"If You Listen"

I'm a big fan of Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation house. I was very moved by this film from them (director Miyazaki Hayao) called "If You Listen." I decided to write some thoughts and philosophy about the film immediately after seeing it a few years back, and I thought it would fit well with the blog, so here it is. Quotes are translations from the movie and its sort of theme song (Country Road).

On Miyazaki's "Mimi o Sumaseba"

Title: The Path of Strength in Life: Parents, The Rock, Praise (Past, Present, Future & Urd, Verdandi, Skuld)

Song:
"No one is with me. Going fearlessly. /
That's the way I live in the dream I saw. /
I must put my loneliness away /
and protect myself and I'll learn to be strong. /
Country road, it'll take me /
back to my home town. /
I can feel it now, if I just keep to /
this far-off way, country road. /
It won't matter how lonely the times get /
you'll never see me cry. /
I'll keep my tears at bay. /
I know I must take heart /
and that hurrying is all I can do. /
Only that way, can I forget. /
Country road, it may take me /
back to my home town, but even so /
Steeling my heart, I will not go now /
Not while I'm free. /
Country road, come tomorrow./
So it's goodbye, country road."

Parents
(Shizuku, a grade-school girl has taken to task writing her first story to see if she has talent and ability. She is doing this while the boy she loves has gone away for two months to figure out the same thing, only in regard to violin-making. As a result, her grades in school have fallen dramatically. Her older sister, Shiho, takes advantage of the situation to ridicule her because she is jealous of her youthful, easy life.)

Conversation:
Father: "Shiho, I want to talk to Shizuku alone. Will you please wait outside?" (Shiho leaves)
Father (to Shizuku's mother): "Will you come in here too, dear?"(Shizuku's mother enters)
Father: "Alright, Shizuku... Is what you're doing now more important than your studies?" (Shizuku shakes her head 'yes')
Father: "Will you tell us what it is you're doing?"
Shizuku: "I'll tell you when it's time."
Mother: "Shizuku, is this something you have to do now?"
Shizuku: "But there's no time! I only have three more weeks to do it! I've decided to test myself during this time! I have to do it!"
Mother: "Test yourself on what? What are you testing?" (Silence) "We won't know if you don't tell us." (Silence) "You can't even tell your father or your mother?"
Father: "I've noticed that you're putting a lot of effort into something at the library. I can respect that. Should we let Shizuku do what she wants, dear? It's not as if there's only one way to live your life."
Mother: "Well, I've had times like this in my life, too."
Father: "Alright. Shizuku, you'll have to do as you believe. But, it'll be very tough to find your own way. If anything happens, you'll have no one to blame." (Shizuku shakes her head in agreement)
Mother: "And please be present when we're eating dinner."
Father: "That's right. You're part of the family."
Shizuku: "Okay." (Shizuku and Shiho return to their joint room)
Shiho: "Shizuku, Father just said 'Oh well' but I think he really wanted you to study more."
Shizuku: "I know that. I could see it written on his face!"

Parents should act as guardrails, not bulldozers or cattle wranglers. Her parents respect the work she's putting in, the fact that she is challenging herself, and they keep it to themselves as to what they want for her. They allow their opinions to be undermined because it is, after all, her life. How many parents, through voicing their opinion, are really trying to manipulate the child by planting
seeds which grow into ideas? She lets them know it is temporary (and does return to being studious afterwards) and there is care and understanding throughout the entire process (even with Shizuku so tightlipped about what she is spending all of her time doing). There is communication, but only from the viewpoint of doing what is right for the child. They put their own desires aside for this. Any other way of relating to the child will be stifling. You dampen creativity, grow spite for the child, have the child grow spite for you, and in the end, may be one of the leading influences in the ruining of a life.

The Rock
The shop owner says to Shizuku: "Take a look. This kind of rock is called mica-slate. Take a look inside that crack... It's beautiful. That's called beryl. It contains pieces of raw emeralds... You are like that rock. Like a natural, still unpolished stone. I happen to like things like that... You have to find the raw jewel inside and spend the time to polish and refine it. It's time-consuming work. Can you see that big raw jewel inside that rock? The truth is that if you polish and refine it You'll find that it won't look very good. The smaller ones deep inside are more pure. In fact, there may be even better jewels inside where you can't see them."
Shizuku responds, "I'm scared to find out whether there's anything this pretty inside myself."

It is true that what we really are is hidden and must be carved out, polished and refined. Instead what most do is to create artificial constructs around the natural rock so as to give it a smooth appearance, a personality, opinions, wants and desires, likes and dislikes, a front. Just like the pufferfish, it is an illusion. Unlike the pufferfish, both the audience and the illusionist may be tricked by the illusion. Sadly, the more deep one digs, the more one realizes you did not have to carve out a rock, but simply brush away the leaves (A reference to Hagakure, the book of the samurai, written by Tsunetomo. The title translates as "hidden/
obscured by leaves").

As Carl Jung stated. "Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious... The task of midlife is not to look into the light, but to bring light into the darkness. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular."

The viking religion also holds a similar idea. From the sagas, "Urds bronn er ikke lenger et dunkelt dyg vi stirrer ned i, men en levende strom som gar befruktende gjennom Nordensland." - "Urd's well is no longer darkness that we look down into, but a living stream that runs throughout the lands of the North, giving life." Out of darkness comes light, that sort of thing I suppose.

Praise
You work for days, weeks, months (like Shizuku), or even years on something you'd like to offer to the world. You offer it first to someone whose opinion you respect, in order to get a real opinion outside of your (by now jaded and biased) view. After waiting anxiously for a response, they reply with true compliments, praise and surprise. You cry joyfully. You cry? Yes. Why does this nearly never happen?

Choegyam Trungpa (from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior): "Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word "warrior" is taken from the Tibetan pawo,
which literally means "one who is brave... The Japanese ideal of the samurai also represented a warrior tradition of wisdom... The key to warriorship and the first principle of Shambhala vision is not being afraid of who you are. Ultimately, that is the definition of bravery: not being afraid of yourself... Shambhala vision is the opposite of selfishness. When we are afraid of ourselves, afraid of the seeming threat the world presents, then we become extremely selfish. We want to build our little nests, our own cocoons, so that we can live by ourselves in a secure way... The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything... You should examine yourself and ask how many times you have tried to connect with your heart, fully and truly. How often have you turned away, because you feared you might discover something terrible about yourself? How often have you been willing to look at your face in the mirror, without being embarassed? How many times have you tried to shield yourself by reading the newspaper, watching television, or just spacing out? That is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: how much have you connected with yourself at all in your whole life? Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness [as opposed to blocking anything from affecting you]. It comes from letting the world touch your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others."

In the end, you are able to create and give something to humanity. Two things actually. The knowledge that someone like you has faith in humanity and a gift of creation or invention they can admire and experience through or use to better their lives. And who did you do it all for? Us.