Ronin

There will always be those of us that admire those fearless outlaws who play by their own rules. Growing up, I was not the only kid whose favorite superhero was the cocky, ornery and ruthless Wolverine. Much as I was introduced to the Japanese ninja through G.I. Joe, it was through Marvel’s Wolverine comic books that I was introduced to the Japanese ronin, upon whom I’m sure Wolverine’s character was based. (While presumably Canadian himself, he falls in love with a Japanese woman and becomes immersed in the culture.)

A ronin is a former Samurai who no longer has a master, although sometimes ronin refers to an aspiring Samurai or someone trained in the ways of the Samurai but without a master. In feudal Japan, a Samurai was hired to protect a landowner’s territory. If a Samurai’s master died, the Samurai was expected to commit Seppuku, or ritual suicide, but often, if a clan’s Samurai army had gotten too large, the central government would force them to downsize by letting some Samurai go. A Samurai could also be ostracized in disgrace for disobedience or dishonor or defiantly leave the clan if he could get away alive.

In literature and cinema, the greatest ronin is he who always does what he believes to be just despite the fact that, since he answers to no one and is an indomitable warrior, he could be unscrupulous. Instead, he realizes virtue and integrity transcend humanity, so he is unconcerned whether his honorable actions fly in the face of conventional morality and social acceptance. Bound by no master, he goes where he pleases, but while he realizes he is worthy to sleep in the Buddha’s temple, something forbidden according to the law, he never fails to share a portion of his hard-earned rice with the Buddha while there.

The theme in many Japanese movies, for instance Kihachi Okamoto’s Kill! (1968), is that it is better to be a ronin than a Samurai, because whereas a ronin makes his own decisions, a Samurai must obey orders. (This is a movie you have to watch twice, because so many characters with long and unfamiliar Japanese names are introduced at the beginning it makes it very difficult to keep track of while simultaneously reading subtitles.) The hero in many other Samurai movies, such as Masaki Kobayashi’s excellent Samurai Rebellion (1967), is the Samurai who defiantly and valiantly disobeys his master in order to do the right thing, encouraging his children to do the same while leaving their decisions up to them, despite the extreme costs. Bowing to the influence or coercion of another, in other words loyalty, is not something that should be blindly done.

My favorite ronin movie, and perhaps the greatest movie ever made, is Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961). I’m just going to pretend that I don’t need to discuss the genius of Kurosawa. I also shouldn’t need to discuss Toshiro Mifune, who plays the ronin Sanjuro. He is my all-time favorite actor (and a very prolific one, appearing in hundreds of films, many of them extraordinary), able to show an array of emotions in one glance and always make it believable. I’m sure I’m not the only one who cheers aloud when he finally appears in the brilliant but tedious Seven Samurai (1954). The cinematographer, Kazuo Miyagawa, is also unparalleled (if you want to be astounded by cinematography in a way you never thought possible, see his work in Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950)). In Yojimbo, Sanjuro wryly pits two crooked clans against each other while helping their innocent victims escape at his own peril. Despite his best efforts, his plan doesn’t work perfectly; he is only human after all.

Make-up

I don’t trust people who wear make-up. Not only are they blatantly hiding what they actually look like, their nonverbal facial expressions become harder to read.

I admit to a personal bias against anything that covers a person’s face. I am very annoyed by anyone wearing a motorcycle helmet. One of the most obnoxious things about winters in Iowa (besides the weather) was how everyone bundled up in scarves and thick hoods so that you couldn’t see them. I am absolutely phobic about clowns and people dressed as mascots.

I understand the idea of occasionally dressing up for theatrical effect. In that context, putting on make-up is a part of the whole process of turning into a pretend character. It is acknowledged and obvious that the guise is fantastic and not an actual representation of a comprehensive human being. Rather, it is a caricature of an archetypical part of ourselves, which we wish to briefly explore and share with others. I might not want to get too close to you while you’re playing the part, but I appreciate the gesture.

