Tag: life is art

Passion

2 Comments
I’m not paid for institutional or organizational purposes that make sense within the current socio-economic systems.

Money is bestowed to me for existential purposes by people who see the similar world in front of us.

Spent one year exploring a totally new field, I clearly know to what I want to devote my time and space. I will pour my heart into an endeavor to find out what human consciousness is and what capacity it has in relation to the body. I will elucidate what influences would be made on our society and relationships by expanding capacity of human mind. I practice widening the horizon of consciousness through staying awake in a dream and a day. I continue to breathe in and out with awareness. I let go off what’s happening that shifts immediately into the past and stay alerted to the presence. I cherish peace and silence within me without leaning to the others or objects. I’ve attained a peak of contentment and happiness as Naho Iguchi, whose life reaches 34 years.  From now on, I will even more vigorously dedicate my spirit to the process and shape my daily life around that. This is my passion.

I strive to reveal a new form, or “unform,” of art so as to make one’s life, one’s existence, one’s presence a piece of art, because I have a question to the world, can we stay alive, can we be a part of the complexity of the planet and universe, without claiming what our visions are for the future and what we intend to accomplish, without presenting how valuable ideas we have and what meaningful actions we take,  without proving what talents, power, and competencies we have, without justifying why we are who we are.

I hope to be simply alive. I am life. Fulfillment for dying. Everything ceases at the end.

How can I make a breathe, a glance, a stride of my feet, always connected to my artistic crystallization (I don’t use the word, expression because I’m no longer sure if “expressing thoughts and feelings” is the right word to me”) ? How can I be art? Crystallization is a chemical reaction in which a solution or gas becomes a solid crystal. A paradox is that I honestly want to keep a solution or gas as it is, while “art” asks me (and every artist)  to deliver something crystalized, visible, sensible, tangible, and meaningful.

I still have fear and anxiety for money (= the near future) and the way of sustaining my life. The fear doesn’t go away completely. I have no clue how my art-life in Berlin will go.  At the end, however, I don’t know if the fear stems from anxiety for running out of the financial source or not. Am I afraid of the shortage of money? What is it really? I’m very sad when I imagine a situation where my life in Berlin suddenly ends. I have love for the city. I’m building affection and attachment to my living in Berlin. I’m cultivating new soil to be rooted here. Vibration that the city has matches my life phase, what my body and heart want in order to spend each and every moment in happiness, tranquility, and awe for the world. But, this will end sooner or later. Everything ceases eventually. Materials are to be worn down. Occurrences are to begin and end. Am I afraid of losing my life here? No, I’m not but simply sad. It’s truly sad to lose something or someone you are fond of and intensely connected to. Regardless of my feelings, however, things happen. I would be ok when I lose my life here, as long as I stay alive, or I have life. Sadness will be appeased. Most importantly, I’m not losing it  now but perfectly in it!

I’m determined to pursue this journey, following my passion. The path will unfold by itself. The fear and anxiety for my future money and future sustainable life can get in a way and makes me blind and deaf for a few minutes, but they are at last passers-by. I will keep a trial and error of circulating energy with my beloved people and make my life art.

Gin-yu-shi-sou （吟遊思想）

1 Comment

I bought a new book. Just a glance was enough to make a decision. The title goes, “Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Warum Krieg? -Ein Briefwechsel Mit einem Essay von Isaac Asimov”

“Why War?”

A correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud contemplates on the biggest and not yet answered question. An essay by Isaac Asimov follows.

The book sets about with Einstein’s memorandum, “Für einem militanten Pazifismus.”

”Es gäbe genug Geld, genug Arbeit, genug zu essen, wenn wir die Reichtümer der Welt richtig verteilen würden, statt uns zu Sklaven starrer Wirtschafts-doktrinen oder -traditionen zu machen. Vor allem aber dürfen wir nicht zulassen, daß unsere Gedanken und Bemühungen von konstruktiver Arbeit abgehalten und für die Vorbereitung eines neuen Krieges mißbraucht werden. Ich bin der gleichen Meinung wie der groß Amerikaner Benjamin Franklin, der sagte, es hat niemals einen guten Krieg und niemals einen schlechten Frieden gegeben.”

