Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone across the globe.

May you all experience much love, interesting challenges, and happy thoughts in the new year.

Peace, friends :)

Linked thread: What do college coaches do well and not well?

Here was an interesting thread on Letsrun.com started a few days ago:

College athletes past and present, what are some things you think college coaches do right, and what do they do wrong?

Interesting reads (2014)

I think the two best nonfiction books I read this year would be Jack Bogle's Common Sense on Mutual Funds (2009) and David Pilling's Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival (2014).

Of Common Sense, it is almost certainly the most thorough investment book I have yet read. Much of it probably went over my head, yet the book itself was full of useful information on the premises of passive investing, drags on investment returns (taxes, expense ratios, etc.), and the many behavioral issues that prevent people from making money in the stock market. 

The book is dense and the style a little dry, but in terms of conveying its arguments and being generally useful I can think of no other book I read this year that exerted as strong an influence as Mr. Bogle's. And through it, I also happened upon Bogleheads forum, which has proven a very interesting and erudite crowd. 

For other reasons, David Pilling's Bending Adversity touched me as few works of nonfiction do.

Among other things, it inspired one of my two failed attempts at writing a novel this year.

Broadly speaking, the book is an examination of contemporary Japanese history through the lens of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and Fukashima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster. It's a work full of fascinating observations and telling imagery, portraying Japan as a country at yet another cross-roads in its history. Hope and resignation are present in almost equal measure throughout, and there is some guarded hope that Japan will emerge in a positive way from its decades-long economic slump, and natural and nuclear disasters. An excellent work all around.

So far as fiction goes, I would say Joann Harris' Gentlemen and Players: A Novel (2006) and Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore (2006) were the most interesting stories I read this year. 

I'd heard of neither author before now, but came away from both books satisfied. Gentlemen and Players had a decent story and some greatly-realized characters, and packed a surprise that I never saw coming. 

As for Kafka, I was introduced to it while overseas, and became engrossed almost from the first page. The translation of Mr. Murakami's work is excellent, and is full of beautiful language, interesting characters, and an emotional poignancy that is both stunning and rich. I've since read some other works by Murakami, and am glad to have been introduced to him. 

Some runners-up for this year include Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning (2008), Chris Gullibeau's The $100 Start-up (2012), and Haruki Murakami's After Dark (2008). All were interesting, and left me thoughtful at the end.

I'm looking forward to another year of reading and new discoveries. 

2014 Tosher results are in...

Totals: 

87 Pence   (British)

€2.10         (European)

1kr.            (Danish)

25 Kuruş    (Turkish)

and

$68.96, of which 6 were paper bills. 

For those unaware, this is money that I found while walking around or cycling outside this past year. I used to collect coins from the ground as a kid, and save them in a jar labelled, "College Fund." Now that I'm finished college (and the bill has been paid), I donate whatever I find (excepting the foreign currencies, unless a charity can be found that accepts them). 

As it is, I now refer to the money as the "exercise dividend." It's benefits go beyond the money found along the way, and I would highly recommend some form of daily exercise outside. 

For those interested in the term "tosher," this link will likely prove interesting.

A 2015 prediction

Predictions for 2015 are all over the place these days. This is one from The Economist:

"... In 2015 the unshaven slacker in your basement will at last move out."

That is to say, folks aged 18-31, and like as not, only in America.*

"Parents in Europe may not be so lucky, alas. Nearly half of European 18- to 30-year-olds still live with their parents, thanks to sky-high youth unemployment in some countries. In Italy four-fifths of young adults live at home."

As with all predictions, the phrase to remember is, "We'll see."

The full piece can be read here.

*I should note that all the Europeans I know in this age-group have their own places. 

Essential Blue Mountain: 2014

Part of wrapping up the year on this blog involves looking back to what you and I thought were the most interesting posts of the past twelve months. This year was a little different, in that I started posting more links without commenting on them at length. As it is, the list that follows includes ten "highlight" posts from the past year, which serve as this year's "Essential Blue Mountain." 

Enjoy, and I hope you had an excellent year.

