Letter from Kyoto

Where has that summer gone?

My new book entitled Learning from Adler ---what is the courage to live? has been published at last. Facing the tasks of life we tend to avoid them giving many reasons to justify the refusal to face them. In the book I made it clear how we lose courage especially in the face of problem of aging, disease and death.
Having finished writing the manuscript for this book I happened to read Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happens to Good People. I may have chance to write about this book. If I had read it earlier my book might have been a little different though my basic view remains the same.
I took this photo one day. The family in the photo reminded me of the days I spent with my family when I was a child. Where has the past gone?

Two years

I have been writing the manuscript. I do not know when I can finish writing but one thing is certain. It will still take much time. Happily I now feel that I see the glimpse of the light which is a sign of the goal. In the book I intend to give the reader courage to face the problems of life never fail to encounter and cannot evade. I discuss the disease and the death in the last two chapters.
At last cherry blossoms began to bloom here in Kyoto but I feel a little cold. It often gets cold at this season. The cherry blossoms appeared to be shivering in the cold.
My wife has gone to Tokyo early this morning to spend the weekend with our son, who lives in Tokyo. It was two years ago he entered the university. Soon after he went to Tokyo I got sick. I remember having seen the cherry trees in full bloom from the window of the ward. They were so beautiful that I went on seeing them sitting on the sofa though I was allowed to do so for only five minutes at once.

to the hospital

I had a medical examination on Friday. As it included a blood test and taking cardiogram I had to go to the hospital long before the appointed time. Many people were waiting to consult the doctor before a consulting room. I always think that it must be hard for the patients, especially for the persons of advanced age to wait for long time. It takes much energy and time.
Though I was tensed up the night before the examination no serious problem was found to my relief except for the irregular pulse which the doctor said is not grave.
When I was taken to the hospital by ambulance I was ordered a complete rest, which meant not to move at all. Even when I wanted to change the position of my body I had to ask the nursery. Having no pain it was really painful to rest still. It seemed that time had stopped. I must have been nervous then. I could not sleep well.
After it turned out the serious case was safe I was not allowed to listen to the music. I wanted to read books but strangely it was not allowed even when watching television was allowed. I told the nurse that it was strange that I could not read books. Her answer was that it was because reading books was stressful. I thought that watching exciting program was more stressful and harmful to my heart. I do not intend to blame the nurse because I had to obey the strict rehabilitation program. Nevertheless I asked her to allow me to read books because it was more stressful for me not to read them. As she persuaded the doctor the prohibition was lifted soon.
The doctor came to my room and found many books unread beside my bed. He asked me to show him one of the books. It was lucky for me he was a great reader just like me. It was this doctor who encourage me to write books. I published two books after I left the hospital. One day the editor sent me the proofs of the book while I was in the hospital, which I had to correct. He did not know about my disease. I decided not to tell about it to postpone my work because I strongly wanted to see it published soon.
I owe it to my doctor that I have published the books. If he had not been on duty when I was taken to the hospital early in the morning I might have died.
My son has returned home from Tokyo at the moment. Though he will be back soon early next week it is my pleasure to spend hours discussing.

What did I get?

I sometimes think that I should delete what I wrote about my disease from the profile. It is almost two years since I got sick and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Many of my friend, with whom I got acquainted while I was in hospital, have returned to their works already. Nowadays thanks to the progress of the medicine we can leave the hospital in a month in the case of cardiac infarction. When I had a bypass surgery the next year I was forced by my doctor to walk on the third day after the surgery and left the hospital on the tenth day. Everyone surprised and I myself was not an exception. It is true that we can recover physically but I think it takes much time to recover mentally. I will write about this meaning later but let me say mention one thing. It was the experience of, as it were, having a glimpse of death which have made it difficult to return to the same life as I had lived before. I just had a glimpse of death and never died but that experience was enough. In order to make my experience meaningful and to be able to think that this experience was good for me it seems that I have to go on thinking about it for some time (or for ever). This is my destiny as a philosopher. My doctor said to me, “You survived, it is true, but what you lost is great as well.’ What have I lost? Work, honor, money and so on. But isn’t there anything I got?
Yesterday I went to the botanical garden which is not only ten minutes’ walk. There are only a few kinds of flower which are now blooming. Nevertheless or rather because of the scantiness I found it very difficult to find them in not so wide garden though I visited it three successive days.

