A day and some change...then 2016 will be a done deal. It's a mid-afternoon Friday here in Olde Nagoyaland. Things are winding down, as I tie up a few loose ends before the full blown Japanese Shogatsu (New Year) holiday break kicks in with tomorrow's widespread festivities. The sun is shining radiantly, and the last of this year's rather prolific run of dark, rainy, crap weather has mercifully run it's course...putting a little cherry on the top of what has, for all intents and purposes, been a rather tough year all around. Small blessing. I'll take it. It's even a brisk 8C in the sunshine....fairly typical for this time of year, albeit half the balmy 16C we were enjoying at the beginning of the week. A flurry of activity is afoot around Jingu Shrine, just up the road, as preparations are underway for the onslaught of people expected to visit and offer their prayers and wishes for good fortune in the coming year. Vendors are busy setting up their kiosks and food stalls, jockeying for position, signs are being hung, and decorations put in place. The excitement is palpable. Jingu Shrine is almost 2000 years old, and one of the three shrine sites considered central to Japan's indigenous Shinto religion. It's also a complete mob scene every Shogatsu holiday season.
Christmas was pretty quiet this year...and my 50th anniversary on terra-firma (which happens to fall on Christmas Eve) was no exception. Where once upon a time there was copious amounts of booze, and riotous parties, this year there was the idyllic and simple pleasure of dinner and a movie with my wife. No complaints from these quarters. My life of the last few years has taken a bit of a different turn. More measured, considered, and introspective. This runs in quite stark contrast to the hedonistic bent that had rather defined my previous three decades. Several years ago it had become fairly evident that I had coralled myself into a bit of a dead-end...and that I had been put in a position to either consider making some changes, or completely run myself into the ground. In a bad way.
This is where I decided to apply the concept of 断捨離 - 'danshari' to my life, in broader terms. It's an idea that I sort of surreptitiously picked up from one of my more spiritually minded students a number of years ago. It intrigued me. As I read more about it, I became convinced that it was worth a try. These three kanji characters, '断捨離', represent 'refusal', 'disposal', and 'separation'. Danshari has some relationship to minimalism, and zen Buddhism. It deals with detaching oneself from possessions, and eliminating clutter in one's living space, in order to promote a clearer mind and freer spirit. It's a process of elimination and emotional separation from material objects that we have assigned undue importance...or even granted 'souls' (though it can also apply equally to other aspects of our lives that have become 'redundant', or worn out their welcome). Physical objects, while having sentimental value, are not vessels for our memories and experiences. Our minds serve that purpose. A living space crammed full of things which serve no real purpose (save to trigger memories of times past) can be something akin to a body full of clogged arteries, constricting and blocking clear and healthy blood circulation. In our living spaces (as in our bodies), a clear and unobstructed circulation of energy can only benefit and optimize one's health and state of mind. Often we are afraid to dispose of material possessions because we have convinced ourselves that they are indispensable, and will come in handy 'one day'. We have been conditioned not to 'waste'...but to horde for some inevitable storm or crisis that often never materializes. Yet is having something simply because one 'might' need it 'someday', in itself, enough justification for cluttering your living space with it? Is it not more wasteful to horde things which one doesn't need or use, simply because these things 'might' find some use or purpose at 'some point' in the far-flung future? Isn't it better to release these things; let them find a new home...where they may serve some real purpose and be of practical use?
It's all pretty heady stuff...and can also represent a very slippery slope. For example, I would choose not to throw away my summer clothing because I haven't worn it in months...or my bottle opener, because I don't have any glass bottles in the house. I no longer smoke, but continue to keep a few cigarette lighters in the kitchen cupboard. Though I rarely have steak, I would tend to hang on to my steak knives. I also have more clothes than I could wear in a week, more music and movie discs than I could realistically play in the limited amount of down-time that I have in a year, and more books than I could read in six months (if all I did from sunrise to sunset was read). Hence it all comes down to selective analysis, then 'balls of steel' to actually take that 'leap of faith', and get rid of, or rather 'liberate yourself from' whatever it is that's weighing you down. My wife is a master of this. A few times a year she'll create a small mountain of stuff in the middle of our tatami room, then start bagging it all up, and hustling it out to the garbage dumping area. I have no idea where this stuff all came from. Somehow it was tucked into this or that box, closet or dark corner of our apartment. Our living spaces can absorb and camouflage a lot of stuff. All of this 'stuff'' amounts to dead weight blocking the flow of positive energy, with the potential to cause some kind of 'spatial' cardiac episode if left unaddressed. A problem.