"The Way of Walking Alone" 独行道

You are Enough

A Word From Asimov on Creativity

Larry Smith: Why you will fail to have a great career

Keep an open mind

"The Art of Learning" (a brief review)

A bright side to poor market timing

When feeling down

"The superiority of anthropologists"

Advice from a Stranger

Common core update

Regarding the Common Core, David L. Kirp writes:

"Many teachers like the standards, because they invite creativity in the classroom — instead of memorization, the Common Core emphasizes critical thinking and problem-solving. But they complain that test prep and test-taking eat away weeks of class time that would be better focused on learning.

A Gallup poll found that while 76 percent of teachers favored nationwide academic standards for reading, writing and math, only 27 percent supported using tests to gauge students’ performance, and 9 percent favored making test scores a basis for evaluating teachers."

It would appear then that the "rage against the Common Core" is not so much a rage against nation-wide standards, as it is an opposition to the extensive testing--and all the consequences that come with it (e.g. incentives to teach to exams, teacher evaluation, significant consequences for students, etc.)--that has accompanied its implementation. 

Merry Christmas :)

It's a rainy, humid, and unseasonably warm evening here on the mountain, yet the occasion is festive, nonetheless, and full of good cheer. Earlier I had the chance to have dinner with my family, and draw some pictures for my nephews.

With love for all and malice toward none, I wish everyone across the globe a very Merry Christmas, and a happy holiday season.

A driverless Uber?

"[Singapore] will open one of its neighborhoods to driverless cars in 2015, with the idea that such vehicles could operate as a kind of jitney service, picking up passengers and taking them to trains or other modes of public transportation. The vehicles might be like golf carts, taking people short distances at low speeds, similar to the driverless vehicles demonstrated this year by Google."

No one knows if it will result in more vehicular traffic or less. An interesting idea all the same.

The full piece can be read here.

Does wealth and education make people busier?

According to The Economist that seems to be the case, at least in America. Some interesting paragraphs:

"In America, for example, men who did not finish high-school gained nearly eight hours a week of leisure time between 1985 and 2005. Men with a college degree, however, saw their leisure time drop by six hours during the same period, which means they have even less leisure than they did in 1965, say Mark Aguiar of Princeton University and Erik Hurst of the University of Chicago. The same goes for well-educated American women, who not only have less leisure time than they did in 1965, but also nearly 11 hours less per week than women who did not graduate from high school."

and...

"Another reason is that all workers today report greater feelings of job insecurity. Slow economic growth and serious disruptions in any number of industries, from media to architecture to advertising, along with increasing income inequality, have created ever more competition for interesting, well-paid jobs. Meanwhile in much of the rich world, the cost of housing and private education has soared. They can also expect to live longer, and so need to ensure that their pension pots are stocked with ample cash for retirement. Faced with sharper competition, higher costs and a greater need for savings, even elite professionals are more nervous about their prospects than they used to be. This can keep people working in their offices at all hours, especially in America, where there are few legal limits on the working hours of salaried employees."

The piece is interesting throughout, and can be read here.

Holiday get-together

I had the good fortune this evening of hosting a bunch of friends for a holiday party, of whom most of them I haven't seen in a really long time. For dinner I cooked a stir-fry with steak, rice, onions, green-peppers, asparagus, carrots, and garlic, with a bit of pepper and parsley added for flavor. Silly me forgot to add the eggs as planned, the way I've seen them do it at the Japanese hibachi down the street, but on the whole I think the finished meal turned out quite tasty, and seemed to satisfy everyone who attended. 

Afterward we set out a fruit-bowl, made tea, and had some interesting conversation. I was reminded of how fortunate I am to have such a good group of friends for company. Most of us don't see one another often, but when we do it is fine treat, and as good a way as any to say farewell to autumn, and welcome the new winter that is come. 

Hope you're all having a nice weekend, friends, and Happy Saturday :)

Interesting page: Jim Collins' "Stock Series"

I learned a lot over the past year about investing from Jim Collins' Stock Series, so I thought I would share it here on the blog.

His advice is tailored toward an American audience, but I suspect international investors may find some of his ideas interesting. If nothing else, his English is very clear and readable.

Enjoy, and happy Friday friends :)

Hug Away

This was interesting: 

"Led by Sheldon Cohen, the Robert E. Doherty University Professor of Psychology in CMU's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the researchers tested whether hugs act as a form of social support, protecting stressed people from getting sick. Published in Psychological Science, they found that greater social support and more frequent hugs protected people from the increased susceptibility to infection associated with being stressed and resulted in less severe illness symptoms."

