04 - Would you do it all over again? Time travel and books
The year is an inch away from over! How do you feel? 2021 was such a rollercoaster. From being smacked by waves of covid, to cat videos, dancing shiba inu videos, teenagers oversimplifying the world in reels, sickness, health, a disappointing new season of Emily in Paris, and so much more. I enjoyed it...well, most of it. I hope you had a fantastic month and year. One wonders if covid will ever get mild enough to no longer be considered a threat. May 2022 be kinder to us all.
Happy new year, folks!
⭐️ Hi, I'm Sachi and this is Currents where I talk about anime, manga, and make clichéd year end lists. If you want to unsubscribe, click the link below. If you enjoy this, please share it with a friend/ random acquaintance/ colleague/ pet. Thank you for being here! 🌻
⏰ Would you do it all over again?
Going back in time to redo an aspect of our lives has been a theme writers and artists have been fascinated with for a while now. It’s almost as if we would die in peace if we knew we did it right. If only we could braid and unbraid threads of time as we wished. It’s especially evident on days like birthdays or the end of the year that you don’t get a second chance, the days you spent on autopilot aren’t coming back. The main act, when you’re actually ready for life, is never coming. You know you’re going to die eventually, I know I'll die eventually, so I’ll skip that part and spare you some icky end of the year talk. Let’s head to the lighter part - a world where you can mess with time. Movies and books have covered this theme in every way possible. You get to redo your life entirely or parts of it/ connect with someone in a different timeline or recreate the fabric of reality. What would you choose? Would you unsend an email/ text, choose a different major, date someone different or move to a different city? Would you speak to yourself in another reality where you made different choices? Would you like to grab a cup of coffee with ten other versions of you?
I watched two shows in December that in some way or the other involve redoing life. One was called Orange in which a group of friends send letters to their younger self so they can save a friend who commits suicide. Through their letters they urge their younger selves to change their paths in numerous tiny ways to support their friend who they didn't know until much later was suffering greatly. (None of which involve getting him a good therapist, what even?) I had issues with this show's plot so I'll focus on the second one which I found far more interesting. It's called ReLife. ReLife Laboratory is a company that selects a NEET (In Japan NEET stands for any individual who is Not in Education, Employment, or Training) and gives them an opportunity to live a year as a high school student to remind them of their strengths that they have somehow forgotten as adults. They choose a NEET who at some point showed tremendous potential but because of unfortunate circumstances lost faith in themselves. One wonders how this company ever makes money and who the investors are but we suspend our disbelief for a while. Unlike most anime that are brought to life with J-Pop tunes, ReLife has an unusually beautiful and grown up OST with jazz and piano solos which work fantastically with the slice of life vibe of the show. I have listened to it on repeat, highly recommend checking it out regardless of whether you watch the show or not.(Listen to the OST here, I wrote this essay while listening to it 🙂)
Unlike Orange, you don't go back in time and change your present to create a more favourable branch of reality but get turned into a younger looking person for a while and study with kids in that same year. There is, obviously, a huge culture shock involved. You merely look young, your body is as old as you are inside. That backache isn’t going anywhere. Good luck with PE class. Everyone you met during that year will forget about you when the experiment is over but the impact your actions had on them remains. However, if you tell anyone about the project while it's ongoing, your experiment ends immediately and your memories are wiped too. Those are the rules. If you follow them, the year is all yours.
The show revolves around Arata Kaizaki, who is 27 and lives off part time jobs and financial support from his parents. He hasn't been able to find proper work after leaving his first job after three months. He chokes during interviews and struggles to find work. We find out later that Arata isn't an unmotivated bum but someone who had a genuinely traumatic experience in his first job. He pretends to have a job while out with his friends and on one such night runs into a (slightly shady looking) man who offers him a pill that will turn him into a 17 year old and to pay for all his expenses for a year if he agrees to take up this experiment. Drunk enough to do what it takes to be paid for a year, he takes the pill. The early episodes are hilarious. Arata assumes he'll cruise through school because he has a graduate degree only to find that high school isn't as easy as he thought it would be. I don't think I'd get through calculus, complex trigonometry or organic chemistry if I were sent back in time despite being good at it as a student. The idea of writing an essay in Marathi or French gives me shivers. As the people at ReLife anticipated, (they monitored him before selecting him, a tad creepy but okay) Arata quickly makes friends and helps people around him. He moves cautiously, aware of the ten year age gap but eventually lets go and immerses himself in the high school experience. I want to describe it further without ruining it for you.
