Because she can calculate with a soroban in this age of AI
Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa
The photo above is my soroban that I got over half a century ago. In those days in Japan, every student was required to get one in the first grade at school. I remember learning how to use it a couple of times in math class. I never bothered to learn privately to further practice using it.
My mother, on the other hand, learned how to use soroban more proficiently when she was young. At the age of 84, she doesn’t even know how to start a calculator app on the phone, but she can add, subtract, multiply, and divide several digits of numbers quickly, much quicker than I can, using this simple tool.
Who is smarter, me or my mother?
I can perform simulations that my mother wouldn’t even comprehend using Excel.
I can search hundreds more recipes for cooking rice than my mother knows by heart using my smartphone.
But can I say I’m any smarter than my mother?
I think not. The very fact that I call it a “smart” phone implies that now the gadget is smarter than me. I’m not the smart one.
I’m simply outsourcing my brain power to external gadgets like computers and “smartphones,” aren’t I?
Without such gadgets, I’m useless. Even if these gadgets are around me, if electric power is out, all these gadgets become useless.
In this age of AI, I’m thinking of resisting this trend of “outsourcing our brain power.” Writing manually like this is one example. I’m seriously thinking of practicing soroban next. Then calligraphy…
Recently more and more people are testing to generate articles using ChatGPT here on Medium. Many of them are flawless and some of them are even funny. If machines can write better than I can, what’s the reason for my writing? This question has led me to write today’s article.
It’s shivering cold outside. The sky is gray with not even a slit of blue. The drizzle continues. All the deciduous trees and bushes in my tiny yard have lost leaves and look dead…
No, they are not dead!
A closer look at Spirea: Photo by Author
When I look closer, I see tiny, hard, young buds and shoots on each branch. The plants are constantly carrying nutrients from their roots to each branch.
Well before we come to admire the vivid green leaves and bright color flowers in the spring, they are preparing for that moment. Nonstop.
I’m no different from these plants. I’m part of nature. So I ask myself.
Am I preparing for my flowers to bloom? Even when there is hardly any sign of the spring shown? Am I striving for my growth today?
These 5 plants are my teachers!
Hydrangea: Pho by AuthorHydrangea: Photo by AuthorDwarf Lilac: Photo by AuthorDwarf Lilac: Photo by AuthorForsythia: Photo by AuthorForsythia: Photo by AuthorWisteria:Photo by AuthorWisteria: Photo by Author
When I visited Koyasan several years ago, I was amazed to see so many foreign tourists, especially from Europe. I asked a backpacker from England why he decided to visit Koyasan. He said, “didn’t you know Koyasan is the second most popular place to visit in Japan, after Kyoto?” Whatever the travel guidebook he read, I agreed with it.
When I finally went back to Japan after three years of separation in May 2022, two places were my must to visit: Kyoto and Koyasan.
In May 2022, Japan still restricted visitors from abroad. A foreign citizen couldn’t get a visa without an invitation from a Japanese organization or proof that their Japanese parents or children are living in Japan.
Since I had renounced my Japanese citizenship when I was naturalized in the US (because Japan doesn’t recognize dual citizenship), I had to get a visa to enter Japan to see my mother. At least in May I no longer had to prove that my mother was seriously ill.
Because of the travel restriction, there were hardly any foreign tourists in Japan. Both Kyoto and Koyasan were quiet as ever.
As usual, I stayed one night at one of the shukubos (宿坊) in Koyasan. Shukubo is a temple that allows people to stay overnight.
In addition to lodging, it provides meals (dinner and breakfast) and often lets visitors experience some of the Buddhist rituals such as meditation or shakyo, a practice of transcribing sutra text by hand. In Koyasan there are so many shukubos, each of which has a unique history.
For no reason, I felt like trying something different this time: a 24-hour digital detox.
Kondo in Koyasan: Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa
In one and a half hours, the train took me from the middle of the busy Osaka-city to a quiet mountainous area of Koyasan. From 10:30 am to noon, I walked around and took pictures: Daimon 大門 and Kondo 金堂. Come noon, I switched off my phone and kept it off until noon the next day.
I kept walking along the winding road,
checked in at Jimyoin 持明院, the shukubo I had made a reservation,
unpacked in one of the rooms upstairs,
took a walk in their vast Japanese garden,
strolled a long corridor in the temple,
sat down and looked at each fusumae 襖絵, pictures painted on the sliding panels (Jimyoin had so many of them!),
read a manga book depicting a life of Kobo Daishi (弘法大師 774-835), the founder of Koyasan,
slept in the futon,
participated in the Goma 護摩, a Buddhist ritual conducted in Jimyoin at 6:30 the next morning,
enjoyed a simple breakfast,
checked out Jimyoin and walked further to Okunoin 奥之院,
and got to the station to take the cable car and train back to Osaka, at noon.