In my case, when I hit my 'dead-end' several years back, I was in a pretty bad place...physically, mentally and emotionally - and it all had less to do with a bunch of clothes that I didn't wear anymore, or beloved old boots that no longer fit, than being the by-product of an accumulation of over half a lifetime's worth of physical, emotional and spiritual garbage that I had been packing around in and ON my person. Faced with the prospect of some very grave consequences all around, the writing was on the wall. This garbage and dead weight, both physical and spiritual, were finally threatening to sink me like a pair of concrete loafers. Cleaning your room, and chucking out some old junk is one thing. Cleaning your life is an entirely different prospect. Resolving to make a concerted effort to remove long standing destructive habits and behaviours, eliminate the influences of toxic people (a big one), and then make a long term commitment to overall change can be a daunting, and even scary thing. Breaking with familiar patterns, regardless of how obviously self-destructive and pointless, can be a tough call. There is a degree of comfort in complacency, and staying the course, no matter how unfortunate that course has been.. As is said, "The hell you know is often preferable to the hell you don't" There can be a lot of fear in change.
Four and a half years (of working daily to undo whatever I can from well over three decades of self-buggery) later, here I am. Half a century from being grunted out on to a gurney on Christmas Eve at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles by a ne'er do well 22 year old go-go dancer from Vancouver, B.C. who didn't know any better. Results thus far? There's 40 kg's less of me than there was when I set out on this mission to 'self-danshari'. While I still enjoy the odd drink, I've discovered that I can actually go for extended periods without one...and then sit down and have 'a' glass of wine...or 'a' beer....without turning it into an apocalyptic bender. If someone lights up a cigarette within 10 meters of me...I wanna go over, grab it, and stub it out in their fucking eye. My social calendar has become clear and uncluttered, and I'm asleep before 12 on most Saturday nights. My phone almost never rings. I rarely get invited anywhere. Things that might have troubled a younger version of me, I now view as a 'win'. I would be totally remiss to let my wife Mina go unacknowledged here. Her patience and good humor have buoyed me through this journey's lowest and darkest points.
When one makes such sweeping and bold life changes, one quickly finds one's self on the fringe of the fringe, socially. This can be the real kicker for a lot people. The sense of isolation from a former peer group with which the commonalities and kinship have quite literally been taken out with the empties can be hard to accept. I'm alright with it. A bit relieved, even. I've always been sort of a loner, anyways. My wife asked me (half joking), if it bothered me...you know..."not having any friends", where at one time, I had seemed to have so many. I laughed. Maybe it should...but it doesn't really. Maybe it bothers me a little in that I let so many people use and shit all over me for so long. I had a good time, though... and am not really one to harbour regrets, which are an utter waste of time. Some lessons have been learned. The few people that I do still occasionally see socially, compensate in conscientious character for the dozens that I don't. When the smoke clears, and the party is over, it can be quite surprising to see who is left, and who remains. Most often it's not who you might have expected. 'School of life' stuff. That's about it. 'Danshari'.
While it's easy to rail on about the awful (which this year seems to have come up with in spades), it seems like more of a challenge to talk about the good stuff. The deficits always seem to usurp the assets when it's time to turn on the spotlights. Heading into the half century mark...with undoubtably more of my life behind than ahead of me...my priorities have started changing. Small victories have taken on more significance. I went in for my annual physical check up and run-down at the end of October, and got a clean bill of health. There's a victory. I pee like an old man...but even the prostate is in good order. This wasn't the story five years ago, at which time I seemed set to join John Lennon and the dinosaurs in fairly short order. So...with all of the horrors that 2016 has rained down on the world at large...and undoubtably even more of a shit show looming in the coming year...on a very personal, local level, this was very satisfying. The Canadian in me often views things in life from a 'hockey' perspective. That being said, after a mixed first and second period, the third looks like it'll be an ongoing struggle...but I'm up for it. The future is unwritten, and there are no guarantees. If the score is even at end of twenty, there's always overtime. And all that.
My mantra for 2017..."Appreciate less, more".
Happy New Year, everyone!