The full article can be read here. 

Quote of the day

“The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? ”

            -Pablo Casals (1876-1973)

Retrieved from here.

Pollution fact of the day

"Between 2009 and 2013, the fraction of trucks at the Port of Oakland equipped with a diesel particle filter increased from 2 to 99 percent, and the median engine age fell from 11 to 6 years. During the same period, the emission factor (or average emission rate) decreased by 76 percent for black carbon and by 53 percent for NOx."

However...

"The technologies come with some trade-offs that the research team is investigating. Selective catalytic reduction can cause some trucks to have increased emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas. With diesel particle filters, the catalytic oxidation process leads to increased tailpipe emission of nitrogen dioxide, NO2, which is a toxic air contaminant and is involved in the formation of ozone. While these were known side effects, the research team is measuring the amounts of these increases."

The full article can be read here.

"Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days"

Interesting thought

"Many economists like to dump on their fellow social scientists, and personally I find that reading anthropology is often quite uninspiring. That said, I would like to say a small bit on the superiority of anthropologists. I view the “products” of anthropology as the experiences, world views, and conversations of the anthropologists themselves. Those products translate poorly into the medium of print, and so from a distance the anthropologists appear to be inferior and lackluster (I wonder to what extent the anthropologists realize this themselves?). 

Yet anthropologists have some of the most profound understandings of the human condition. They have witnessed, absorbed, and processed some of the most interesting data, especially those anthropologists who do fieldwork of the traditional kind."

The quote is by Tyler Cowen. The entire post can read here. 

Fuji's Mirror: A Short Story

I had been in Tokyo almost three days before a call finally came through; which, to my surprise, was from a local number. "Rob-san!" said the heavily-accented voice on the other end, "why didn't you say you were coming to Japan? Very bad manners, very bad. Where are you staying? Come stay at my flat. It will be tight, but I will make space! You'll see!"

We met an hour later in the lobby of the hotel where I'd been staying--"hiding out" to hear my only friend in Japan tell it. His name was Shinji Ureno, a CS major back at San Diego State where we met in our final year of school. I'd studied accounting at the time, and come across Shinji-san through a mutual friend who'd been trying to get both of us to exercise more by starting a running club. The running thing didn't lasted long, but our friendship had, even as he moved back to Japan, and I to New York City; and while we hadn't talked much in the intervening years, it had been enough to keep the tenuous bond of friendship between us intact.

"You never answered my question," Shinji said, sitting across from me in one of the plush, maroon chairs in the lobby. He wore a faded t-shirt and jeans, dressing like the teenager he hadn't been in almost a decade. "Why didn't you say you were coming to Japan?" 

I shrugged. "Wasn't sure if I'd end up here or Hong Kong," I said, and left it at that. Shinji pressed me further, but I wasn't in the mood to say more. Leaving New York had been something of an impulsive action, which meant my reasons for doing so weren't exactly clear to me, let alone to anyone else. But I had the money and the time in abundance, so off I went, and thankfully I had had few reasons to regret the trip--not yet at least--except perhaps having spent almost all of it in my hotel room. It sounded like a terrible waste when put that way, but that wasn't my experience at the time. 

We stopped by Shinji's flat some time later, where after removing my shoes and donning some indoor slippers, met his flat-mate: a lanky, bespectacled fellow who called himself Haruo-san. "He studied English for six years in school, but don't expect much from him," Shinji had told me on the train-ride across town. "Even so, he is very sensitive, and very good with computers."

I had shrugged at that. It was becoming a theme on this trip. "Sounds very Japanese to me."

"Ah, so desu, Mr. Rob!" 

 "Nice to meet you, Robu-san," Haruo said with a toothy smile and a bow. His arms were skinny as chicken bones, and skin as pale as milk. 

"And you," I said, offering a hand. The man--he looked more like a boy than a man, but whatever--withdrew slightly, then laughed to cover his embarrassment. Eventually I got a dead-fish handshake from him. His fingers were thin and delicate as a pre-teen girl's, and his voice about as loud as a scampering mouse. "Thank you for come, prease excuse mess," he said, indicating a spotless apartment.  He was an efficient and polite fellow, I decided that day, without an angry bone in his body. 