all this while

It rained this morning which prevented me from going out but happily it stopped raining and the sun began to shine. There is a small botanical garden near my house, which is about ten minutes’ walk. During the winter I seldom visited it because I knew that few flowers if any could be seen there. A week ago I went there with my wife and a senior high student from America who was then staying with us. She had brought two cameras with her when he came to Japan and told me that she would be a photographer in the future. I do not know what impression she got on the day we visited the garden because there were few flowers as I had expected and she told us nothing about it though she seemed to have shot many shots. On last Sunday, however, I was surprised to find flowers blooming though the number was not many. It seemed that spring had come at last.
It seems that I have many thing which I want to tell you after long absence. What was I doing all this while? I read many books, especially works of philosophy to publish the book though it has not been published yet for many reasons. To write it I learned again German, French and the ancient Greek from scratch, which took me much time but was rewarding. I will write what I have learned little by little.

conversation with the deceased/immortality

The book I have been translating these days is Menschenkenntnis written by Alfred Adler(1870-1937), who was a Viennese psychiatrist. This book is based on the lectures he gave in Vienna for the non-professionals and written mostly without using technical terminology. My impression ,however, is that his books written in German is more difficult to read than those in English, which he had to use after he moved to America. One reason why his German seems to me difficult is that most of his books are based on the transcripts of lectures and that he seldom wrote the books himself. He may not have been interested in writing compared with Freud for example. Nevertheless his books are very interesting and have long attracted me. I thought I could get the key to understand human being when I first read his work in 1989. I feel as if I were listening to his lecture or more precisely I were conversing with Adler every day when translating his German into Japanese. It is surprising that I can feel he is still alive though has been dead for many years. It may be said that he is immortal in his works he left for the later generation. This is one form of immortality we can get and I translate books and write books myself because I want to get this kind of immortality.

Taking photos

I could feel finally that spring has come at last this year though there may still many cold days. Proverbially it is said that there is a cycle of three cold days and four warm days at this time of the year. So I know I had better stay on my guard but I was exhilarated while I was walking outside today. Ever since I got sick I have made it a rule to take a walk regularly every day. I had not liked to go out before and I feel the same way when I am busy writing but I have found strong motive which can make me feel like going out. It is photography. As I began to take photos few months before I had a surgery it is almost one year. I like to take macro photos because I believe God or something like that seems to inhabit in details. It is really surprising that plants, flowers, butterflies and so on look so beautiful seen in macro photos.
These flowers, which we call in Japanese hakobe, are so small that I did not notice at first. I almost trod on them. It took me three days before I could take photos which were satisfactory. While taking photos I can forget everything, even about my disease and the body itself.

How lonely it was ...

Now that I could survive somehow it may no longer be necessarily to look back into what happened in the past but I remember the words of the nurse who was in charge of me. She said “There are some who just think it was lucky to have survived. But it is not good to think this way because thinking he/she was just lucky will not make him/her change the way of living.” I was so surprised to hear what this nurse told me. She told me that it was absolutely necessary to change the way of living basically. It is true that something was wrong. I thought I had to think what it was which drove me into a tight corner of life. So even now I never spend a day without remembering the day when I was taken to the hospital by ambulance because of cardiac infarction. It was early in the morning. I did not know what happened to me but one thing was certain. It was something irrevocable. When the doctor told me the name of the disease I thought that I was going to die this way and how lonely it was to die this way, namely, alone and with many things undone.

I will write again

I have not written here for long. I was surprised to find it is a year ago that I wrote last. Many things have happened since then. I had a bypass surgery in May. Though I am healthy again to my great joy but as I have lost my job as a teacher I stay at home almost every day and make it a rule to spend my days writing manuscripts and translate the books written in Germany into Japanese. I published the translation this January and another translation will be soon published. As I wrote in my last diary my doctor advised me to write books. He added that I should select the work. Sickness taught me what important is for me.

My doctor

Now that it was determined officially that my doctor in charge would move to another hospital, I decided to follow him. It is true that I am anxious about what will come next for I know other staff but my doctor in my new hospital but I am glad that the doctor did not abandon me. He makes it a rule to come to my room in the evening alone without accompanying a nurse. The last time I was in the hospital he happened to find the manuscripts I was writing. It was the manuscript of translation. The book beside it caught his eyes. It was the book written by Alfred Adler. To my surprise taking the book in hand he began to read the text in German aloud. He told me that I had studied German diligently in his school days. As for my work I have talked with him before. He advised me to diminished the amount of my work but to write the book. "Write the book, for it will remain behind". I was proofreading for the book I was to publish then. I thought he saw me as a human being not as a patient.