Scot is now in Japan.

Today's my last day of work in the Nintendo Legal Dept. They've been really good to me here. I'm glad I had a chance to spend the summer here in the IP group. There is definitely something to be said for working in a place where you feel talented and appreciated. I know Nintendo games, I speak Japanese, and I'm studying U.S. and Japanese Intellectual Property law. I'm not sure they had ever seen anyone like me, to be honest. They have people with legal knowledge, and a few bilingual employees, but as far as I could tell, they'd never had any single person who represented all of those skills plus game knowledge. Lucky me.

Tonight I'm getting together with some friends from my old department to celebrate what may be my last day ever working in Nintendo for any capacity, because you never know...better to kick it up just in case. We're planning a beer-and-BBQ-rib-fest on my friend Nate's deck.

Unfortunately, I'm also flying out to Montreal at 9:30 tomorrow morning, hungover no doubt. But I'll be happy to see Montreal. I think it's going to be a good trip.

Alli drove me to work today and said that she was feeling sad because my last day at Nintendo felt like the beginning of the end of my time in Seattle. I can understand that. But I'm still here. I wish we could save up the going-away-sadness for when I actually leave. I guess it doesn't work that way. Distance. Isolation. Longing.

There is something about the end of summer that hollows me out completely and leaves me open to the widest range of unpredictable emotions. That's probably because I always associate this time of the year with a horrible urgency to enjoy life while I can and a firm disappointment that I didn't do more in the months before.

I'm glad I'm not alone in this feeling, though. Two very poignant end-of-summer songs have always captured the feeling nicely for me. One is the first track on the HOME album "Elf: Gulf Bore Waltz" simply titled 'Summertime.' I just resonate perfectly with the sentiment in the repeated line "and most of your life is lived in a little bit of the summertime." I love the intense urgency of summer, the way people try to pack all that living in before fall.

Another is the song 'The Summer,' from the YO LA TENGO album of (mostly) cover songs, "Fakebook." The very soft chorus repeating the line "and the summer comes undone" always places me in this exact frame of mind. I can see the immediate and finite feeling of summer just unravel in front of me...

Of course it has as much or more meaning to me now than ever, when I am only a month from leaving Seattle, about to spend a year away from my life here, unsure of what lies ahead.

But the problem is...I always feel that way. In spite of the fact that some people actually seem to think of me as self-assuredly driven and ambitious, I am anything but. I have no grand life or career plans, and I honestly think I am more of the kind of person who drifts from one experience to the next with little real deliberation over how these moments unfold. I do what is interesting to me; I do what is emotionally compelling.

I just think that forceful application of will is not the way to get what you want. Do we control our own lives by actively planning and pursuing, or is the real trick to be patient and peaceful as you do what you enjoy and follow your passion, knowing that everything you want will eventually come to you? I'll have to leave that as a rhetorical question for the moment. The world will survive just fine without having to hear another privileged white male’s answer to that question. I should just mention that I am very thankful for the opportunities life has presented.

But suffice to say, the end of summer for me is about grasping the knowledge of how little control we have on the world and time as it passes.

Playing lots of video games makes you think about things in a 'game paradigm' sort of way sometimes. Working for a game company deepens that thinking even more...

I read a while ago on wordspy.com that someone coined the phrase 'reset generation' to refer to people who get the urge to hit the reset button when things don't go their way in life, just the way they would in a game. I feel like that's ultimately a very crass and negative snapshot of what I've come to think of as a very positive mode of thought.

Consider what the game paradigm really has to offer... Some of it may sound like a cheap self-help book along the lines of "Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Video Games," but it's still interesting. These are a few tenets:

-No situation is intractable. A dilemma with no solution is a design flaw.
-Solutions are not arbitrary. They are imminently derivable, or at least they should be. Anything else is poor design.
-If you get stuck, try something new. Look in your inventory and consider using skills and objects, especially newly acquired ones, in a new way.
-Another way to get unstuck is to talk to as many people in the environment as possible to gain new information or open a new area.
-If things get too hectic, pause. Think. Unpause.
-All of your experiences teach you something. Pay attention.
-Your environment holds lots of cues. Pay attention.
-Things are happening all around you. Pay attention!