It turned out he was also highly regular--in his daily routine, that is. Every morning he would rise at five o'clock, perform a series of exercises and stretches, prepare a breakfast of rice, fish, vegetables, and tea, then leave for work at six-thirty on the nose, and return by five-thirty in the evening. Dinner was usually much like breakfast, except when it was Shinji's turn to cook. After dinner came a bit of light reading, tidying-up, and lights-out at nine. The result of all this moving about was that I hardly saw or spoke with Haruo until the weekend, three days later.

By then I had already developed my own routine: waking up at the sound of Haruo's five o'clock exercises; falling back asleep until ten; lounging around the flat all day, watching television or sleeping; sharing dinner with Shinji and Haruo, listening to their talk and not understanding a word of it; and after helping with the dishes, going out to some local drinking establishment until I was good and drunk and in need of rescuing by Shinji. When I thought about it, however, my routine in Shinji and Haruo's flat wasn't much different from the one I'd kept at the hotel in downtown Tokyo, or for that matter at my place in New York, at least over the last few months. How had it started? I wondered, but could not bear to think of it without an ample helping of liquid courage. I scratched at the beard I had started growing in New York, and let myself fall into oblivion again.

Periodically, Shinji would press me for answers. "Why do you drink so much, Rob-san?" he would ask, though not in such a direct manner as that. "What is the matter, Rob-san? You seem unhappy. You need sunshine, my friend, and fresh air. This flat is too stuffy in the summer to stay here all day. Why not go down to the park, or at least take a walk each day?" In the end I agreed to the walking, doing the flat's grocery shopping while the two of them spent their days at work. This made Shinji and Haruo--who I started called "Sharuji" when referring to them together--happy, but when they handed me neat stacks of yen-notes I politely refused, showing them a wallet full of such notes I had acquired at the bank. "But you are our guest," Shinji had said, insisting that I take the money, but I simply replied in kind. "Yes, I am your guest, but I insist on paying for your hospitality." You would not believe it if I told you the lengths my hosts went to giving me money for those grocery trips, so I won't. Suffice it to say, they were creative.

I thought a new plot for giving me money was afoot when Saturday morning came, and the flat-mates Sharuiji approached me in the kitchen. "Ohaiyogozaimasu, Rob-san," Shinji said, wishing me a good morning. 

"Ohaiyo, Shinji-san," I said, sipping at a cup of tea to sooth the pounding from my latest hangover. "And to you, Haruo-san, Ohaiyo," I added with a nod to Haruo.

They both smiled. "Arigato gozaimasu," Haruo said, thanking me and bowing. "Your Japanese is very excellent, Robu-san."

At this I chuckled somewhat and finished my tea. "As you say," I said, and brushed the hair from my eyes. I was quickly learning to take such compliments for what they were; polite, but ultimately empty of substance. My spine tingled uncomfortably at the thought. 

   

The sun shone through the tiniest of windows in the wall. "Looks like a sunny day," I said, speaking slowly, and making an effort to say all the syllables clearly for Haruo's sake. 

"Yes, quite sunny," Shinji said, glancing at Haruo before edging forward, laughing nervously. "And not too hot today; just like San Diego, in a way," he said.

That's unlikely. "Well," I said, "then you best not waste it staying inside. What are your plans for the day?"

Through his smile, I could sense that Haruo had become extremely uncomfortable, rocking back and forth on his heels and staring at the floor. Shinji opened his mouth as though to say something, then stopped as Haruo let loose a tumble of unintelligible Japanese to his flat-mate. I suffered them a brief exchange before Shinji turned back to me, and avoiding my eyes said, "Ah, yes, well Mr. Rob, I have been talking with Haruo-san, and he wishes me to speak to you on his behalf, since his English is not so good. You see, he believes you have a bad spirit inside that is making you sick--a spirit that grows bold on sake and bad thoughts." At this point, Haruo interjected and spoke at length in whispers to Shinji. The latter nodded several times, saying, "Hai, hai," to the air, speaking briefly and listening much.  

He then turned back to me and continued. "Haruo-san says that he is very sorry for noticing that you never look into mirrors, or still water, or windows where you might see your reflection. It is strange, you know? I had never noticed, but it is probably true if Haruo-san says it is--he sees more than most people, and does not lie. He is worried--beg your pardon, but I am worried too--that you mean to hurt yourself. That...hmm, I am not sure of the translation--that you left America so you could get away from something that is impossible to escape. Do you understand? Like your shadow…you can’t escape your own shadow, no matter how hard you try. It is like that, I think.”

