Symbols

Today's installment is about symbols.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way; no that's Cymbals.  I'm talking about symbols.  Symbolism.  Garnishing meaning from perceived objects, events, and other things.  That thing your high school English teacher once made an entire lesson plan around and despite your best efforts, because you thought you already knew all about it, something in those classes made it stick and you will never be able to go on with life without thinking about that day.  (Yes, Mrs. Marken/Armstrong/Laitinen, I'm talking about you.)

Now, trying to look up an exact definition for Symbolism is hard.  If you go for Symbolism you get a definition using the world Symbolic.  Searching up Symbolic you find it being referenced as "using Symbols" when you finally just google Symbols you get simply "something that refrences something else", the definition for what a sign is, and finally a reference to psychology; which, like any reference to psychology, quickly results in someone finding an excuse to put a big fat cock in the way.

Seriously Psychology, we all don't care about poultry.

Symbols can be powerful.  A symbol of faith perhaps is a reassuring reminder of ones beliefs.  A picture of a pipe with the words "this is not a pipe" under it is a symbol that crashes with your own preconceptions of another symbol.  The volcano smoking is a sign that you need to go find another virgin to toss in it.  The list goes on.

The meaning can change and is no where concrete.  To some a bird releaving itself on you is a symbol of good luck and fortune.  To others it's a symbol that the bird just had too much to eat.

The point is that to certain people, these symbols have meaning.  I agree with that and believe it.  I have an interesting view that someone could conceive anything as being a symbol.  Granted, however, you need to take that for what it is worth.

In the west a firm handshake could be a symbol that a man is of good integrity.  Now there are two things to point out about this:
               A) The truth in the symbol could be from the fact the man made an honest living with his hands all his life, strengthening his resolve as well as his hands making it true. Or it could in fact be a trained and elaborate political ruse, in which case it is false.
               2) The guy just has a firm handshake.
In one case it is either a true or false representation of some meaning, in the other although it invokes an image it really has nothing to do with anything but yet you still apply meaning to it.

An additional note, implying symbols have meanings implies visa-vi that there is some kind of orginization to it all in why you saw them.  That goes in a line with faith.  Whether that faith is in belief or religion or the idea's of fate is kind of moot.  It gets personal based on each individuals perception.  Often it pops up in times of hardships and grief more then good times.  When you are looking for a reason you can't see or a sign that you are going in the right direction.

Case in point, yesterday morning at 7:00am I had to decide down on topic for a research project for a society class.  I narrowed my choice down between analyzing communication in intercontinental physical science research or how old and ancient shrines are integrated into a community when a city literally grows up around this 500 year old holy ground.  Both were good topics and interesting to me, but both also lacked a substantial amount of reference material.  In the end I chose to go with the physical science research one; you know, something actually related to my degree and all seemed like good idea.  Fast forward to today and it turns out I am actually having lunch with, what I understand to be, the head of Western Michigan University's international research department.  Literally the person I would need to talk to, as well as who could put me in contact with sources of more information, to proceed in my project.  Heh, who would'a f'ggered?

Now, I could take this as a symbol that I chose well, that I am on the right track and that my path is assured.  I could also take this as a stroke of amazing luck.  It just depends on my perception of the event.  It isn't that my feelings make the symbol real, it's a combination of factors really.  But more importantly though, is how I take the meaning of it.  To me does it mean that I am on the right path or just that in the haphazard entropy of the universe was fortunate?  How I internalize those meanings has an indisputable effect.


By now, your wondering where I am going with this.  Where's the Japan?

Every weekday morning, on my train commute into town, I am confronted with a wide variety of advertisements and notices.  One of which involves Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter.  Amongst the add there is a picture of the titular Rabbit in his blue coat, standing there staring out in a mute but cute expression.

Those eyes stare into my SOUL

Although I have seen it for three months now, off and on, I still don't know whether it is advertising a museum or exhibition somewhere or some kind of preschool nursery or what have you.  It really doesn't matter to its' symbolism to me.

See me and Peter Rabbit have a history. 

When I was a reaaaaal young kid my first play/acting/whathaveyou was in a tiny first or second grade production of Peter Rabbit.  It was simple.  Basically, the teacher would read the book and someone would act out the different parts.  There would be a Mother Rabbit who would give out camomile tea, someone dressed up as Farmer Mr. McGregor and chase people around with toy hoe, and so on.  As it turns out, ever the main character; I was Peter Rabbit.  Although there really wasn't much acting to it, but I tried my best.  Kicking in the air to show off my bare feet when I lost my shoes or looking sad at Mr. McGregor's new scarecrow wearing my blue coat.  It wasn't my best work but it was my first.

If you can't tell I'm being slightly sarcastic here, I was like... five, maybe six.  Although I thought about a lot of things I had yet to gain enough experience to really make some kind of defined context to it all.  I knew as Peter I had the most time in front of the audience, and I felt special because of it.  I didn't know how much of a ham I was being but again I was five(or six).  But what I do remember every time I got ready and put on my blue little blue coat was the lesson, and what it meant for me to play the main character who needed to learn it.