Games are designed to create a user payoff. Most accomplish this through the slow mastery of a skill set that, when used flawlessly, is very satisfying. Why not think of life that way?

On a side note, I have never really noticed how much the game paradigm has in common with deism. Games are made by people. When you are in a game, much of the enjoyment is derived from the appreciation of the care with which your environment was designed, the care with which tasks and challenges are laid before you. That’s why the last three items above are all about paying attention. Our only connection to the world is through our senses. This connection is something like an experience of the sublime when we understand that the world comes from---something. Whether you believe in a creator or simply reserve great respect for the cosmological, physical, and eventually biological processes that brought us here, you are acknowledging an origin of the universe. In the real world, are we bound to also recognize the beauty of our environment and experiences as an argument for the existence of a higher power? According to the game paradigm, the answer is implicitly, yes.

But that is a lot to stomach. In theological circles such an argument is called "Intentional design." I've always rejected that kind of thinking out of hand. Since the real world does not always have derivable solutions, and sometimes, the results really are arbitrary, we should be forced to consider that the designer is either not present or totally incompetent, at least per the rules of the game paradigm...

But then again, perhaps the designer works in mysterious ways.

I hate those cheap aphorisms that stop all analytical thought. Then again, I wish I could stop being so analytical sometimes. That's probably why I love games. I never have to abandon my analytical tool set to understand them. They are designed for analysis, unlike say, "Koan," or zen riddles. Hmmm. I could go on like this for a while, but I should get back to work.

So I finally had the long-awaited pre-departure orientation at the Japanese consulate yesterday. I found that my biggest challenge was just to sit patiently while they showed us a video about U.S.-Japan relations and (!) JAPANESE CULTURE!!

Now you understand my pain. Having lived in Japan for 4 years or so, the last thing I needed to hear about was freaking chopstick etiquette... But, I kept cool, I persevered. I really didn't want to come off as some kind of impatient smartass. And believe me, it wasn't always easy.

For example, all I really wanted to know was when my flight was and where I would live in Tokyo. Well, despite the implication of geographic awareness in the name "orientation," there was no such info to be had. In fact, now I know that I leave on the first week of October, whereas before yesterday, I thought I was leaving October 1st. That's right, after my orientation yesterday, I now know even LESS about my departure...

Then there was the video. Dear...God... It was a diplomatic puff piece documentary with such phrases as "Together Japan and the United States work to combat global terrorism and environmental problems." I could barely control Alli, my liberal progressive wife, who was rocking uncomfortably in her chair as images of Koizumi and Bush taking strong stances against...I dunno, whatever...kept flashing on screen.

It wasn't much easier for me. All I could think of was the untold information behind every fuzzy little anecdote. Koizumi pledging military support in Iraq made the film, but the scene of Japanese Diet members FIST FIGHTING over the decision did not. Too bad. The world should know. Japan is having a deep and soulful struggle with the legacy of the U.S.-Japan security treaty and their own Constitution's Article 9, which prevents them from maintaining an aggressive military force or employing it outside of Japan.

But in all fairness, I think the orientation did a good job of getting me excited about going and making me focus on the impending reality of it all. And that Keith Takechi from the Seattle Asian Art Museum is a crack-up. He's hilarious. His slide show was just damn funny. I wish I was going to be in town long enough to go to one of his lectures on Japanese Art. I think he's got one coming up on Buddhist masterpieces in Japanese Art on Nov. 2 or so. You should go. He's very entertaining. Just google his name for more info.

So those were my main impressions. I'm still a little uncomfortable about how people tend to gush when they hear that I will be studying law at the University of Tokyo. I wish I could make them believe that I honestly haven't done anything to deserve the opportunity. But, you know, they just think I'm being modest...

So I finally saw my first Seattle Wagner opera, Parsifal, yesterday. It was great. The overall effect was something like hypnosis: Parsifal runs at a mesmerizing 5 hours of slow, thoughtful music with the occasional swell to accentuate the action.