I felt myself growing tense as Shinji spoke; pulse racing, palms sweating—all that fight-or-flight business that humans feel when under threat. Under threat—but what was the threat here? I looked around the narrow confines of the kitchen; at the electric single-burner stove, the rice-maker and electric tea-kettle on the counter; at the frying pans hanging neatly on the wall, so polished I could see the room reflected in its surface—

The sense of threat rose to a fury, a rising tide that seemed to swallow me from the inside out. “Robu-san!” Haruo cried as I leapt back from the stove, clattering into the wall and slumping to the floor. Just as fast I had sprung to my feet, running for the door in a pair of indoor slippers; running for the street, running, running, running...

I ran to the bus-stop, scaring the daylights out of everyone aboard. They pulled back from me as though I had the plague, or three heads, or smelled of something foul. Some of them whispered to one another, almost hissing and doing everything to convey their anger at me short of yelling. No doubt you could feel the tension ease as I hopped off a few stops down the line, repeating the exercise on two more busses.

Some hours later, with tattered slippers and sweat-stained cheeks, the Sharuji flat-mates found me wandering in the shadow of Tokyo Tower; an orange-and-white replica of the Eiffel Tower whose frame had been partially constructed of disabled American tanks from the Korean War. A large facility called “FootTown” stood at the base of the tower, which among other things included a museum, amusement park, and food-court. Being late summer, the place was crowded as hell, but we managed to find an open table at a McDonalds, where I finally cracked.

“I’d been working in New York almost five years,” I said, while Shinji and Haruo listened and looked on. The background hum of the food-court seemed to fade away as I descended into my own thoughts. “I worked as an accountant for a Big-Four accounting house, a dream-job, if ever there was one for someone with my background; great salary, huge bonuses, and plenty of time off outside of tax season. Had an apartment in Manhattan with a view of the Statue of Liberty, and a smokin’ hot girlfriend who worked on Wall Street. I was living the dream….” I stopped then, trying to recollect that moment in the bathroom, when everything had changed.

“I was shaving one morning, maybe ten days ago, when looking in the mirror I saw someone else staring back at me.” At that moment, Haruo whispered a question to Shinji, who provided a quick explanation that seemed to satisfy him. “It was my reflection, sure” I continued, “but there was something unusual about the person in the mirror…something foreign, hostile—dissatisfying. And the longer I stared at him—and he back at me—the more I loathed him. He was a fake—a flatterer in an empty shell. I realized then that if I was living the dream, it was someone else’s. It was the dream of that despicable, greedy, spend-thrift figure in the mirror, whose eyes seemed to cackle at my sudden realization and horror.”

I waited while Shinji translated the gist of my story to Haruo, who went wide-eyed for a moment before nodding and looking back toward me. “What did you do?” Shinji asked? “Ten days ago—that was not long before you came to Tokyo.”

“No, not long at all,” I replied, letting out a long breath before continuing, like I was ventilating something noxious from my lungs. “The razor actually stuck in the wall behind the mirror when I threw it; for a moment anyway, before falling to the floor, as though it was held by some invisible hand. Shards of glass were everywhere. There was this one nasty, long piece I picked up in my hand, and let the edge touch the delicate skin on my wrist. It was cold and sharp, and would have served the purpose I had in mind then. Instead I booked a direct flight to Tokyo, withdrew two-thousand in cash from the bank, and took a cab to the airport. I haven’t dared look in a mirror since, fearing what I would see. I thought that maybe getting away—FAR away from everything I knew—would somehow change me, so that when I did see my reflection again perhaps the person looking back at me wouldn’t seem so damned fake—that they would be someone I could be proud of; or something like that.”

I said the last sentence with a sigh, as though satisfied somehow. The Sharuji  consulted with one another until they seemed to reach an agreement, and then Shinji spoke. “Hauro-san believes you had the right idea, to leave your home and go somewhere else to understand your problem better. But you can’t see the mountain when you are standing on its side, or the plain when you are standing at its middle. No, your mind is needing contrast to work properly. Hai, to see the mountain you must go to the plain, and to see the plain you must go to the mountain. That is just how it works, you understand?”

I nodded, but said nothing else in reply. Haruo began to say something to Shinji in Japanese, then stopped and turned to me and said, “Tonight, we go to mountain.”

