763 Slip

I started to learn kick boxing training and have been practicing it for 2 months, being only a clumsy amateur but enjoying it so much. The other day I slipped in trying to practice middle kick. I was amazed (not by my absolute awkwardness, as that doesn't surprise me), by the quickest motion of my left arm and elbow which hit on the ground to protect my head and back. I was really amazed by the reflexes that reacted on the instance I slipped and before I even noticed what I was doing. It hurt a bit and made a scrape on my elbow but the lessons learned was much greater: it's best not to slip, but sometimes it might be a good idea to learn to slip safely to know how amazingly the reflexes work, needless to say, when you are free from any interference to your nerves and minds, such as smartphones. 

762 Taxi Driver

My job makes me often ride on a taxicab and like to talk with the drivers. I may talk about weathers, about traffic, about road repairing, or more likely about driving. I know nothing about them except for they are professional and expert drivers. With paying attention to each and every different stories and its storytellers I often get luck to have very interesting and fun time during 15-minutes ride back to office. Most of them had previous job before becoming a taxi driver. 

Recently I talked with a man who had been an office worker like myself and decided to quit it. He said the taxi work required him a kind of 48-hours-cycle, which is almost a full-day work and a full-day rest. I said it must be hard, to start working in early morning and keep working until midnight. He laughed and said "No, actually I've got healthier than before." I was interested and got wondered why the driving work could make people healthy. He continued, "In the evening I don't have to go an have drink with my clients any more, and in the morning I don't have to manage to get on an super uncomfortably clouded commuters train any more. I need to be healthy because now I have full responsibility of the safety of the passengers, the pedestrians and other car drivers. I need to be in a best condition when I work. That is the requirement of the job but also it's a gift. I can enjoy quiet and peaceful early-morning ride to the taxi garage, and enjoy a full-day off on weekdays. I get more fun before." I've never heard such inspiring and happy story of a man finding his true vocation.

761 Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman movie is a pure great entertainment that breaks through the definition of super hero. Sharp and beautiful action sequences are no doubt breathtaking. Wonder woman is a very unique figure. She is strong as iron and yet lithe and withy. She has both speed and weight. She is amazingly pure and yet has lots of wisdom. After all she is not a human being - I may not fully understand but she is a child of god and so she is a character in the myth. Can a god or a goddess be a super hero of human world? In today's complex entertainment context, it doesn't seem to be easy. "The woman is a goddess with a very special power," "then no wonder she is superbly beautiful and strong", maybe that's all. But this amazing movie did make it. The way she fights, the way she thinks and talks and acts is something that is much beyond cliche, filled with surprise and fun, and full of wonder. Maybe that's why why human beings have been fascinated by telling myth stories over generations. 

760 The Peanuts Movie

The Peanuts is a very unique, one and only work I've ever known as a cartoon series. It's a quite strange universe only made by small children with a beagle and a small yellow bird, and yet it seems like a perfect reflection of real human world. After all we are all just playing baseball or ice hockey, playing a trick, having a secret crush on somebody, getting into mischief, baking holiday sweets, doing homework, listening to friend whining about something you are not interested in at all, being shocked by a news and being relieved to know that something much bigger has happened. Our everyday life as grown-ups is a bit more complicated and digitalized, but essentially it's the same in the way life goes on with a cycle of small, trivial, ordinary but sometimes surprising things happening around us. If we could still remember what the life was like when we were little children, we might find we almost knew every basics of the life. 

Peanuts movie is a great work that succeeded to reproduce the classics into a warm and lively 3D animation, without losing any charm of the original world of Peanuts. Especially I like the most is the Snoopy who usually is a realist when he communicates with his shy owner Charlie Brown, and also a strong believer of fantasy. The skill of imagination is what we might need to bring from our childhood world into our grown-up life of more serious and tiresome but filled with opportunity and real adventure. 

759 Smaller, Wider

The friend kept talking and I listened. She has been unselfish enough to be blessed with serendipity. She has met lots of great, talented and very famous persons whom not everyone can easily get acquainted with, by "merely a chance" as she says. But the most interesting part is not that she is just lucky. The key of these unbelievable network is that she meets with them in a local city, our home town. The city has less resources, less opportunities, and less networking infrastructure than in Tokyo, but surprisingly it is the locality and small scale that attract these talented people and make them more open for communication. I understand her point. Being in the city I feel truly down-to-earth, finding myself in a place of agreeable scale and of breathable environment. It is the place that makes people feel good, and please note, that doesn't mean it's everything.  Comfortable life in comfortable place is not the goal, but the stable foothold, the robust stage for us to step forward.  

758 NY

During the very short summer holidays I met an old friend whom I haven't seen over 20 years. But I always love to see these old friends - because the moment we recognize each other, that 20+ years of long time is instantly cleared off. It's like magic. It's also exciting, as we create reunion with an old friend with whom we share our schooldays and at the same moment we find in each other a brand-new friend as a fully grown-up. It's old and new. 

Without feeling any awkwardness, she casually skipped greetings and began to talk about how she had difficulty in getting used to tropical fish. Neither of us were surprised whatever we talked about. She and I had absolutely funny and exciting chat for hours. And she mentioned she liked NY city so much. I asked why (because I've never been to) and she said, "The city is full of energy. People are energetic and confident. And also they are nice to strangers. The energy, power and humanity of the city makes me go back there again and again." My friend said so. Some might think alike, some night not, and I'm not sure if I feel the same when I have chance to actually see it, but her words enchanted me and that's enough for me.  

757 Hot Water

One big thing that has changed in my daily life these days is, I got to drink less coffee and more and more hot water. It began like this. One day I had a pain in my stomach. It kept for days and I got fever at the end. It was not that serious, maybe due to heat fatigue and stressed situation. I got better with taking some stomach medicine and deep sleep. During the illness I totally quit drinking coffee and took almost nothing but hot boiled water. It tasted better than anything I could think of and it sounds really amazing but I could do without a single cup of coffee for 2 weeks. 

It is amazing because I have been enjoying black coffee all my life --- from morning until midnight. I drunk at average 4-5 cups of coffee during a day, working at office, chilling in cafe, reading at home, at lunch, at dinner, in the air, in the bed, outside and inside. Coffee has been a part of my life. But the 2-weeks experience made me change a lot. I started to drink coffee again, awkwardly and carefully. It tastes good, as it did always, but I don't want to drink it all day long, as I used to. I learned I had reset my sensor through the experience and now coffee tastes dark and heavy. Yes of course it is, coffee is dark and heavy and bitter, but I couldn't realize it because maybe I took it too much to feel it.

Hot water is a surprising drink for me. Believe it or not, it has clearly a taste. A taste of delicate sweetness and ultimate neutral clarity, if that expression makes sense. It's not a clear-cut, sharp purity. It's totally soft and feels like it does not cause any kind of friction in one's body. It perfectly fit to almost any food. To be honest I came to wonder why restaurants fails to have "nice hot boiled water" in its drink menu, while they have always mineral water.

But I'm still very fond of coffee. The scent, the flavor of the coffee is still one and only for me and never be fully replaced with hot water. Hot water woke up my sense and thanks to it I got accurate feeling to taste black coffee properly, as a drink of extreme bitterness and spicy but fresh darkness.