This was the first opera performed in the Seattle Opera's new (refurbished) hall. The sound was fine, but the lobby decor was something like a Midwest airport in 1982. Blecch.

I have to mention part of the stage production. The evil eunuch sorcerer Klingsor stood in a five-story tower in the middle of the stage. Parsifal swung the sacred spear that pierced Jesus' side...AND THE FIVE-STORY TOWER COLLAPSED INTO THE STAGE IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE! Holy crap. The crowd was thrilled. I thought they were going to pee their pants.

Of course, the opera going crowd was intense. Wagner brings out the hardcore fans. No followers of light and airy Italian singing here. Nope. Just those that can stand five hours of dense German opera with a confusing plot about grail knights. Ahhh, that's the stuff. I sat next to someone who flew in from New York for the performance and sobbed throughout the final act. My friend Mike and I talked to another person in the lobby who bought a plane ticket, then had unexpected surgery, couldn't change the ticket, and finally took a bus to Seattle from South Carolina (!) while hopped up on pain killers the whole time as he was still recovering from surgery. That's dedication. Everyone else looked sort of like the Ren Fair crowd, only all grown up. I didn't see any chain mail shirts, but I heard there were a few on opening night...

In the last twelve months I've seen 5 operas. Before then, I had only ever seen one, Tristan and Isolde, in France. Now I'm getting hooked. Tickets for Wagner's entire cycle of the Ring of the Nibelungen (four operas!) in Seattle go on sale next March. How am I going to afford tickets by then? Must...find...a...way.

In another super-dork moment of boredom and inspiration, I tried to come up with a sort of analytical approach to what I like, my personal aesthetic sensibility. It's really hard. Analytical philosophers have tried to do it in a general sense, but I didn't really feel like doing that. What would a personal and subjective leap into aesthetics look like?

Well something like this, I suppose. The Aesthetifesto:

What do I like? Why? Does the reason matter, or just the thing? (Separation of signifier, signified, and mechanism)

Chief concerns: beauty, sublimity, disinterest

Can there be a unified description of preferences for food, clothing, art, music, architecture, and any sensory experience? Non-sensory experience?

I have tried to narrow it down to a few tracks:

1. the small, sad, and beautiful—found photographs, the sound of snow falling on a nylon windbreaker, winter light through a window, the rough texture and appearance of grey wool, the sound of rain dripping from eaves, animal crackers

2. the grand, tragic, and confused—large train stations, the crushing weight of terrifyingly big skies in the plain states

3. the absurd, grotesque, and classical—the small one-ring european circus, the real grimm’s fairy tales

4. hesitant, joyful, and hopeful—the color orange, the rustling sound of grass, heavy paper with a very toothy texture, tri-color peppercorns

5. stark, high-contrast, and composed—calligraphy, bach cello concertos, newsprint, starched white linens, a perfect morning egg, dark coffee in a white demi-tasse

6. bright, chaotic, and infinite—astor piazzolla, henry miller, the mixed colors of maples in fall, Coltrane, penrose tiling, bi bim bap, kaleidoscopes, pizza

7. elliptic, esoteric, and difficult—wittgenstein, the patterns in wood grain when traced with the eyes for too long, gamelan

8. disjointed, industrial, crumbling—a dilapidated car in the middle of a dense forest-----dull brown/red on intense green

What does this mean? What conclusions?
-difficult relationship with power
-most refer to isolating experiences—not linked to shared human experience
-strong preference for inferred, not explicit narrative sense; is this too a rejection of shared experience? am I choosing my own voice for narration?
-preference for terrifying beauty, or tragic beauty, the look of a pretty thing ruined---destructive nature of the sublime
-obsession with texture; the tactile is paramount—is this about closing the distance, a distrust even of my own narrative voice? like greek cynicism?
-does life exist to be decoded? Why else would complexity become so appealing?

Just in case some might start to suspect that I am entirely consumed by school, work, and half-baked philosophical ramblings, I should probably write about fun things I've been doing lately. It is Summer, after all.

