the ambiguous cold

I have been vaguely sick for a little over a week now. A cough. Something also in the bones. And when I tire of it, decide that I must push myself to write or to go for walks or in other ways generally live, that is when it reminds me not to rush things.

And there is the guilt of the boy who faked illnesses constantly in his school days. It doesn't matter that I am actually sick, nor that I find the energy to teach. I am guilty of something, and shall be punished, surely.

Even so, I am in the journal today. There is an attempt to locate the lesson of this journey, or at least a cogent impression. But I would like to keep it from turning into a confessional piece.

Something that occurred. Perhaps that's all it was. I suppose it depends on the view I take on original sin, but I doubt this has much to do with anything.

I did not set out to learn a lesson. But perhaps how far I could push myself. I don't think I found out an answer. As with any venture of worth, distractions have abounded.

We are told to keep quiet. To follow where others walk. To drink with our superiors. To watch the children walking at the festival parades, and try the octopus on sticks. And not to make waves. And to make waves. To say thank you again and again. To apologize thinking that you are a dog. To look at the pines and bridges on the islands. To visit the pleasure districts. To drink coffee from cans, only warm for seven months of the year. To buy things, from the giant screens. To buy things. Everything. The signs so pervasive that they become spectacle. Especially in the evenings. To not feed tobacco to sewer rats. To never waste anything. To keep our trash with us. In our bags and pockets. To look for the remnants of the Bushido in black suit jackets and black ties and a drunken evening slouch, the things he must do out of filial duty. To accept the strangeness, the lack of concern for logic in our affairs. The humble apologies of politicians. The seemingly constant changing of the guard. To observe the night when two lovers are separated by the river of stars, the milky way, and eat rice rolled in seaweed. To go and see the cherry blossoms, and everywhere there are the famous orchards containing one thousand trees. The paper lanterns. I have learned the names of nothing. We are told, and sometimes we listen, and sometimes we are deaf. And sometimes we choose which to be. We are impermanent. Even those of us who believe ourselves not to be.