Aoi Hitorigoto n.58 - Heaven - TRANSLATION-
AOI HITORIGOTO #58
- 藍天群青 HEAVEN -
By Kato Shigeaki
藍天群青・・・ (Indigo ultramarine)
As the color of a sunny day (藍天) and the dark blue of a night sky (群青), an example of counterfeit.
From Kato Shigeaki's dictionary*
Second challenge of the last four essay's series. This time the theme is "Ten 天". Somehow I wanted to do this for the 10th anniversary, an essay titled "天 ~ Heaven".
Probably the most used word inside my essays has been "sky". I've surely used it often for its common meaning but since when a friend told me that I'm "like a blue sky", that word had a big influence on me. Then, beyond the sky there's the space. Sky, space, in other words, heaven.
"We can do what is humanly possible and leave the rest to fate"*
I'm inclined by character to love to impose rules on myself, like watching at least 10 movies each month, do jogging 2 times a week, having an objective for the year, etc... Without this kind of rules I'd come to spoil myself too much. Many times I tried to adopt a motto, right now, this is the one I feel closer to me.
Let's suppose that you're thinking: "If that was true, I would be a OO now". That looking back you may also have had a chance but anyway right now you're doing something different in your life.
"So, how come you became like this?"
These are words that I've been really told. Right. I thought the same exactly thing. At that time I dodged the question using abstract words. But then, in a matter of seconds, many hideous thoughts crossed my head. I tried to blame other people or the circumstances. I just couldn't blame myself. Thinking that it was nobody's fault but mine was too hard.
I've been lucky. When things went wrong it wasn't because of other people. It was my fault. I didn't do what is humanly possible. "Someday things will be better". Even if I do nothing at all. I used to think such stupid things. The peak of my foolishness was to blame it to other people. Of course there are also cases like this. We live in a world in which people try to make the others unhappy. But we can grow up in there only if we try to "do the humanly possible" as much as we can.
We can do it or not. It's easy to say it in words but remember "藍天群青". There's only a little difference but it can change your life of 180 degrees.*
Drucker expressed this same thought in his "Management":
"Preparation is necessary to become adult. You can't predict when an opportunity will come to you. You must be ready for it. If you are not the opportunity will run off and go to another place".
This doesn't concern only work. It's the same with love. When you fall in love with somebody it's important to be ready to be loved back. Love's shape depends only on you. Nothing will begin if you don't do everything you can. Life isn't made only of luck.
If you think that you're already successful it's good. You can't know what is going to happen from now on though. It's not easy even to just preserve it. That's why we have to go on doing our very best.
"It's been told that heaven doesn’t make a man better than others, nor does it make a man worse than others", this is a famous line of "Gakumon no susume" by Fukuzawa Yukichi.*
"The difference between the wise man and the fool consists in whether he studied or not. At the birth there's no distinction between people, only applying oneself to study and trying to know many things it's possible to become a rich, wise man. People who won't study will be poor and menial."
Fukuzawa Yukichi who wrote all this became a wise man consecrating his life to study. Still now he looks over us from the 1000 Yen bill.
Which one are you? I...I'm both.
Notes:
* The first composite of characters doesn't exist. As explained he put together the kanji for indigo, sky and ultramarine blue. A counterfeit because it may seem real but doesn't exist in reality. They are two completely different things because there's no way a very light blue and a dark one can be mixed together without change.
On the last essay the theme was 藍 (Ai), this time is 天 (Ten).
* Saying:「人事を尽くして天命を待つ」
* Just like dark and light blue, they are only a little different in shade but they are two completely different colors.
* Gakumon no Susume - "An Encouragement of Learning" by Fukuzawa Yukichi (1834-1901).
In this text it's outlined the importance of the principle of equality of opportunity and that study is the key to greatness.
The lines about heaven are a quote of US Declaration of Independence.
I apologize because last month I said that the 57th was the last one. Finally it's clear that there will be other 2 essays until they reach the 60th. Sorry to have alarmed you >< I didn't understand what Myojo wanted to do until this number.
I'm late with this translation, I wasn't really in the mood to translate it before because somehow I feel the things he says there very close to me. I have a personal post in this LJ that says basically the same thing. That we're the only gods of our lives and that we must do our best so that we will achieve everything we want...though it's difficult to do that. We are lazy, we slack off, we entrust everything to fate and blame the others of all our misfortune. It's so wrong but still we all do it. I've always been aware of this and it really brings me down.
Then I didn't feel like translating this because, geez, it was difficult! XD He quoted Fukuzawa Yukichi who wrote in classical Japanese, I have no English (nor Italian) translation of the original text so I had to translate it on my own. I apologize because of course I couldn't write in a good style that part, I just did my best to convey its meaning ^^"
It seems stupid to post in this sad moment, we all know about Japan's actual condition. It's a situation that makes me really sad, I can just hope that things won't get worse and cheer Japanese people to be strong, with the wish that Internation helps and volunteer work will set things up soon.
It's also possible to take Shige's words in this essay as a encouragement to work hard and to be a better human being in this hard time.
頑張れ日本！
