My “master-doc” of blogging is about 30,000 words long, at 65 pages, and ~25 of them have never seen the light of day. 25 moot pages is hard to explain (I know no one is asking for them to be explained), but here’s an attempt: 10 or so are miscellaneous venting. 5 are false starts, trying to reinvigorate my blogging muscles. Another 5 pages I cut because they were too mean or too weird. Four are glib rants about Columbo, and the last page is kept purposefully blank.
Said “last page”, where I’m writing now, is where I put things. Said page is DBDSU. Over the past year and a few, it’s been a great outlet for me to put things. Creative or otherwise! I want to explain why I keep this last page blank, and why it feels important to be filling it now. And I want to talk about Japanese war crimes too.
Writing is my favorite of all outlets because it can be totally, fully, precisely what you want it to be. And as public or private as you like. If you have something to say, you can scrawl it down and just rip the paper to shreds, or send it in postage, or toss it to sea in a bottle and hope it might reach someone. Yeah, it’s a little bit romantic in sentiment. Most often, just getting it down will suffice.
Writing is also a lot of tossing things out and seeing if they’ll stick. Less so in terms of audience, more so in terms of motivation. Is there a good enough story within all of these ideas to motivate me to write them? Or am I just throwing wet noodles at a wall and watching them slip down behind the counter? Page #65 is something like that white wall, with 30,000 noodles stuck to it, and more than a few fallen by the wayside.
For me, the process is a bit like this: Something happens, or I watch or read or listen to something, and I get this huge upwelling in my chest. When something affects me so much that I need to just do something with it, I turn to the blank page. And then I stare at it for a while and maybe I’ll write something and maybe I won’t. But even if I don’t, I’ll still remember it.
Eight months ago I watched The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On. In the confines of an auditorium in Akita, Japan, where the air is wet and summer nights sing. The subject of the documentary, Kenzou Okuzaki, has stuck with me since. He’s a madman and an anarchist and a figure you really should read about on your own. Even in the film, he seemed like a character. When we walked out of the auditorium, my international friend asked me if it was fact or fiction. I had a hard time answering.
Much of the film is concerned with terrible memories of World War II. The main subject lived and died in that war, and now has returned to haunt his countrymen for their crimes. War crimes, in this case the crimes of torture, cannibalism, ethnic cleansing and more, can engender decades of guilt and frustration. How can they just get away with what they did? How can they continue living their lives? Okuzaki brings this to its logical conclusion (although logic is clearly not what guides him): Violence.
The documentary stirred up a lot of emotions in me, not the least of which because it dredged up some unpleasant memories. The many horrible things my grandparents used to say about Japan from their wartime experiences. Hatred. Base disgust. Watching The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On reminded me where hatred, even against criminals, leads. It was difficult. Thinking about it is still difficult.
Tonight I was staring at the wall, watching paint dry, and musing on the film again. And I felt that swelling in the chest so I decided to throw it and see if it stuck. I just had to put it somewhere before it ate a hole in me.
I really need to reserve time on this site for more lighthearted things. Not enough fun stuff around here. Look forward to the next video I guess..!