Course of Life

In my dormitory there is a really nice mixture of Japanese and foreign students and researchers. This brings you into contact with people who come from area’s of the world of which you know almost nothing about or just barely the cliché’s. Moreover people are engaged in different kinds of study and research. This has let to a range of interesting talks.
Some just the standard accounts of foreigners not understanding some things in Japanese culture and life. But also talks going far further than this kind of chit chat.
When an Indian researchers in physics, more specific the universe and black holes, saw me studying my Japanese he was so kind to remark that he did not see any value in learning another language. According to him it was absolutely not useful to waste precious years at studying a language in which you would never be able to speak as good as in your mother tongue. It was just idling your time away, it didn’t bring you any further in the real questions of life. He asked me what my goal in life was. And if studying Japanese bring me any further in my life? What was for me my purpose in life? It all came down to the questions Monthy Python asked in their The Meaning of Life: why are we here and what’s it for? But just the same as them I know the question but am not able to answer them.
As a researcher his purpose in life was to find out how the universe functions and what our place is. The meaning and purpose of life is something many philosophers have contemplated over but as far as I have found out everybody’s got to figure it out for himself. Studying Japanese probably doesn’t bring me any closer to the answer why we are here as mankind on eart. But it is the outcome of things that have happened before in life, some on purpose and some by accident.
My whole life is the result of some things I had an influence my self on by choosing and other are just the outcome of happy coincidences. The fact that I am now in Kyoto is the result of numerous things, in some I had a hand in others I didn’t have a thing to say. The main reason I am here is to study the Japanese language but in my dormitory I also met two German boys who studied Theology and are now here to study various forms of Japanese religion. And with the bit of luck you sometimes need my time schedule for my Japanese studies program is arranged in such a manner that I can also follow some classes (in English) about Shinto, Buddhism and Religion. These classes are giving by the NCC Center for Japanese Studies.
As for the questions of life I don’t have the answers. But I am really happy with what life is giving me for opportunities . And even if there is no purpose why I am living I still feel lucky about the many things I came across and were able to do in my life.