Searls of Wisdom for May 2024

During his closing keynote at RubyKaigi, Matz joked that it's really confusing why people would want a picture with him. "Why would you want that?" So a couple hours later I made sure to explain that I don't know why I want it, but could I please have a picture anyway and he obliged after a mock protest:

I'll be honest, I struggled a bit over what to write this month. I spent the entirety of May traveling all over Japan and had so many novel experiences that the only thing more difficult than picking a few favorites to write about would be to arrive at some kind of overarching theme to summarize the entire trip. Searching for the right thing to discuss here put me in an uncomfortably contemplative state, for better or worse.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this decidedly middle-aged edition of Searls of Wisdom.

Fulfilling a life ambition

I've been studying Japanese off and on for over twenty years now. Incidentally, it was during my second semester that the movie Lost in Translation was released. Seeing how that movie portrayed a certain unknowableness about Japan triggered in me an intense desire to see the place myself. While some film critics took issue with that portrayal—whether for perpetuating "oriental" exoticism or for reducing Japanese culture into a thematic backdrop to make its protagonists seem lonely—I reacted entirely differently: on a deep level, I suddenly wanted to somehow solve each of the mysteries the film presented as complicated and alienating.

Up to that point, I'd been studying the language the same way I'd studied German in high school: as a perfunctory series of basic but practical functions, like navigating a train station or ordering off a menu. What was my motivation? I don't know… college tuition was expensive and Japanese seemed really fucking hard and I wanted to get my money's worth, I guess. But after seeing Lost in Translation, I had a tangible purpose for learning the language. The more proficient I became, the better equipped I'd be to figure out all the things that seemed foreign or confusing or inaccessible to foreigners.

(Do people still feel this way about anything, I wonder? In 2004, if I'd had access to a smartphone, or YouTube, or ChatGPT to answer all my questions for me, would I have gone to all this trouble? I'll never know for sure, but I kind of doubt it.)

Anyway, that was what was driving me as I studied over the next several semesters before traveling to Japan for the first time for a summer internship, which was immediately followed by a semester abroad.

And after two years of fastidious preparation, it turned out I didn't know shit.

I'll never forget this moment from my first day in Japan. My host mother was driving me somewhere and while stopped at an intersection she was apparently distracted as a red light turned green. Extremely proud to use my Japanese ability, I helpfully announced the word for green, "midori!" She looked at me like I was the dumbest mother fucker on earth. Like, why was I shouting random colors? After a few seconds it clicked, and she informed me that when it comes to traffic signals, green lights in Japan are referred to as "ao" (blue). Never mind the fact that the light itself was the greenest-ass green I'd ever seen. It was blue.

That's when it sank in. I was in for a long six months. I had no choice but to accept that green was blue, at least sometimes.

(Fun fact I didn't learn until a decade later: in ancient Japanese history, even predating Chinese influence, the four primary colors from which all others are derived were black, white, red, and blue. Green derives from blue, and so there's absolutely nothing inconsistent about their calling a green traffic signal blue. In fact, blue's symmetry with red as a fundamental color perhaps makes it a more appropriate choice than "green".)

All of this to say, I learned Japanese the same way I learned computer programming: fucking up constantly, at seemingly every possible opportunity, but learning from my failure just barely often enough to make something resembling forward progress over a long enough time horizon.

And I really have made significant forward progress over the years. Getting a handle on basic grammar allowed me to ask for what I needed and explain basic concepts to others. Learning the 2000 jōyō kanji enabled me to read everything from nutritional labels to entire novels. Thanks to repeated exposure, when people catch me talking with hotel staff, navigating a train station, or discussing food at an izakaya, they sometimes confuse me for being fluent. Of course, if they saw me stumble while negotiating a situation even remotely outside my comfort zone, they'd realize I've optimized for what I (apparently) care most about: visiting new places and eating great food.

You get good at what you do most often.

Anyway, as I wrap up more than a month spent exploring the country, I've come to appreciate that my Japanese is just about as proficient as it needs to be for me to sate all the curiosities that originally drew me to the country. As I reach for ever further-flung destinations, I can feel the diminishing returns of continued language-learning investment. Viscerally. It feels like deceleration.

What do I do now that I've largely accomplished what I set out to do 20 years ago? One option, of course, would be to set a new goal. I could pursue a greater understanding of conversing about software in order to give presentations in Japanese. Or get better at producing humble and honorific language to cover a broader set of interactions. Or sharpen my pronunciation and pitch accent. But to what ends? Unless I plan to get a job in Japan, what would I get out of moving the goalposts except more work for myself?

