone! That's why I am now as I am! You don't understand!" Being told that by one of my best friends with whom I had always thought I got along well brought tears to my eyes. I was so terribly sad that, like a child, I started crying. It was very bitter to have him deny all this time spent together, to hear that he was just pretending that we understood each other. 1+1=2. When you write 2 as a number, it is written with one stroke. But his "2" was the kanji "二". I haven't talked to this friend ever since. We really became "二".
It was bothering me how the number 2 is written, so I looked up the history of the number, and apparently 2 originally had the form of 二. Writing this with one brush stroke, it became the form 2. Just from the look of it, 二 seems to correspond to the number two more closely, but a long time ago, the people also were sad to divide the number into two parts. 2 is 2, but it also is 1.
Turning 20, I really came to understand a lot of things. It's true after all that humans cannot live alone. They support each other, 1+1 has to make 2.
Speaking of that, someone once said, "When a human is born, he is one part made of two parts." In your life, you have to make this half-self into one sound one. In the process of turning from a "human" (written with two syllabes) into a "human" (written with one kanji), people feel joy and sadness, or rather a mix of different emotions that cannot be put into one word, and finally become 1. Maybe it is because we want to become 1 that we do our best at living. The task of filling the missing half of oneself surely isn't an easy one. I wonder how much I amount to right now. Maybe two-thirds? Four-fifths? It would be great if it were a number very close to 1.
Small text next to the ShigePi picture:
For the special occasion of the column turning two years old, YamaPi came to congratulate! Of course, the two of them aren't "二", but "2". Well then, since it's the two year anniversary, special project! [Note: the rest of the text is about the different topics readers wanted Shige to write about - the scan I have is not so big, so I'll spare my eyes and won't translate it, it doesn't contain any Shige (or ShigePi).]
#24: Myojo 2008-06 - Two
Right now, I have the feeling that the number 2 is all around me. This column is also nearing its second anniversary, I'm 20 years old at the moment and have started walking into the life of the twenty-year-olds.
The number 2 is bigger than the number 1, but it is also smaller. It's an obvious statement, but you can't buy things worth 20 000 yen for 10 000 yen. But if you're in a championship of some kind, no other rank will make you feel more joy than you feel at number 1. Be it a marathon, a relay race, swimming. I guess number 1 is what everybody should be aiming for.
Of course, 1+1=2. But maybe, this equation carries even more weight than just the number 2. It's when you're together with another person that you feel more at peace than when you're alone. If that person is family or your lover, it's even more so. The number 2 is a number that can soothe anyone.
Lately, I often unwittingly encounter meetings and partings. It's not as if only meetings were good things, there are good and bad things in partings as well. The occasion which made me truly realize this was when I had a fight with a close friend recently. The reason for the fight was something petty. We got into a heated discussion of our favourite pro-wrestlers and ended up defying everything the other said. While we became more and more upset and shouted at each other, we started dragging private matters into the discussion, snapping at each other using dirty words, as if venting pent-up anger. In the end, he said, "I was always alone! That's why I am now as I am! You don't understand!" Being told that by one of my best friends with whom I had always thought I got along well brought tears to my eyes. I was so terribly sad that, like a child, I started crying. It was very bitter to have him deny all this time spent together, to hear that he was just pretending that we understood each other. 1+1=2. When you write 2 as a number, it is written with one stroke. But his "2" was the kanji "二". I haven't talked to this friend ever since. We really became "二".
It was bothering me how the number 2 is written, so I looked up the history of the number, and apparently 2 originally had the form of 二. Writing this with one brush stroke, it became the form 2. Just from the look of it, 二 seems to correspond to the number two more closely, but a long time ago, the people also were sad to divide the number into two parts. 2 is 2, but it also is 1.
Turning 20, I really came to understand a lot of things. It's true after all that humans cannot live alone. They support each other, 1+1 has to make 2.
Speaking of that, someone once said, "When a human is born, he is one part made of two parts." In your life, you have to make this half-self into one sound one. In the process of turning from a "human" (written with two syllabes) into a "human" (written with one kanji), people feel joy and sadness, or rather a mix of different emotions that cannot be put into one word, and finally become 1. Maybe it is because we want to become 1 that we do our best at living. The task of filling the missing half of oneself surely isn't an easy one. I wonder how much I amount to right now. Maybe two-thirds? Four-fifths? It would be great if it were a number very close to 1.
Small text next to the ShigePi picture:
For the special occasion of the column turning two years old, YamaPi came to congratulate! Of course, the two of them aren't "二", but "2". Well then, since it's the two year anniversary, special project! [Note: the rest of the text is about the different topics readers wanted Shige to write about - the scan I have is not so big, so I'll spare my eyes and won't translate it, it doesn't contain any Shige (or ShigePi).]