I went swimming on Tuesday with my friend Brian. He had the ambitious notion in the beginning of the Summer that he would try to swim across Lake Washington here in Seattle. It's fun floating on your back and making large, fluid strokes with your arms and legs at the same time and then just coasting, letting your head break the waves behind you, as you look up at the sky. I'm fairly buoyant, so the whole thing is pretty restful for me. Brian has to fight gravity a little harder. We can usually get about a third of the way across before boat traffic or the realization that we would end up wet on the eastside without a ride back home forces us to turn around and swim back. Then we get root beer.

And last night I went out to see a band, Appleseed Cast, with Vivian and Dave. Appleseed Cast is somewhere between emo, prog rock, and post-rock. I apologize to those who think that last sentence was a pile of meaningless garbage. If I had to compare them to other bands, I'd say they sounded like Promise Ring, only more relaxed, or maybe like Sunny Day Real Estate, only more contemporary. Anyway, I had a pretty good time. The sound at Graceland leaves something to be desired, but I guess most bands that play there are pretty fucking punk rawk so no one cares.

I wonder if I will get out to see bands in Tokyo. I hope so. I just don't like going to shows by myself. It's way too lonely. Also, I need someone to talk about the performance with after. I feel the same way about movies. I may not notice if there's anyone sitting next to me during the movie, but afterwards, dammit, I want to pick it apart with somebody.

Man, this is going to be a hard year unless I can make some decent friends early on...

My work computer is down with one of the many worms and viruses going around this week, so I'm at another desk...blogging.

I'm tempted to write about the one tired analogy this situation always reminds me of. You know, everyone using the same computer system with the same security flaws is a lot like a large but genetically non-diverse population being killed by a single strain of influenza virus. But I'm sure everyone has heard it before.

Besides, I'm more interested in thought monoculture than technological or even biological monoculture lately. Call it critical distance or truth-denying detachment, but I'm much more fond of thinking about what ideas DO and how people relate to them than actually subscribing to the ideas themselves. Too much graduate school, I guess. Not to say that I don't have a few notions that I hold dear for entirely irrational and personal reasons, but I just tend to get very meta-analytical about other people's thoughts. Don't we all?

Back to the topic of thought monoculture--I was wondering for a while if I had made friends with people who represent a very narrow portion of the ideological spectrum. I don't think I have any friends who are devout Christians... I have friends who claim Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Wicca as their religion, but none of them seem to practice on a weekly basis. What happened to religion? Almost everyone I know is spiritual in some sense, but none are religious in the sense of dedicated practice.

Not that I'm complaining. This is far from what most people would call a practical concern. I just don't want all the people I care about to be wiped out by the 'virus' to this particular monoculture. Now that I think of it, what would that be, exactly?

Crippling existential doubt? The God some suspected might exist? That would be something to write about...

I know I'm not in Japan yet, but this study abroad blog has to start somewhere. It starts here, a month and a half before I leave for Japan.

I applied for my visa last Friday. Then I drove to Spokane and married someone. That's what happens when you're ordained on the internet. Your friends sometimes ask you to perform weddings.

I'm excited about being in Japan again, but sad about being away from my wife for a year. I'm eager to see where I will live and what kinds of classes and seminars I will be able to take at the University of Tokyo School of Law. I don't even know what my supervising professor will be like, or whether my research proposal is really feasible.

I'm still here, in Seattle. Working in the Nintendo legal dept. Blogging about a journey that hasn't begun.

Have you ever considered the word "anaesthetic"?

The opposite of the aesthetic...?

It seems to imply that the aesthetic is something invigorating, something that wakes the senses, while the anaesthetic dulls them.

How do you wake yourself from a sleep when you are always surrounded by the anaesthetic?

Aestheticism seems also to relate not only to static concepts of visual beauty, but also to morality. Some actions are beautiful beyond both the immediate and lasting physical evidence of their occurrence.

We sleep in anaesthetic, and we recreate it around us.

The only way to wake up is to have the ability to see beauty, in any form.

Hello all. This is the living record of my year in Japan. Please enjoy.