I sometimes wonder if I’m more of a Japanophile than a Teutonophile. I should gravitate towards the latter being mostly that. But really, for the most part, ‘my people’ irritate me.
That’s not to say I don’t really like some of the stuff they’ve come up with over the years… like (off the top of my head) the idea of a Mittelstand* based economy and the concept of apprenticeship that still seems quite ubiquitous, although to be honest, since I don’t live there, I’m not sure if that is still a thing. It certainly used to be.
*small and medium sized businesses, usually family owned that make up the backbone of the German economy.
I suppose you tend to be drawn to the ‘different’ to what you know and find contemptible… what with familiarity and what not.
I picked up this to read on the plane… because… eh… *sigh* it had cool Kanji.
Well… I thought it was cool. And I wanted to seem cool and enigmatic to anyone nosey enough to see what I was reading. Although maybe that’s just me… that likes to pry I mean (and then gets all supercilious when I find them lacking*)
*like if they are reading anything by Mark Manson or Tim Ferriss .
Shinrin-yoku is the practice of walking slowly through the woods. The characters for Shinrin-yoku can be seen on the left-hand side of the cover. The first character is a forest (three trees), the second a wood (two trees), and the third ‘bathe’ (flowing water on the left, and a valley on the right).
Our Latin alphabet is… well… I quite like our alphabet, but I will say that it has no whimsy. I mean it has its own nuances… but doesn’t… (after thinking for a while) *exasperated sigh* its not pretty pictures, its quite a functional grapheme.
In any event, as you might expect, walking slowly through the woods is good for us.
I mean the author gives quite a long winded explanation about why this is thus. But really…
…its because we are monkeys.
And monkeys like trees.
We also like bananas.
Well, I like bananas.
(I could have saved the author a lot of time and effort with my astute insight)
If you’re feeling rubbish about life you should meander around under a wooded canopy for a bit and you’ll probably feel better about life. Unless you get mugged and get stabbed with a rusty screwdriver between the tenth and eleventh rib. Or get smashed in the face with a broken bottle… which up until recently was being used as a device for smoking methaqualone and is therefore of a dubious hygienic quality.
Things that would likely really mess up your day.
Personally I find dense foliage to be riddled with anxiety. Ha ha. I mean that’s probably my South Africanism kicking in. We like clear lines of sight, blue sky above us and a barbwire fences (which do a marvelous job of injecting a sense of personal space into our environment).
But you know… if you live in a country where there are like *snorts derisively* five murders a year… some of which may actually have been suicides… then by all means, stroll.
Its a cute book. But padded out to get to its 174 pages.
For my efforts I think I mostly likely picked up Covid on the plane, my Darth Vader breathing through a double mask clearly all for naught.
Still, I hope I looked good… and that at least one person thought I was cool. (because that would make it all worth it)
Go Darke 