Reel around the fountain... slap me on the patio. So I stayed inside, and watched more Kenshin. Twenty episodes my sorry eyes did see, and much did I learn... probably why I'm typing differently. The anime taught me, amongst other things, that winning a battle does not prove you right and that the will to live is stronger than anything. Even though I am but a lowly law abiding citizen, and a dull, socially anxious one at that, and have never been into the mountains to master a complex sword technique or ever done anything so exciting and ancient, I can still sit in front of my computer screen in my comfortable, cozy home and receive a lesson in Japanese history from cartoon characters. I can cry and lust and love over them ( I cried about 4 or 5 times today) and put the mottos in there to good use. That's why I keep watching it, day after day... it's like a journey. A tame one of course, considering I barely have to lift a finger in order to go anywhere, but a philosophical journey nonetheless. This program, that I watched as a child of merely seven years old, has given everything different meanings, viewed from my now older and more mature eyes, because of the complexity and intensity of the subject matters it deals with. Death, violence, blood, bloodlust... the number of characters in the anime whose early lives were not tainted with the crimson of tragedy is minute, and despite it being a children's program, people die. They die all the time and horrifically, either with the spitting or vomiting of blood, or lying prostrate in a pool of their own. This is no happy-clappy colours-and-fun kids' cartoon, it's almost a true replica of an ancient life I could never truly know or understand, now lost, and an analysis of true human nature before technology and modern comforts came to intervene. How do you expect a child to ever comprehend that? That... horrorshow. I know I had not the maturity, nor the intellect to realize the true significance of the things that went on in that anime, and I'm glad I didn't, for it would have meant I had no child's spirit, indeed it would. Sometimes these things make me think that the exterior of such programs, such as characters' appearances and ideas are accessible and appealing to children, but are really intended for adults and teens who can gain a deeper understanding of its motives and not take things at face value. I remember a time when temporarily, before I went back to my toys and my little brother, I used to want to be a 19th century samurai when I grew up. Those were good times. It really worries me to know that so many people of my age and younger, and those who I knew and went to school with, have turned to alcohol and drugs. Why should I concern myself with their affairs, and become so emotional about it? I ask myself. When have they ever liked or cared for me, and I them? Never, is the answer. And yet, where others see these risks as social events and 'having a good time', to me it signifies a stage in their lives they have walked away from, and can never return to. Why do they always throw it away so carelessly- their innocence? Once lost, they can never reclaim it, ever, like a white balloon lost to the sweeping winds. The alcohol will ravage their bodies as they consume it copiously. The cigarettes will deepen previously non-existent wrinkles, and make them old over time.
I used to weep as a child for balloons, procured at advertisement stalls that had to be released before we got into the taxi home, for safety's sake, my parents told me. They were gone in an instant, the powerful winds taking them, and as they became solitary white specks in the blue sky I felt a deep sorrow I could never explain... until now.
I have always liked the idea of sending letters to unknown allies on the other side of the world, like receiving a sort of window into another life, another person. Photographs- they're like a window that enables us to see life from the perspective of the photographer.
My big angsty question for today, more for myself than anyone else: will anyone ever hold me the way Kenshin held Kaoru right before he left for Kyoto in the anime? Will it ever mean so much? I always hate people touching me when the reason behind them doing it is fake and contrived, or for reasons of personal image. I can't stand that, just the same as I can't stand unnecessary use of endearments, but that scene, with the fireflies in the dark and just the two of those characters standing there, pressed together, had me in tears time and time again, so much that I could hardly breathe between sobs. I dreamt I was with Ian Curtis last night, in a lonesome place. He was on his knees, and in tears of torment, his blue eyes filled with anguish. He was enveloped in darkness, and I was beside him... the honour! But I knew what I had to do- my objective was to comfort him somehow, but he just kept pushing me away. I remember thinking 'It's almost as if Ian's trying to say "No, that isn't what I mean at all, this isn't what I need" before waking up.
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