“For an militant Pacifism”

“There would be enough money, enough work, and enough to eat, if we were to properly share the riches of the world, instead of making us slaves of rigid economic doctrines or traditions. First of all, we may not let our thoughts and efforts of constructive work prevented and misused for the preparation for a new war. I am in the same opinion with the great American, Benjamin Franklin, who said, there has never been a good war and a bad peace.”

The question is always there. Never leaves us. I came to Berlin with the same one that Einstein addressed. My experiment is a trial to find out an answer that makes sense at least to me: circulating love and money on the same scale,  making love and trust as an well-accepted currency in the market, and letting human potential abound, that our species intrinsically possess.

I believe that art will become the pillar of the next economic paradigm. This insight steers me to move here and make an experimental art. I coin a word to describe my current way of living: “Gin-yu-shi-sou” （吟遊思想）。  Shi-sou means thoughts and ideas. Gin-yu comes from the word, “Gin-yu-shi-jin” (吟遊詩人),  which means “Bard” or “Minstrel.”  In Japanese, it’s also named  巡遊伶人.

Rainbow

Leave a comment

A long deep dive took me
to profoundness of the inner ocean
that I’ve never touched yet since birth.
Dim and distant.
Thick and transparent.
Serene and surged blue.
Indiscernible and sensible.
Focus blurs.
What is in it is covered unknown.
The substantial amount of energy of heat and light is buried.
The rainbow is sound asleep on the seabed.

 

生まれてからまだ一度も触れたことのない、
私の中の深海に潜ることができた。
闇の濃い、でも透明な、深い蒼。
ぼんやりと視界は定まらず、
手で触れることもできない。
でも気配を感じる。
そこに何があるかはまだわからない。
膨大な量の熱と光のエネルギーが埋まっている。
虹は海底に眠っている。

Values and Powers attached to “Money” and “Work”

Leave a comment

I do what I want each day to the extent that I can offer and serve for a day. I pour as much energy as I’m meant to for a day since the sun breaks darkness until the eyelids are shut and invite another darkness. The just perfect amount of responsibility is exerted day by day. No exceeds. No scarce. This is how I work.  It is one angle of multi-dimensional truth that I have luxury of such a working style because neither on the payroll nor contract am I. Professionalism isn’t bound to Money.

Money raises expectations that we get from others and puts extra responsibility upon our shoulders, which is actually crucial for us to act socially, behave conscientiously, gain credibility, and proceed with maturity.

On the other hand, absence of such expectations, responsibility, and obligations extra-added by money allows me not to be in a haste but free from overloaded stress and pressure, and gives me ample time and space for completely resting the body, mind, and heart everyday. As a result, I’m highly alerted in every moment and aware of my breathe, postures, muscles on the face, and clench of the teeth. It is In this state of consciousness that I can give full presence to people around me. Mindfully I catch what is expected “right now,” which isn’t written in a document or specified in a conversation. Perfectly in line with my philosophy of living and dying. Stretching myself at the just about right length. Working gracefully like drawing an arch of the crescent.

Living a life is to work. Working is to fully maximize one’s capacity, use up all the functions that we are intrinsically equipped, then dying. Why not are our lives as simple as this: go to sleep after exhausting all you have for a day until the sunshine wakes you up? It’s fun to earnestly develop strategies and tactics to produce value-added, increase marketability and yield big outcomes. Beautiful stories are often bi-products of economic success. It’s seductive to reach to and go beyond the extreme. I like it also. But, if we are always required to exceeds our limit every day and night, and if society blindly conventionally force its citizens to do so, then we eventually fail to keep up and overwhelm.

When an individual is overloaded, it is no wonder that the society that contains such individuals become overloaded. This is where we have been over decades, I reckon. On this planet, there are more and more people who are extremely overwhelmed yet sadly too dull to be aware of own wounds and shackles. Consequently, many countries and governments are chocked up and suffocated, aren’t they?

We need to shed lights on and redefine the following:

1)The values and power we attach to money.