It seemed like we spent the remainder of the day shopping. First we went to a shoe-store to get myself a pair of proper outdoor shoes. Then we all got fitted for hiking boots, which the Sharuji supplemented with hats, wind-breakers, gloves, warm socks, mosquito-repellant, and two large backpacks. They took these back to their flat, and filled them with all manner of rice-balls, bento-boxes, and two large thermoses of steaming green-tea. After checking and rechecking all the supplies, they hurried me out to the bus stop where I had caused such a scene earlier, and boarded the next one that arrived.

The ride was less eventful than my first of the day, though as the only foreigner aboard I still attracted my share of attention. We rode to the center of the city, where we picked up another bus. “Where are we going?” I asked them, not for the first time that day. “You will see,” Shinji told me, and left it at that.

We stopped at a small sushi-shop for dinner and tea, a quaint place with polished lacquer floors and lights fashioned in the manner of traditional paper lanterns. Toward the end of it, Haruo fell into conversation with the establishment’s owner, a balding, red-faced man named Ishikawa-san who seemed quite taken by us and all our gear. More than once I heard the term “Fuji-san” bantered about, followed by approving nods and animated speech. Our meal ended up being on the house, with Ishikawa-san and the entire staff bowing to the three of us as we left. A female waitress stepped forward then, and holding it above her head as she bowed, offered each of us a small box containing an exquisitely-arranged assortment of sushi and rice. I did my best to thank her, and had my Japanese complimented again. It might have been an empty sort of praise, but it felt good all the same.

By the time we emerged from the restaurant, it had begun to grow dark. “We will need to hurry,” Shinji said to me, leading the way to the nearest bus station at a trot.

“Where are we hurrying to?” I asked. By now I had deduced some kind of hiking trip, but where would we go hiking in the middle of the night? It was 8:21pm.

“You will see,” Shinji said, and left it.

“Do you know, Haruo-san?” I asked Shinji’s other half, but he just smiled and adjusted the straps on his pack.

The mountain loomed over us even in the growing darkness of night. And even in the darkness I recognized one of the world’s most recognizable mountains. “Fuji-san” rose before us like a dark pyramid against a star-filled sky. The atmosphere on the bus grew hushed and electric as we pulled into the station, 2,300-meters above sea-level at the base of the peak. The air felt chillier up here, while headwind blew across our face as we stepped from the bus and assembled nearby. “This is station five,” Shinji told me, pulling headlamps from his pack and handing one to each of us. “It’s 1,400-meters to the summit. If we are lucky, we will reach it just before dawn.”

My heart fell at that, but Haruo seemed cheerful. “Come, Robu-san,” he told me, and strode off toward a booth to purchase us all official Mt. Fuji walking-sticks.

Now I must admit I was not the fittest fellow at that point in my life. Long hours in the office, followed by long hours of leisure, drinking, and doing a lot of nothing meant that I had grown even flabbier than that day in college I was told to join a running club. I couldn’t tell you the last time I’d gone walked or running more than a mile or two, or done anything remotely like “working out.” Add the altitude (2,300-meters is almost 1.5 miles), and you’ll understand if I was sucking wind before our little hike had even started.

Still, I couldn’t very well back down at that point, so donning my headlamp and taking the proffered walking-stick, I fell in behind Messrs. Shinji and Haruo and made tracks. Our route was called “Yoshida,” which Shinji told me had the lowest average grade of the four main trails that climbed the mountain. “Only 21.6%, Mr. Rob!” he explained as we rested for a moment, sipping some tea and eating a bit of Ishikawa-san’s sushi. You can well imagine my dismay, but for all that instead I laughed, using my stick to climb to my feet and said, “Only 21.6%. Well shit, that’s no sweat!” I felt light-headed from the altitude, and very nearly fell over. Yet somehow my false bravado translated into real strength, and for the next hour the climb went better than I’d dared hope.

Naturally my spirits waned as we passed midnight, when the temperatures dropped and the wind rose. Soon we were above the tree-line, clambering along a trail of rocks and dust that looked more like surface of the moon than the slope of Japan’s tallest mountain. My lungs burned as the air grew thinner, and my flabby muscles ached at the hours of exertion. Our party stopped several times so I could revive myself with tea and a few minutes’ rest. “The moon is beautiful,” Haruo pointed out on one occasion, pointing with his finger as the wind whipped through his long, black hair. It hung as a crescent low in the sky, just above the slope to the east. How strange it felt to view the moon from a place that looked like a photograph from the Apollo missions.

