Circles, Circles... Life Has Circles

Recently, my friend and I were discussing various things on one of our outings; we were the few left in town with everyone else travelling on spring break.  He then used an analogy that I thought was "probably the most intelligent thing I've ever heard".  OK, it was more like the most intelligent thing in a while.  It particularly appealed to me because it used geometry (circles!).  I thought it's worth sharing.

 

It was about why some people are really petty, which can be socially toxic in hangouts with a large group of people of varying backgrounds and life experiences.



For the math or physics whiz, I drew a 4-panel explanation just for you!

The Analogy

 

The mind thinks in a circle.  Over time, the mind returns to the same point on that circle.  People can expand that circle by leveling up on life experiences, such as going out and meeting new people, getting exposed to different subjects and cultures, travelling and seeing new places, taking risks, etc.  By that logic, people who "go out and see the world" or "live life" would think in big circles.  Those who don't would think in small circles.

 

Let's establish several premises before we continue:

1. Everyone's minds start off thinking in circles of same size (diameter);
2. Each life experience is a singular event, with the same spacing between any two events;
3. Everyone thinks at the same rate;
4. Everyone's thinking never stops (in constant motion);
5. Everyone has bad experiences to which the mind eventfully returns.

For the sake of this analogy, each person has exactly one bad experience for the mind to return to.  Someone who thinks in big circles would take more time to come back to that bad experience.  Someone who thinks in small circles would come back to that bad experience faster.  This, in turn, makes him/her more easily frustrated and really petty, since he/she is thinking about the same bad thing more often.  In the long term, it may become the only thing on his/her mind...

  

I think this analogy holds an important life lesson.  Ultimately, I believe it's our willingness to expand our "mind circles" that drove us to give up our lives in the home countries and work overseas as ALTs.  You can argue that it's because you can't find a job at home after college or you have a bad home life.  But, you most likely meant you can't find a job that fits and pays appropriately for what you studied in school.  And if you're trying to escape, you can move somewhere closer that still speaks your native language, not hundreds or thousands of miles in a land of foreign speak.

 

With a little over a year now working in Japan, my honeymoon period here has long passed.  This analogy serves as a great reminder to continue the drive to explore life, thus never becoming a super petty person.

 

Thanks, Tim Villain, for the analogy.  Please check out his latest blog on working overseas.
 

Big Trouble in Little... Post Office

  

"I've created problems in this peaceful town.  My work is done here."
~ excerpt from a LINE chat between EpicGaijinSmash and Tim Villain

 

April 2, 2014 

It's another day during spring break.  Tim Villain and I decided to visit our friend in a small town north of Miyako, and have some Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (it's like a pancake with veggies, noodles, egg, meat stacked and cooked on a flat grill).  We took a half hour ride on the quaint little train, like the one in Ama-chan (a popular 2013 drama which took place here in Iwate Prefecture).  After a satisfactory meal, I decided to go to the post office for some personal business.  And, that's when things got real.

  
 

I needed to add more pages to my passport.  To pay for it, I had to send in a 国際郵便為替 [kok-sai-yu-bin-ka-wa-se], or an international postal money order.  I asked for one at the counter, and my request was returned with a bunch of fast official-sounding Japanese that I couldn't understand.  Luckily, my friend was there to help.  However, that quickly spiraled out of control.  After the post office clerks researched their manuals and discussed amongst themselves for a long time, they called their HQ.  Within minutes, half a dozen black SUVs pulled up, and mysterious men wrestled me and my friend away to an abandoned warehouse. They relentlessly interrogated us on why we were getting a money order and what we were planning with it.  After what seemed like hours, they had us chained to the wall and our pants down to our ankles.

 

Suddenly, sirens blared from all directions.  Our mysterious captors scrambled into overdrive, as the floor under us opened up and the walls shifted.  Once again, my friend and I were wrestled away, this time to an elevator which led somewhere deep underground.  For a second, I saw a gigantic humanoid figure over the skyline, which later our captors called an Angel.  At the end of a long elevator ride, we were met by more mysterious men and a young boy named Shinji.  Immediately, they told the boy that he needed to "get back into the Eva and save the city".  He insisted that he couldn't, and what looked like paternal abandonment issues threw him into a fit of uncontrollable rage.  Then, a white girl with orange-brown hair and a red jumpsuit appeared, and slapped the boy hard across the face.  That was the last time my friend and I saw the boy and girl.

 

During our endless shuffling around the sprawling underground complex, the crisis was averted.  I believe the boy from earlier overcame his inner demons and saved the city.  Later, the mysterious men kindly took my friend and me back to the little post office.  The same clerk from the start of this encounter handed me a form, which I had to redo a few times due to various mistakes on my part.  Within minutes, I was given a money order to include with my passport and documents.  The clerk was nice enough to drop it off with the day's outgoing mail, and even thanked me by giving me 2 Kumamon (the mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture) face towels!

 

All the while, Tim Villain was waiting in our friend's car outside the little post office.

 

Afterwards, we went to a free foot bath and had dessert.  Mine was a mango mousse cake.

 

 

Moral of the story:

     Don't ask for silly weird things, like an international money order, at a small town post office.