Whenever I see someone wearing make-up outside of a theatrical context I immediately assume they must be insecure. Why else would they be hiding their face from us and pretending to be someone they’re not? Also, anyone willing to spend so much time preening themselves into a faux-reality on a daily basis must be high maintenance; an attitude and style of life I do not prefer dealing with.

Children

I’m not going to have kids. Some people seem rather shocked at this, but I have never been given a good reason why anybody should have children. If you have one (a reason, not a kid), I’d love to hear it. I have compiled a list of excuses I’ve heard for procreating along with my explanations as to why those reasons suck.

(1) "They bring meaning and happiness to your life"
This is the reason I hear most, and I do think most people have kids because they are unhappy, disillusioned and unfulfilled individuals who need something to distract them from their own reality. So they create another reality, a kid, with the hope that it won’t grow up to be as miserable as they are. This cycle tends to repeat itself from one generation to the next, which in itself demonstrates the absurdity of the logic. If you’re so bored, why don’t you cultivate your personality or get a hobby instead of bringing another into your miserable existence?

(2) "In order to populate the earth with humans."
Dude, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the earth is already over-populated with humans. It doesn’t need and can barely handle any more.

I will never see what people think is so great about Homo sapiens. The only things I can think of that we can do better than other creatures on earth are paint realistically and make diverse tools. I don’t see how those things make us worthy of continued existence. I mean, haven’t we produced enough paintings and devised enough tools by now? If anything else determines them worth saving, they will continue to be around for awhile after we’re gone. It’s more likely that once we’re gone, they won’t matter at all and will be essentially useless, so nothing will care whether they remain or not.

(3) "Having kids is our purpose in life."
Our purpose is to destroy the planet with over-population and over-consumption?

One thing that really annoys me is the so-called “environmentally-conscious mother.” That’s an oxymoron. I’m not fooled into thinking you care about the planet just because you use washable diapers. If you cared about humans destroying the place, you wouldn’t be adding them to it.

(4) "My kid is the most important thing in my life."
It better be. After all, out of shear necessity since he (or she but I’m not gonna keep qualifying; it muddies up the page) is basically totally dependent upon you until he gets a driver’s license, you are the most important thing in his life. And since his existence is entirely your fault, you have a duty to reciprocate, or if you are unable to do so, give him to someone who can. For me, however, the most important thing in my life is whatever the heck I want it to be.

(5) "I feel a compulsion to have kids."
Just because you have a compulsion to do something, that certainly doesn’t mean you should act on it. If I did everything I felt like doing I would surely be in jail right now. Be an adult and show some restraint! If you want a kid, adopt. There are millions of unwanted kids out there hoping for parents. What percentage of them do you think exist because their parents were following their compulsions?

(6) "Sometimes these things just happen by accident."
In this country, thankfully, the only way to have a child by accident is to not realize you are pregnant, so that’s just a bull crap excuse. Don’t get on your moral high horse with me, either. Teach those lies to your gullible kid. Surely there is no more regrettable decision than deciding to spend the next sixteen years or more of your life taking care of some whiny brat.

(7) "Kids are so much fun!"
Kids are fun to play with for maybe a half-hour. The problem is, they expect you to be playing with them every moment they aren’t expecting to be fed, crying, hurt, sleeping or shitting themselves. The times I am most exposed to kids are at restaurants and grocery stores, and 24 out of 25 of these parents seem stressed out and frantic. Not my idea of fun. Besides, almost everything I enjoy doing shouldn’t be done in the presence of children and the rest is certainly more enjoyable without them.

I’ve heard parents say that the most enjoyable part of their day is when their kid is sleeping. They might be joking, but I doubt it. Guess what? Not having a kid is exactly like having a kid that sleeps 24 hours a day.

(8) "They are so cute."
Whatever; so are my cats. And my cats will never reach puberty.

(9) "It’s amazing watching them grow."
You’ll be pretty amazed when your kid grows up to be a serial rapist. Isn’t it suspicious that every parent thinks their kid is, should be and will be better than all other kids? I assume my kid would be a hellion.