“Is this some kind of Zen experience?” I asked while sucking air on my haunches between swigs of tea.

“The only Zen you find on mountains is the Zen you bring with you,” Shinji said, then laughed. “Sounds like something we’d say smoking tree San Diego.” I could have gone for some tree at that moment, but all we had were rocks and ash and dust; and of course the peak looming overhead. To see the plain, you must go to the mountain. To see the mountain, you must go to the plain.

We reached the summit just after four o’clock in the morning, meandering around the crater so that we might have a good view of the east. Several hundred others mingled in the same area, talking and huddling together to keep warm. The temperature up there couldn’t have been much over 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and the winds were strong as gales. “This way,” Shinji said, leading past a series of buildings and down a rocky trail that ended at small white torii, a kind of gate that marks the entrance of Shinto shrines.

The lights of Tokyo and the Kanto Plain glowed and stretched out below us, the harbor arcing away to the south, and Tokyo Tower awash in the light of two-dozen spotlights; like the old Saturn V rockets that once took men to the moon. “This is incredible,” I said, smiling like a child for the first time in who knows when. Haruo bobbed his head, then said something to Shinji in Japanese. “Almost time,” Shinji said, checking his watch.

Some clouds floated in from the south, yet they were gone as eastern horizon lightened ever so slightly. Behind us the sky remained black as jet, shading to a deep cobalt blue. To our front, the light blossomed slowly, unfolding like the petals of a rose, glowing first as red, then orange, gold and then yellow. And as the edge of sun crept above the margin of the world and cast the rays of a new day upon our faces, a cheer went up across the whole summit of the mountain, and all weariness in that moment left me.

Now, there’s an old Japanese story in which the sun-goddess Amaterasu becomes so upset that she hides herself in a cave one day, and covers all the land in darkness. The other gods try everything to lure her out, but nothing works until a certain kami, or spirit, of merriment fixes a mirror to a nearby tree, and causes such a raucous as to compel the sun-goddess to have a look. At this point one of her rays—the ray of dawn—contacts the mirror, and so taken is she by the image of herself that Amaterasu doesn’t notice the god Ameno-Tajikarawo pulling her from the cave, and thus returning light to the world.

It was a tricky move on those gods’ part, playing on the sun-goddess’ own vanity. Yet for all its reliance on an act of vice, the ploy worked; order was restored, the darkness reversed, and the foul mood that had driven Amaterasu into her cave, dispersed. And despite having been fooled, it is telling that of the Three Great Treasures Amaterasu bequeathed to her children, the mirror that had helped end her depression was among them.

Irony is a funny thing, sometimes. My experience in the “cave” began with a mirror, but like Amaterasu’s, ended with the sight of dawn’s first rays. To this day I still don’t know exactly what pushed me through. Was it Haruo-san’s “see-the-plain-by-going-to-the-mountains” trick? Or was it the climb itself, through trees and dust and ancient lava-rocks to the highest point in all of Japan? Or was it the obvious care of Shinji and Haruo-san--two foreign, eccentric friends who had not only chased me halfway across Tokyo, but listened when I needed an ear, pushed me when I needed a push, and caught me when I needed to be caught; a mirror, a prod, and a safety-net in one. They were everything I didn’t ask for yet needed, and if pressed to name a single thing that brought me out of the cave that morning at dawn, I would say it was sharing it with them. 

Promising finding for potential spinal-cord treatment

This was interesting:

"After spinal cord injury, axons try to cross the injury site and reconnect with other cells but are stymied by scarring that forms after the injury. Previous studies suggested their movements are blocked when the protein tyrosine phosphatase sigma (PTP sigma), an enzyme found in axons, interacts with chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, a class of sugary proteins that fill the scars. 

Dr. Lang and his colleagues designed a drug called ISP to block the enzyme and facilitate the drug's entry into the brain and spinal cord. Injections of the drug under the skin of paralyzed rats near the injury site partially restored axon growth and improved movements and bladder functions."

The full press release can be read here.

The Economist interviews Shinzo Abe

The full transcript can be read here.