2)The extent of responsibility pertaining to ourselves that we are expected to exert based on the values added to money.

3)The extent of responsibility pertaining to others that we are expected to exert based on the values added to money.

4)Our cognitive behaviors that are automatically generated by blindly reacting to the responsibility that money sets to us.

5)Our psychological processes that are automatically generated by blindly reacting to the responsibility that money sets to us.

(JPN)

やりたいことをやれる量だけやる。その日その日の自分の発揮できる責任を完全に果たす。そういう働き方をしている。お金が絡んでないからそういう働き方ができる、という現実の１側面がある。お金が絡むことでプラスαで生まれる責任は社会を成り立たせる上で重要だし、人間の良心や成長のためにも多大な効果を生み出しているだろう。

一方で、このプラスαがないから、あくせくしないし、過剰なストレスもないし、体と心をいつも休ませてあげられて、だから周りへのアウェアネスが常に高くあれるし、求められていることを敏感に感じながら、自分の生き方の中で無理なく、でも伸びしろにちゃんとリーチした、しなやかな弧を描くような働き方ができている。

いのちが生きる＝働く（本来持っている能力、機能を発揮して死ぬ）とは、その日その日でできることを遣り尽くして眠りについて、また朝を迎えることではないの？と思うのだ。社会的付加価値や市場価値のためにがんばり大きな結果を生み出すのは楽しいし、美しい物語を生む。極限を越えるのは麻薬的だ、私も好きだ。だけど、それが大前提というか、慣習的になってしまうと人間はキャパオーバーになる。言わずもがなで「そうじゃなきゃダメだよね」というような。

個人がキャパオーバーになれば、必然的に社会もキャパオーバーになるよね。ここ何十年は、そういう人が地球で増えてて、結果、色んな国がきゅうきゅういってるんじゃないのかな。

お金に与える価値と、それと共に発生する自己と他者への責任の大きさと、責任に伴って生まれる心理的影響や認知行動の「無意識化」され「クリティカルシンキングしなくなっている」部分を照らして、再定義するのが大事だなーと思った。

Living in it. Living with it.

2 Comments

I’m not “anti” anything. My attempt is to set a new measurement that is feasible, relevant, and rational in the current and future capitalistic market. I intend to shift psychological meanings, or values, attached to money, peel off unnecessary connotations and reduce it to the simplest form as it used to be when it was first invented. That is my life in Berlin. A beloved art piece.

The monetary economy is a well-made system that has been applied for hundreds and thousands years. A newer theory than Capitalism hasn’t been addressed yet. It will take a while to develop an alternative one that could take over Capitalism. We are still stumbling.

Neither do I think that it’s realistic to generate a whole new paradigmatic theory of economics in a few years, nor that it meets my philosophical stance to be emotionally and mindlessly polarize myself as “anti.” Hence,  in the monetary economic society, I’m trying to create a “microcosmos” where money is ran in a paradigmatically different way. The theme is to, within the current system. yield another “energetic” dimension in which people employ energy (capital and other resources, goods, and materials such as fuel, merchandise, knowledge, data, etc.) differently from what we normally know and blindly believe to be the only way. No opposition to money since it benefits me in various situations.

Rejecting or denying merely one side doesn’t lead a change. Dichotomous entities exhaust themselves and energy disperse. Instead of being against, preaching the contrary theory and accusing the current system, I construct hypotheses, carry out experiments for verification, and actualize what’s in my head, like architects build architectures based on imagination in their mind.

A wound of being oneself.

Leave a comment

Everybody has a wound of being oneself. It drives us nuts. Recurring questions echo in the ears over and over. Why am I like this? Is this right? Where does this come from? Emotions? Logic? or Soul? Can I believe what I’m being driven to do? Am I stuck or in progress? Am I repeating the same shit or is this something that I should follow? Should I get along with my Karma or change and eliminate it? Do I want to liberate from it or still playing around with it? Is it precious? Is it worthy? Is it something indispensable of me or must I let it go off?

There is indeed an addictive element of sticking in the mud, isn’t there?

No answer to any of these questions.

No answer is good!

