Tag: Japan

The Poignancy of Things

June 5, 2025December 18, 2025 Peter Starr

Photo: Sans soleil, dir. Chris Marker

Chris Marker’s Sans soleil exemplifies the journey to wisdom, without once mentioning that concept.

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Tagged Amilcar Cabral, celebrations, Chris Marker, community, complexity, context, cultural difference, culture, death, empathy, global consciousness, happiness, humility, impermanence, insecurity, Japan, La jetée, Left Bank filmmakers, melancholy, memory, post-colonialism, ritual, Sans soleil, travel, wisdom

Holding the Self Lightly

June 5, 2025December 18, 2025 Peter Starr

Ruth-Ozeki_Courtesy-of-Ruth-Ozeki_CLR-1200x801

Photos: The Oberlin Review, Penguin Books

Language has adhesive properties…, drawing us together by enabling us to share our stories…. By inviting us into another’s skin, novels encourage us to practice empathy. And good novels celebrate the myriad complexities of individuals by creating ample room for all characters to have a voice.

Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being

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Tagged A Tale for the Time Being, age, bliss, bullying, complexity, culture, dialogue, Dōgen Zenji, dualism, empathy, ethics, heroism, horror, humanism, interbeing, Japan, language, narrative, no self, Not-two, novel of formation, posthumanism, quantum mechanics, reader, ritual, Ruth Ozeki, Schrödinger's cat, self, shadow of death, suicide, time, war, wisdom, writer, Zen Buddhism