I personally found this section most interesting:

"The Economist: Typically, journalists hear from politicians about domestic policy and about foreign policy—two different strands. But it seems that you see it as all one. Is that the case? Do you look at Japan’s being strong at home and strong abroad as a part of the same package? 

Mr Abe: Well, from the time of my birth to when I reached my 30s, Japan was in its prime in terms of economic strength, growing very robustly, and with that background, Japan’s showing in the world was growing too. At the time, I thought this good trend would continue for a very long time to come, and I also thought that Japan would be a country of much greater importance to the world. But it didn’t turn out like that, because for the past 20 years, we’ve stagnated. During that time, we've seen the emergence of other strong global players. And so there is no way that we can separate our domestic policies from our diplomacy. We have to have a strong economy to have a strong diplomacy; and with strong diplomacy and a strong foreign policy, we can in turn ensure peace and stability in the region. And in the international community, our stronger influence will ensure smoother progress in [building relations and] getting things done."

Why you will fail to have a great career | Larry Smith | TEDxUW

Elite Kenyan runners show greater brain oxygenation during 5km time-trials

 "It has been observed that, when cerebral oxygenation in the prefrontal lobule falls, the neural activity in this zone also drops. This zone is closely linked to the control of movement and to decision-making, and it has thus been put forward that this reduction in neuronal activity may explain the drop in performance observed amongst European athletes, on cerebral oxygenation reducing. Given that, with the Kenyan athletes, this reduction does not occur, "we believe that the neuronal activation in the prefrontal lobule is not compromised and perhaps this capacity of maintaining their cerebral oxygenation in a stable way may contribute to their great performance in long-distance trials," explained the UPV/EHU teacher."

The finding supports others that describe brain-based exercise fatigue. Interesting stuff.

The full press-release can be read here, and the original study's abstract here.

A few thoughts on "Japan's Economic Dilemma: Comfortable Decline or Painful Revival"

I came across an interesting piece today by Jacob Schlesinger in the Wall Street Journal: "Japan's Economic Dilemma: Comfortable Decline or Painful Revival?"

In it, the author explores some of the choices policy-makers in Japan have made over the last twenty years, and the types of problems that face them now. Some key lines:

"Tokyo in recession showed none of the distress you would expect in the U.S. or Europe: no boarded-up storefronts, garbage piles, beggars, trashed subway stations or any hint of serious street crime. If anything, the city had spiffed up considerably during the “lost decades” of my absence."

This reminded me of a line in David Pilling's book, "Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival" (2014) (see a review here) in which a British MP toured a bustling street in Tokyo and pronounced, "If this is a recession, I want one." As Schlesinger highlights, up to now Japan has maintained a relatively equal society since the bubble, having peak unemployment reach just 5.5% during the Great Recession--remarkably low compared to the same rate in the US or Europe. This has come at the cost, however, including high underemployment, lack of full-time careers, and all the borrowing issues that come with deflation (debts become more difficult to pay over time, etc.).

"Deflation, he suggested, allowed Japan to spread and limit the pain from its decline, because firms could cut wages instead of carrying out U.S.-style mass layoffs.
That attitude, perhaps jarring to Americans, seems more mainstream in Japan, where mistrust of market messiness runs deep. The Pew Research Center this year asked people in 43 countries whether they agreed with the statement: “Most people are better off in a free-market economy, even though some people are rich and some are poor.” In Japan, 51% disagreed—just one of four countries where a majority doubted capitalism’s net benefits."

This last statistic in particularly is surprising to me, and perhaps highlights more than any other in the piece why public opinion on this issue seems so muddled. In noting the growing discontent with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic program, Schlesinger notes that: "Some disaffection comes from signs the Abenomics revival is stumbling. But some actually comes from its success, because success isn’t necessarily “comfortable.”  

For another perspective on this: Japan and the Art of Shrugging (NY-Times, 2010).

The entire WSJ piece can be found here (Japanese version here).

Geography lessons

This was amusing: People In London Tried To Label The 50 US States On A Map

My personal favorite has the "Cat" state.

Essays on "Shogun"

Below is a link to an interesting collection of scholarly essays for anyone who has read James Clavell's "Shogun" (1975) and wanted to know more about the period:

"Learning from Shogun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy"
Edited by: Henry Smith

*My thanks to the folks on Reddit for posting this.

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