 

対角線-diagonal-

Leave a comment

A diagonal is drawn. From the top of the head to the tip of the tow. From the upper left side to the lower right side of the body. The head, face, neck, shoulder, arm, wrist, hand, fingers, underarm, chest, back, belly, waist, hip, thigh, knee, calf, ankle, and  foot. The hidden inner line crosses me at the center. The left upper side of my body is bent and meets the right leg, touching together. The forehead rests on the knee. Throughout my body, the diagonal line surfaces and connects two disconnected areas: the upper part and lower part; the left side and the right side. When the line starts to run and gains awareness around, an indescribable sensation arouses from the core.  I fold the body. The chest sits on the straightened right leg, and I hug it with my lengthened arms. Energy flows from the right tow to the heart, and continues to rise up to the head. Tears gather into my eyes.

 

 

Psycholinguisticな日本語とドイツ語の話

Leave a comment

９月より本格的にドイツ語に力を注いでいます。ヨーロッパでは土地柄、他／多言語を学ぶのは当たり前。カフェでよくタンデムを見かけます。違う母国語同士の人がペアになってお互いの言語を教え合うこと。私もドイツ人の友達とタンデム始めたよ。彼は日本語の他にスウェーデン語、フランス語、ヘブライ語も勉強中。驚異的だよねw

ヨーロッパには言語習得の難易度を表す「桃栗３年柿８年」のようなフレーズがあるらしい。誰かが単に言ってただけかもしれないけど。なんだったっけな。「イタリア語１年、フランス語３年、ドイツ語３０年」だったような気がする。それに、こんな映像が作られちゃうくらい、ドイツ語はヨーロッパである意味「ネタ」な言語の様子。

How German sounds compared to other languages

日々ドイツ語が耳に入れば集中して耳を傾けて、機会があればドイツ語を話すように心がけます。ベルリンは名実共にな国際都市だから、かなりの確率で英語が通じる。ベルリンに３、４年住んでるけれどまったくドイツ語話せませんって人は山ほどいるみたい。それでも生きていけるくらいドイツ人の英語習熟度が高いのと、外国人の比率が高い街なのだ。引っ越して間もないこともあって、まだまだドイツ人友達の数が少ないしねー。だから隙あらばドイツ語を聞き、話そうと意識を高く持っておかないと、ドイツにいるのに案外触れる機会は少ないのです。

必死にドイツ語の音をピックアップし、文法を学んでは実際に話したり書いているうちに、第１言語、第２言語に影響を及ぼし始めてるなーとここ数日で気づきました。例えば、ドイツ語では名詞の先頭を必ずキャピタルレターにします。英語では文頭と固有名詞だけキャピタルにすればいいんだけど、気づかぬうちに英語でもすべての名詞の最初をキャピタルで書いてしまっていたり。

ドイツ語でもう一つ特徴なのが動詞の位置。基本的な文章では動詞が２番目にきます。「セカンドポジション」「セカンドアイディア」などと言われるルール。そのかわり、文章の先頭は常に主語じゃなくてもいいし、２番目に動詞を持ってきたら、その後に続く単語はそこそこの自由度で並べ替えが可能（いちよう大まかな法則はある）。これを無意識のうちに英語にも適用し始めちゃってるみたい。英語を書いてると頭の中で二つの言語の文構造が交わり始めて、まるで靄がかかったような視覚的に不透明な感覚に陥って、どこに動詞を置いたらいいか、どこに強調の副詞や否定語を挿入すればいいか、だんだんよくわからなくなって、ほんの一瞬なんだけど手が止まる現象を体験しています。目では自分が打っている英語を見てるのに、目から得た情報を処理する脳みそ側がドイツ語で行われてるというか。