View from the Koyasan Station: Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa
No cell phone. No TV. No Internet. Minimum conversation. Not thinking much, but just seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting what is there…
In 24 hours, I felt like part of my impurity was replaced with the freshness of Koyasan’s pure air.
Koyasan was the right place to experience the digital detox for me. How about you? Which place would you choose? Or where did you go for your digital detox? I would love to hear your story!
Only after I moved to Seattle did I learn another meaning of the English word sound. Puget Sound, which I can see from my house every day (except for very foggy days), is so calm that the ferries that run between the shores don’t have doors to close the parking space.
My mother used to take me from Osaka to Tokushima to visit her hometown via ferry. The Seto Inland Sea in Japan is known to be calm, but I’ve never seen a ferry as open as the one in Puget Sound. When my mother first came to Seattle, she thought this vast water was a lake.
Bellingham Boardwalk: Photo by Author Akemi SagawaElliott Bay and Mt. Rainier: Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa
Having lived here in Seattle for almost 30 years, I now associate the word “sea” with this calm, quiet, serene impression. When I walk along the shores on Boardwalk in Bellingham or a pathway along Elliott Bay in Seattle, I feel like a baby floating in a mother’s womb.
The first life form came from the sea, didn’t it? There must be a reason why I feel that way!
Every morning I open my notebook and draw three vertical lines to create four columns. I fill the first column with numbers that represent hours – 6 am to 11 pm.
I fill the third column with what I plan to do: shower, write, read, clean, have lunch with a friend, go for an errand, etc. If I divert from the original plan, by web surfing aimlessly, for example, I make corrections in the fourth column.
What about the second column?
That’s where I plan how to be.
My Day Planner on January 2, 2023: Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa
I plan to be happy at 8 am. By 11 am I plan to elevate my status a notch to be joyful.
In the afternoon I plan to fill my heart with kindness. Later in the day, I prepare myself for the evening by being calm.
My planner originally didn’t have a column for planning how to be but only one for planning what to do.
But one day I thought … Isn’t my state of being as important as my actions? Can’t I choose how to be? Can I plan to be happy rather than angry? Can I plan to be joyful rather than sad? How about I plan to be kind rather than hateful?
It’s been a little over a year since I added this column. I’m far from anger-free, but I feel a little more empowered than before.
It is a lot easier to be joyful if the sun is shining on my face. But I no longer blame the gray sky, because even when the sky is dark, I’m capable to be joyful.
In the last three years, my ikebana class has been mainly online, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The silver lining is now I have students not only out of state but out of the country.
There is no comparison, however, to appreciate everybody’s arrangement in three dimensions.
Fran’s Chocolates in the Georgetown neighborhood in Seattle is where my ikebana class used to be held. And my in-person class will reopen next March! Fran’s reopened the retail part this year, and next year they are ready to host events in the café.
The full drink service is not back yet, and a mask is required during the class. We are not quite back to pre-pandemic life. Somebody said now we are living in an era “with corona.”
We, humans, are also part of nature. Just like COVID-19 virus, we should also adapt to new situations. In-person Ikebana class in the “with corona” era… I very much look forward to it!
There are two schools of thought about the human being and the worldview.
One is to place the human being apart from and above nature and to regard everything else on the earth as resources to be exploited by the human being.
The other is to place the human being equal to any other life form as part of nature and to seek harmonious existence with everything else on the earth.
…
In the last couple of centuries, mainly led by the Western societies, the first school of thought has been the dominant driving force in the world. With the Industrial Revolution and the technological advancements that followed, humans have achieved an unprecedented rise in population as well as improved the comfort and convenience of their lifestyle.
The world population has increased 7-fold over the course of the last two centuries. The UN projected that we hit the mark of 8 billion in November this year. In the name of economic growth, humans have been exploiting nature by extracting substances from it as resources, turning it into products to be consumed and wastes to be abandoned.
While humans have thrived in the world, we have paid little attention to the outcome of our exploitation, destroying the living environment of all the other life forms.
Between 1970 and 2016 showed an average of 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish(WWF). The average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20%, mostly since 1900. More than 40% of amphibian species, almost 33% of reef-forming corals, and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened (IPBES).
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that human being, however powerful we might appear, is actually vulnerable species that can be killed amass by the virus, such tiny existence that cannot even be seen with the naked eye.
Without oxygen that trees and plants exhale, without food and water that the earth produces, humans cannot survive. Once dead, our bodies go back to the soil, no different than any other form of life.
Only faced with this harsh experience do we realize that the first school of thought is not even viable but only an illusion. We human beings are, not separate from, but only part of nature.
In order for human beings to thrive for generations to come, we must make a fundamental shift in our lives to seek harmonious existence with everything else on the earth.
