Recommended video, and The Only Trick to Controlling Your Destiny

My cousin Summer recommended this video to me, and now I'm recommending it to you. It's an actual "feature-length" movie, over an hour long, so don't jump in if you're, I don't know, on a lunch break or something.

Kintaro Walks Japan

The film is a documentary about this guy who has graduated from college and isn't sure what to do with his life, so he decides to walk the entire length of Japan, partially to find his father's birthplace, partially to impress his half-Japanese girlfriend whose father walked the entire length of North America, and partially because "when you give yourself to the journey, the journey gives itself to you."
It's a great story, and also got me thinking about the limits of the human spirit and destiny and all that. The whole trip took him about five months, which is about the length of time I've been working as a host as Koisan Japanese Cuisine.
That's not an insignificant amount of time, but it's not long at all in the grand scheme of things. Most anyone I know could take a few months off to have a great adventure.
Some of them have.
But a lot of them haven't.
I don't know if that's necessarially a bad thing. A peaceful, uneventful life is nothing to spit at. But it does seem to me that everyone should complete at least one extraordinary undertaking while they are on this planet, something that fulfills some sort of destiny.
The question then becomes: what is destiny? I think it is whatever makes your story incredible (which is, of course, why it's such a common theme in incredible stories). Theoretically, most any able-bodied 24 year-old man with just a touch of insanity in him should be able to walk the length of Japan. If they did, this movie would be a lot less interesting.
What is it that brought this one guy to do it, though? I have a hard time believing that he was simply MEANT to do it. Perhaps he was COMPELLED to do it, but that's not the same thing. I've been compelled to do a lot of amazing things, but taken a nap or something instead, always with the sensation that it was a concious choice, and that at any moment I could spring from my bed and embrace some particular destiny.
There are external factors as well of course -- the walk-across-Japan guy has a lot of people pushing for him, which I'm sure makes the journey that much easier -- but I think it ultimately comes down to two steps:
a). being compelled
and
b). saying "YES"
and oh, I guess there are actually three things:
c). not giving up, no matter what.

I think we're all compelled by a lot of things. A girl who I work with at the sushi bar was telling me how she was quitting her job to, well . . . she wanted to go to design school, but she also might get her teaching credential and teach Spanish, or go back to school for a master's degree, or might teach overseas, or . . .
It's a common feeling for us post-graduates. It's a common feeling for everyone, I think.
The hardest part is that first step, step b)., the step TO BE, the step to YES.
But I think that it is perhaps the only real trick to controlling your destiny.

What do you choose?

if hate is the anti-love, is anti-hate the anti-anti-love?

Since I work at the school I graduated from, I'm there ALL THE TIME. I am, in fact, there right now, in the library. It's actually kind of convinient, since Chapman U. not only has many buildings with walls and roofs to hang out in, it is also close to many of life's great necesseties, like a). Houses my friends live in, b). The bank and c). The skateshop (where I just got a new bearing to replace the busted one on my longboard -- for FREE!). Also, there are awesome resturants around here.
but wait.
I see a hand there in the back. The hand is connected to an arm which is connected to a head, which contains a brain, which is thinking:
"Come on, if you're not going to post another picture of you hiding under a sheet, and you're not going to complain about anything, what in the world are you blogging for?"
To which I say -- I am going to complain. I just hadn't gotten there yet.
I am going to complain about anti-hate. (!!!)
This week is anti-hate week at Chapman, so there is also sorts of stuff going on against hate. Yesterday I went to a (mostly) delightful anti-hate concert, and there are anti-hate signs all over campus that show statistics of hate crimes and the symbols of various hate groups.
Now this is not all bad, necessarially. I mean, who doesn't hate hate, right?
Hate is a concept we can all get behind and kick down the stairs. Hate, the opposite of love! Hate, the cause of all that is evil! Hate, the anti-good!
It turns out that we have nothing to hate but hate itself.
"Anti-Hate" is in fact a bit of a cyclical concept. Kind of like "War on Terror."
And if nothing else, Anti-Hate Week shows us how easy it is to oppose an abstract concept.
I don't think that the organizers of the event are doing a bad thing. They're raising awareness of just how many students are harassed and discriminated against, and some of the programming seems to be very effective. The name of the week, however, is unfortunate, because it casts the issue as an us-vs.-them sort of thing.
The haters vs. the anti-haters. The anti-haters hate the haters. It's just a few steps removed from Orwellian New-speak, at which point words stop meaning anything because they mean everything.
In the early X-Men comics from the '60s, there's a group of villians called "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants," which is a pretty awesome name, actually. But as comics became more "mature" and "realistic" the name became a problem, because only in a comic book world would a group so proudly profess their alliance with the Forces of Darkness. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Nor does it make sense that you can stop hate simply by targeting so-called "hate groups." Now, most hate groups earned that title for awfully big reasons, so don't mistake me for defending them here. I just think that in order to create a better society, which is what anti-hate week is really all about, right?, we have to go beyond simply labeling things as "hateful." That can be a powerful technique, but make no mistake: it is simply fighting intolerance with the same tools that intolerance uses -- labeling, blaming and excluding.
In order to move beyond that we need to also use tools of love, such as compassion and understanding. We need to search for hate not just outside ourselves, but inside ourselves, too.
And we need to ask: can hate ever be a good thing? Here's the defenition of hate from m-w.com (I should have included it earlier): "1 a : intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury b : extreme dislike or antipathy."
As a kid, especially in the houses where my friends' parents were very Christian, I heard a lot of "hate is a very strong word" (which is true) and "don't say hate, say 'extremely dislike'" (which is kind of the same thing, isn't it?) and "we're not supposed to hate anything" (which brings up some weird feelings in light of verses like Psalms 139:19-21: "O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me— those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.")
Clearly it's not OK to hate groups of people, even those that hate you. Since I'm quoting the Bible, I might as well keep going: "You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:43-44).
But I wonder . . . Is it ok to hate war? Is it ok to hate injustice?
It is sometimes said that love and hate are two sides of the same coin -- love is a strong movement towards something, and hate is a strong movement away from something. If that's true, then you can only place moral values on love and hate relative to what they're reacting to. Moving away from an unjust world towards a more could be simultaneously called hating injustice and loving justice.
What would sitting still, and just letting things stay the same be called, then?
Anti-love? Anti-hate?
Or maybe, that sneaky, seductive idol of our world: APATHY.
Hate fights for exclusion, love fights for inclusion, and apathy can't really be bothered to fight for much of anything, which I think makes it the real enemy.
....
oh man, this is so long. sorry. comments, anyone?

EVERYONE GO HOME!!!

I have taken a ton of pictures, but this is the only one I'm putting up right now.
I am feeling belligerant and I am going to bed.
GRRRRR!
(ps -- read my comic?)