Seeing the bigger picture

The reality is this question isn't fundamentally about language learning, it's about how to best manage personal objectives that are bigger than a breadbox. Have you ever endeavored to do something so significant or ambitious that it would take years of your life to achieve? And if you—even partially—designed your life around the pursuit of that objective, what happens to that life once you meet the goal?

As I'm typing this, I realize this is the stuff mid-life crises are made of.

When you do something every day for years on end, it's not unusual for your original motivation to fade into the background. Forming a layer of sediment in your own life story. Becoming part of your identity.

I started learning Japanese to understand Japan, but now I'm someone who speaks Japanese.

I started programming to make silly games on my calculator, but now I'm a programmer.

I started exercising to lose weight, but now I'm physically fit.

I started dating Becky to find a partner, but now I'm her husband.

If I'd chosen to suddenly stop doing any of those things in the early days, it wouldn't have impacted my identity. But after 20+ years? Quitting any of them now would be so disruptive as to threaten my own concept of who I am. Doing anything for that long alters you.

The way I see it, there are three options you can take when it feels like you've reached the end of a road you started traveling down a long time ago:

1. Turn around, making the drastic change, and replacing that part of you with something totally new, even if the consequences are severe. Life is short.

2. Keep driving, accepting the fact that doing the thing is worthwhile for it's own sake, regardless of any concrete objective. It's the journey not the destination.

3. Take a detour, adding waypoints to new places you'd find rewarding, even if you hadn't anticipated them in advance. Life's a winding road.

Any of the three ways forward could be right answer. It depends on the person, the thing, and where they're at in life.

As for where this meditation leads me with respect to my own quandary around Japanese language, I'm choosing Option 2 and staying the course for now. This is a meaningful and enriching part of my life and I can't imagine something else I'd rather replace it with. Likewise, there are plenty of specific language-learning goals I could pursue (certifications, etc.), but it's not clear what I stand to gain from striving to reach them—setting an arbitrary goal runs the risk of deflating the joy I derive from the activity itself.

"Staying the course," in this case is hardly tantamount to slipping into complacency, as engaging with the language at all—reading books, conversing with others, and so on—is inherently challenging and keeps both my skills and my mind sharp. I'm truly just at a point where I'm content to keep doing the things I find enjoyable, traveling to the places I want to go, and maintaining the friendships I care about. What I won't be doing is worrying that my linguistic skillset is curiously over-indexed on being able to bullshit with strangers late into the night at bars and izakayas.

Entering a new phase

Last year, while traveling solo in central Kyushu, I met an older man and had a lovely chat. I honestly can't remember the context or whether we were naked.

(Editor's note: there are lots of public onsen baths in Kyushu.)

The whole interaction was brief. Definitely less than 15 minutes. In broad strokes, I remember that (1) an unusual experience led to us speaking at all, (2) we identified a few odd coincidences of the "it's a small world" variety, and (3) some extrinsic urgency brought the brief interaction to an abrupt close.

(I'm back to thinking not naked, by the way. In hindsight, this feels more like a waiting-at-a-bus-stop conversation.)

Anyway, before we parted ways, he indicated that our interaction had been meaningful to him. He taught me the proverbial phrase "ichigo ichie" (一期一会), which emphasizes the significance that a random, "once-in-a-lifetime encounter," can have on someone. We didn't exchange contact information. I am certain I'll never hear from or see him again.

I remember joking to friends about 10 years ago that I felt like I was speed-running my bucket list, and afraid I'd run out of shit to do and places to see by the time I hit 40. I realize now that—while it's true that identifying and accomplishing significant, challenging things is a big part of life—it's not all there is to life. Rather than react to the sudden absence of an unmet goal by tearing everything down to start something new, what if I find peace merely existing in one of the areas of my life that contributes to making me me? What if I've worked so hard and come so far to build the life I wanted, that now I'm left with the task of living it?

Even among people with the privilege to grapple with the existential question of what "living life well" should mean, they often resist it. It definitely seems less flashy and triumphant than structural change and material success. And completing so many minor objectives in service of achieving a larger one tends to addict people to feeling productive and to a sense of forward progression. As a result, learning when to slow down the car and how to enjoy the ride won't necessarily be any easier than constantly pushing the pedal to the metal. In fact, I'm sure there are countless habits and mindsets I developed to get to where I am that I'd be better off off unlearning and discarding in order to get to where I'm going next.

Anyway, I often think about that conversation with the older man at the bus stop last year (in whatever state of dress or undress we were in) who taught me the phrase 一期一会 and I'm deeply grateful for it. One of the best parts of the nationwide tour I just completed was to have experienced so many insconsequential once-in-a-lifetime moments for which I was able to be truly present—enhancing my experience, to be sure, but also potentially leaving a more meaningful impact on others.

No big, audacious goal required.