英語とドイツ語はアルファベットがほぼ同じだし文法が似ているから、混同する現象が起こるのは理解しやすい。だけど、同じような認知上の「ズレ」が日本語にも起き始めているんだよね。びっくり。日本語の文章を読んでいるのに、「なんだこれは？何を言いたいのかよくわからないぞ。」と首をひねってしまう。「単にわかりにくい日本語なんじゃない？」という突っ込みがあるだろうけど、私が体験しているのはちょっと違うもの。「そんな日本語じゃ何言ってるかわからん！」ってなつまらない講演や、長々と書かれた的を得ない意見のようで意見じゃない文章（よくあるねw）に対する、「わからんよー」という反応は、意味論（シマンテック）や運用法（プラグマティクス）の範疇。でも、私が日本語に対して抱き始めている違和感現象は、文章構造を作りだす法則＝統語論（シンタックス）の範疇。言語を司る脳みそのどこかで、何かしらの変化が起きてるみたいなんだよね。英語と同じことが起きてるのだとしたら、恐らく、日本語の文章を読んでいる（視覚情報として日本語が入ってくる）にもかかわらず、それを処理する脳内プロセッサーはドイツ語設定、ということだ。これによって何が起きるかというと、まず、さっき英語について書いたような視覚的なぼやーっとした感じになる。日本語の文章が融解／分離していくような。文章が文章としてとどまってないというか。パソコンの画面に映る日本語が少し遠く感じるというか。なんだろう。うーん、新しい体験だから的確に文字で描写できないねぇ。とにかく、視覚的なぼんやりした感じが脳内に広まり、そうすると意味もよくわからなくなってきて、浮かんでくる質問は

「この部分の行為者は一体誰？」

「この文章の行為の受け手は一体誰？」

「この部分は何を対象にして、誰に向けて、何の話をしてるの？」

「これって結局誰のことを指してるの？」

曖昧模糊とした文字の羅列に頭がついていけなくなっていくの。簡単にざっくり言ってしまうと、各文章の主格と目的格、そして文全体の意図（誰が誰に向けて、何について話しているのか）を語彙表現ではなく、文構造（シンタックス）の内に明瞭に見いだそうとしているのだ。これはとてもドイツ語的。

もう一つ特筆すべきは、第３言語の介入による第１言語、第２言語の遊離現象は、今のところライティングとリーディングで起きてる。スピーキングとリスニングでは起きてない。目の運動と目からの情報と手の運動。そして、口の運動と耳からの情報。これらに関連性があるのかしら。

第３言語を習得し始めたことによって、過去に学んだもののすっかり忘却の彼方だったフランス語やスペイン語が急に口をついて出たり。

言語と脳の関係っていつでもfascinating。

Cicada

Leave a comment

Cicadas, as Nymphs, live underground for as long as 3-17 years. This is an Incredibly long time to stay dormant in soil, waiting to be soaked up in sunshine, only if we see Cicadas’ life from our perspective with a sense of time that human cognition holds. Do Cicadas think, “oh man…. this is hella long…. when on earth can I get out of the darkness and become a Cicada?” ? Probably not. No evidence, but at least I don’t think so. Cicadas perhaps don’t even know the difference in length of time between the 7-year Nymph period and the 7-day Cicada period. I assume that their sense of time is different from ours, or they don’t have, so to speak, a sense of time at all. Therefore, I reckon, 7 or 17 or whatsoever years of their underground life is actually “the same” as 7 days of their sunny life. They are simply Nymphs when they are Nymphs. They are Cicadas when they are Cicadas. There isn’t such a thing as a short time or a long time. No comparison because there is no concept of time that we construct (I believe). Nymphs don’t bear a long and severe “sleeping” time for multiple years and long for being a full Cicada form. No waiting. No craving. The stages of Nymph, incomplete metamorphosis and Cicadas are all the same to them. When time comes, they change. They don’t get bothered. When they die after several days as Cicadas, they don’t regret, “Damn, this was too short despite my Nymph period!!”

This is actually amazing! No dissatisfaction of wanting to be something different. No frustration of being pended. No sorrow of being too short. A total paradigm shift of notion of time. I’ll live on the Cicadas’ time concept from now on. It will take a while to shift my cognitive process of time. But, eventually I will get there. Freeing myself from time.

When sin becomes pride

Leave a comment

I’m proud of how you were dying.

The way you stumbled. 

The way you faltered.

The way you lost your wings.

The way you fought back.

They way you struggled.

Regret melted away.

Suffering got swept aside.

Sin becomes pride.