I would love to quantify the amount of time parents spend discouraging their kids from doing something relative to the amount of time they spend encouraging them to continue doing something. Parents spend more time protecting their kids from potential hazards (real and imagined) than they do watching them grow. I don’t need or want that kind of responsibility. I prefer watching myself and my friends grow. We do so at our own peril.

(10) "They look up to you."
Are you really that much of a loser that you need to create something with basically no individual thought that is completely dependent upon you to get any respect?

(11) "You can teach them to play baseball and go camping."
This does seem enticing since being taught these things by my dad are some of my favorite childhood memories. It turns out, however, that you can teach and do these things with your peers as well. I’ve been teaching my girlfriend to play baseball for the last two years. She doesn’t ask my “Why?” nearly as much as a kid would, and she’s less likely than a child to resent me for it later.

As a side note, whenever I meet anybody that has never been camping, I immediately think, “What kind of fucked up upbringing did you have?” Any parent that does not teach their children to survive and enjoy life without technology is depriving them of a vital part of humanity as far as I’m concerned. We are already far too dependent upon our own tools.

(12) "You can dress them up in cute outfits."
Okay, that's just weird. Buy yourself a doll- you can dress it up all you want and it will never complain about your taste.

(13) "I have good genes."
Who are you, Hitler? Never trust anybody who thinks their genes are superior.

I’ll never get the “keeping the family name alive” mentality. Why the hell would I care who shares my last name after I’m dead? I don’t care now. I mean, it’s not like I was disappointed about there being one less Wilshusen when my sister got married and changed her last name.

(14) "I need someone to help work in the fields."
Yeah, slave labor- that’s a good idea. Basically the government encourages child birth in order to increase their labor and military forces. Well, there’s something for every child to look forward to.

(15) "Aren’t you grateful your parents had you?"
Although I have little choice but to respect my parent's decision to bring me here (I have great parents, by the way), nothing good or bad can be said about having not been born. Having no thoughts, no experience and nothing to do sounds alright to me. The only times I have not looked forward to death are when I've been in the middle of a project that I don't want to leave unfinished.

(16) "Life is a miracle!"
Anything that happens a half-million times a day is not a miracle; it’s an epidemic.

Motorcycle Diaries

The first 45 minutes of The Motorcycle Diaries is about two con-artists who bicker constantly, crash their motorcycle and try to bed literally every female they see as they travel through South America. Then the motorcycle gets scrapped, but the movie rambles on for another hour and 15 minutes.

I’ve never read the book of the same name, written by Ernesto “Che” Guevara, upon which the movie is based. Although you learn little about him from the movie, I suppose I know as much about Che as the average American Joe. He acted on his strong convictions by attempting to bring about what he felt was just wherever he went. Personally, I am too jaded and thorough of a thinker to presume I have any answers or know what justice is, and care about my life too much to sacrifice it for what would likely be a futile and misguided cause.

Che’s likeness on t-shirts does prove useful in exposing posers who exhort him as an influence but don’t do shit.

Carl

Carl and I were both philosophy majors at the same college. We had a couple classes together. I'd go to class and would almost inevitably run into him playing hacky sack on the way back to my dorm afterwards. I'd join the circle and fill him in on what he'd missed and warn him whenever a quiz was coming up. He was in a pretty good hippie band (if such a thing exists) that I'd go watch at Stebs whenever they played there, even though they had an annoyingly mousy drummer.

About a year later, long after he had given up on the whole philosophy major idea, Carl realized that I was that bombastic drummer he often heard on the corner of Second and Main downtown and asked if I wanted to try out for his band. Having just graduated from college and without a clue as to what to do next, I said, "sure."

We set up a time to meet at a house he lived in with the rest of the band except the bass player. The current drummer's kit was already there so I just used that. After about an hour of random noodling (at least on my part), the other drummer showed up. Nobody said anything; we just kept on playing.

I joined the band and eventually moved into that house. Carl had inadvertently steered my life's course into a direction at a time when it had none, and would do so again years later when I moved to Portland to be close to friends once more.