Ikigai

I woke up from a dream of the past, a dream of my grandfather’s cassette player that always needed a hit now and then to do its job and the stack of tapes lying around the floor next to the old TV.

I was never really close to them. I am not their favorite nor am I their least favorite. I was something in between, a normal and negligible child… Anyway, it was at his house that I first came in contact with the world of Anime — my salvation throughout my adolescent years. The first Anime I’ve watched was Yugioh. I still remember so vividly its opening and ending themes although much of the plot and characters’ names had long disappeared from my memory.

Back then there were only two types of its kind, the rest were Hong Kong TVB TV series, which only came into my interest in later years. Two tapes but a whole new world. I rewatched them countless times. If you had a chance to ask that 6-year-old kid what Yugioh was about, she would tell you every little detail in every single episode.

As I grew older, fewer chances did I have to visit my grandparents. However, my time to watch Anime was becoming increasingly abundant.

School was not something for me at the time. I couldn’t catch up with my friends and eventually give up. I was a disappointment to my parents and a distant, easily-agitated friend to my classmates.

I find it funny sometimes when I recall this long period of depression because the main cause was me but I was always angry with everyone else. I know it now just as I knew it back then that if I had put more effort into my studying, there wouldn’t have been any problems. But I couldn’t. Up to now I still don’t know why I couldn’t… maybe because I didn’t have any goal or dream or desire of any kind.

I became worried about how people perceived me. That’s why when I didn’t do well at school, when I was overweight, I always felt as if they were sneering at me. They despised me. It made me feel furiously frustrated, I just wanted to shun them. But as I said, I know it now just as I knew it back then. I despised myself. I was too weak to fight my unwillingness, too selfish to make my parents’ wishes as a goal and so unreasonable to be mad at others when the fault was mine.

But the paradox didn’t stop there. Even though I wanted to be left alone, I could not fight the yearning for friends. I wanted to be understood and loved. After all, those are among the basic needs of humans.

It took me years to feel comfortable in the crowd, though my position is a little further to the back of the crowd. As for the “me” then, despite being uncomfortable amid one, I was too afraid to separate myself completely from it. That’s why I struggled so much. That’s why I despised myself because I was pretentious. I put up an act just to mingle with the people who obviously found me awkward. When I realized this, I retreated into my shell and fully engaged myself in Anime and Manga.

Every time I got home, I would hastily throw my backpack into the corner, turned on the TV, and watched Animax till dinner time. I also rented some Manga at an old comic store near my school with all the money my parents gave me. While other kids enjoying tasty food with the allowance they were given, I enjoyed the emotion I had from all of these imagery stories.

I love Anime and Manga, especially those of the genre Shonen because the main characters always try their best to reach a noble goal. They always put their full effort, their heart, and soul to achieve it. Their existence has a purpose. I guess because they have what I lacked that I was so drawn to them, to the point that I abandoned my real life. I was blissfully ignorant of the outside world. I didn’t communicate with anyone. I started skipping P.E classes. My dad would drop me off at the school’s front gate and I would say I had to wait for a friend and when he headed home, I would wander around the market nearby or took a 5-minute walk to my old primary school. I also began gaming at this time, which slowly evolved into a kind of addiction.

Eventually, my parents noticed these behaviors. They registered me to an Aikido class, which is one of the worst decisions they’ve ever made. I couldn’t fit in and the fact that the people there were forced to communicate with a weirdo like me, out of friendliness and politeness or whatever the reason, got into their nerves at some points. They got frustrated and kept their distance. This just worsened my already depressed state and created more anxiety. I began to fear everything related to humans. I dropped out of Aikido class after a shameful mental breakdown. It even got to the point that, as I remember in the summer, I avoided going out of my room to get water because I was too anxious to talk to my family. I mostly played online games. But even in this seemingly harmless online world, I couldn’t express myself properly. I couldn’t team up with other players to do any missions but just handling every task on my own. Gaming, watching Anime, reading Manga alone. That pretty much summed up my junior high years.

I made friend with one of the best people in my life right now but at the time I was so consumed with Anime and Manga that I didn’t take into account my friendship with her and even my parents’ effort to communicate with me. Immersing myself in these things was a great form of escapism. I couldn’t get through junior high without them. But these were just highs, they were not true joy or happiness. I was still miserable and depressed.

Whenever I finished a series, this empty and hollow feeling came crashing and swallowed me whole. Again and again, I had to find new ones to fill in the void. I felt it in my bones that reality could never be this good, I know this bitter truth since I was so much younger but I was scared of it, I was afraid to face it, so I kept on chasing the fantasy that these Mangakas created.

I led a listless and indifferent life until, eventually, the world I built shattered into pieces. I was on the verge to end it all when I realized this world I built up, the imaginary world I thought that had saved me from misery was actually destroying me. It blinded me so that I couldn’t see how messed up and distorted my view of reality had become. I was a coward, a poor kid who couldn’t handle any difficulties and moaned as if I had suffered physical and mental hardships when, in reality, I just had a few bad grades and no friends.

As I grew older, I realized how immature and naive I was. It was like falling down a pit. You always gave the loudest cry before falling so that someone could save you. But when you understand that life will always be this meaningless, you started to get comfortable and allow yourself to live without having any expectations. Look at this meaninglessness as the freedom to do whatever you want. It’s the key that unlocks all that is binding you. Or at least in my view that how it is. I am no philosopher to discuss any of these issues. It’s just a mental step that I took to keep going with the flow.

When I got to know the more mature side of Japan through its literature and art, I gradually learn how the Japanese accept life in its truest form. They are not trying to fight the course of life. They accept with great ease when life takes a sour turn or comes to an end as it’s a fact, a natural and unbeatable cycle. Life is what you see it to be. It’s pointless or meaningful depend greatly on how you make use of your time in this lifetime.

As I stood in front of Sensoji Temple that day, I felt this quiet and reserved side of Japan. It’s like I was having the world to myself. I was alone, yet I could still felt the presence of everything and everyone that has impacted my life. There was something so beautiful blooming inside of me. I felt a little of Japan growing in me as I blended into the surroundings and became a part of this little island country.