I knew every story had a moral, everything had a reason, or a lesson to learn.  Eventually that was what I was looking for every church service or every time I heard a new story.  (The Giving Tree would have driven me insane if I ever read it.)  This one's seemed very obvious.  For those who don't know the story, the Rabbit Peter has a coat and shoes, he disobays/disregards his mothers warnings and goes to Mr. McGregor's garden to eat veggies, is chased out and looses his new clothes, and goes back home sad, sick, and naked (giggle-giggle).

I always followed the rules, at least, enough of them.  I was only spanked once, after that I listened to my parents and perhaps followed my own regiment of self imposed shame and personal discipline.  I would always ask questions, look for, and listen to reasons when told to do or not to do something.  I wasn't Peter Rabbit.  I would have listened to my mother and not provoked the giant wielding a large sharpened farming tool.  Or maybe it was that living on a farm at the time I knew those were the farmers crops and I probably shouldn't just eat them.  (Poor, hungry, Mr. McGregor...)  In any case I would not have caused the conflict in the story, I would still have my shoes and jacket.  Again, when I would get ready for our little shows the thought would cross my mind.

"I wasn't Peter Rabbit... or was I?"

Every time I put on the jacket, every time I snuck into the garden, every time the story lamented on my lost jacket and shoes I would think: "I wasn't Peter Rabbit... or was I?"  I would be better than that right?  I would be smarter? I would listen?  In truth, for a six year old, you could argue it was deep.  Questioning one's abilities and ties to their morals.  Whether or not they could do the right thing.  If it was possible to make a mistake despite being to smart for that.  Was I really too smart for that?  Had I become so smart that I was blind to advice?  Would I even listen?

As a six year old, I didn't have answers.  As an adult (snicker) I still don't have the answers.  I like it that way really.  Sometimes questions are far more interesting and beneficial.

But that backstory in play, when I look at this picture of Peter Rabbit as an adult, I remember those questions of my youth, or perhaps the feelings those questions would give me.  To me, Peter Rabbit became a symbol of my young self, thinking that he knew he would never be like Peter Rabbit but in thinking that was perhaps closer than he would have liked to believed.

As I stand in the train, on my way to Tokyo in Japan, and I look at Peter Rabbit  I wonder if I am doing it again.

I don't think I am.  I don't think that am regretting anything or that I am in the wrong place or that I am ignoring some bit of advice or that I am being too smart to realize that I am wrong.  Am I really being too smart and misreading everything?

But this week, I look at Peter Rabbit, that symbol of my extreme youth and self doubt, and I wonder if it's a symbol of something more than personal meaning.  A sign in the sense of direction or fate.

The Japan, as well as many other cultures around the world, see a version of the Raven as the symbol of a guide of sorts.  Where the Anishinabe(Ojibwa) of Northern Michigan would see the Raven as a guiding spirit to show people to their paths, the Japanese would similarly see the Three Legged Raven as Yagetarasu, a messenger of the great Amatarasu.  His presence would be a sign of either good or ill.  His symbolism left to be determined by the observer.

I'll admit that the symbolism of a Raven has rubbed off on me over the years.  Not as Poe's doomsayer but as a marking of direction, of path.  I tend to find myself wondering when I hear an old placed caw if it means there is a path I am on or need to follow.  Another trail in the woods.  Another bridge to cross and never go back.

There is a popular meeting point in Shibuya, at the statue of a loyal dog, Hachiko.  You can kind of consider him the Japanese Shep if you know that one.  The story goes that Hachiko would every day walk with his master, a Tokyo University Professor, to the train station and wait there faithfully until his master's return every evening.  One day however, while gone, his master died of a stroke.  From that day on Hachiko would, at the same time, go to the station and wait like he always did until the last train would arrive and then promptly leave.  Continuing to do so for nine or so years until his death.  Suffice to say for numerous reasons Hachiko is a great symbol to many Japanese, and the location of his statue next to Shibuya station is a popular meeting point still to this day.

"I waited for you Fry."

It was there I was waiting for this university meeting; deep down afraid someone was going to tell me I needed to go home early, to which I would promptly would have ran.  On this current symbolism kick I stared at the statue and wondered to myself if I was the dog.  To say why I was wondering that or what it meant to me I feel at this point may actually get to personal right now, but that's the point.  It may be a statue of a dog, but in those moments of thought it meant something very important to me.  If only for forcing me to ask the questions.

( Now a Psychologist would have loads to say about the "Freudian Slip" I made when jotting the note down in my sketchbook; because when I wrote down "Am I a -" while I thought "dog" I instead wrote the word backwards thereby asking the question "Am I a god".  Although it could scream loads about my ego I doubt it was a real Freudian Slip because those are usually something terribly badly timed and often romantically themed; like an oddly placed "I love you" or a comment like "nice boobs" instead of "nice dress"

)

Again Psychology, enough with the poultry.

Anyways, I suppose me lamenting about my youth as a rabbit, birds, and a dog wasn't what you were expecting in my blog about Japan.  But they have been thoughts I've had, this week more than others it seems like.  That has some meaning, and that's what it is after all important about symbols.


A word to the wise though.  It isn't that we make the Symbols real via our feelings about them.  It's in truth a combination of factors.  You'd be surprised how malleable and yet unmalleable fate is.