ReLife focuses on the growth of side characters as well, which makes it fantastic to watch. There is a perfectionist, one who can't make friends, one who regrets past failures, a protective friend, a deeply oblivious friend, and a person judged and misunderstood for their talents. There is a vast variety of characters, each one finds growth as the series progresses. It is satisfying to watch no matter which one of these archetypes you associate with. No matter who you are or what your baggage is, you can grow past it to open a whole world of possibilities. As an adult, it's extremely comforting to be reminded of this. Shows about younger people feel hard to relate to because their problems seem so far from what we face but that wasn't much of an issue here. It was also extremely gratifying to watch Arata realise what's wonderful about him as he gains the strength to move on with his life with enthusiasm. The season ends well, by that I mean it doesn't leave you hanging like a lot of anime does. The end is satisfying and leaves you feeling warm. Who doesn’t want some feel-good content at the end of the year?
Unlike shows where you go back in time to tamper with your past without giving anything in return, Arata paid for this experience with a year of his life. It wasn’t free and things didn’t magically get better. It's truly wonderful to watch someone your age, who isn’t living life the way he’d want to, slowly turn things around and genuinely start to appreciate himself. If he can do it, maybe we can too. Preferably, without turning 17 and having to deal with calculus again. I'm sure there are people who won't like this show as much as I did, which is okay. I happened to watch it exactly when I needed it. It's reassuring to be reminded that it's never too late, especially when you're bombarded with lists and media telling you you're worthless if you're not a prodigy.
We can change for the better, preferably without time tampering shenanigans.
🥳 In Closing/ writing resumes and being kinder to yourself
I was rewriting and redesigning my resume recently. I used to have a rather generic resume, a well designed one but generic at heart. To redo it I wanted to avoid earlier mistakes. I referred to Ramit Sethi's tips on writing a good resume. I like Ramit's content because he's all about practically improving your finances and life without any fluff. He isn't accepting any excuses. I appreciate that almost parental tough love when it comes to tasks like resume making or website updating. He asks you to really think about the story you're telling about yourself. Who are you and what do you bring to the table?
It also reminded me of Timothy Goodman's interview on Design Matters, where he talks about how he had to practice writing his story again and again till he got it right. Every experience, ever gig and every task you did at work was a learning experience. Are you considering it as something valuable or not? I once jokingly told my uncle once that the anthology I contributed to when I was 19 is probably the only cool thing about me or my resume. when he told me that it's a terrible way to look at yourself and your work, even if it's a joke. Self deprecating jokes seep in until they become your reality. How you see yourself is how you show up and who you become. You have so much to offer. Every risk that you've taken and every effort you took to learn something new brought you here. It is valuable. You experience is valuable. You are valuable. I had to let it really sink in till I could start rewriting my resume. When I dug deep into what I did in all my internships and gigs, a lot of incredible things popped up, things I took for granted. They're anything but generic. I sat thinking how I can craft some of these interesting experiences into a narrative. It was a gratifying thing to do at the end of the year, to be honest. It's easy, especially for people like me, to find things to chastise about myself. It's so much more rewarding to look at your experience, professional and personal, through an appreciative point of view.
Do you take up 'random' courses alongside work or are you a curious and driven person? Were your early professional experiences scattered and pointless or do you have enough exposure to handle any aspect of the job?
It's an easy flip to make. I hope you find the time to look at the things you have done with a gentle and appreciative lens too. I hope you can see how wonderful you are now, in 2022, and afterwards, no matter what social media tries to tell you.
⭐️ BOOK CLUB?
Hi hi, would any of you be interested in joining a small book club starting Jan 2022? You can read absolutely anything and we'll discuss it. Open to anyone who can make it on a weekend, mid-day IST. Bring a new book you read or an all time favourite and let's discuss it! Reply if you're interested.
🥇 BOOKS - Best of 2021
Fiction (In no particular Order)
Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Non-fiction (In no particular Order)
What Can A Body Do? by Sara Hendren
Four thousand Weeks : Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Climate A New Story by Charles Eisenstein
Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid Menon
Graphic Novels/ Comics/ Manga (In no particular Order)
Ao Haru Ride series (manga) by Io Sakisaka
Johnny Hiro : Half Asian, All Hero by Fred Chao
Not the best but still good?
False Allies by Manu S Pillai (Non- Fiction)
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (Fiction)
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (Fiction)
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Fiction)
📕 BOOKS - December
Birthday Stories (an anthology) by Haruki Murakami (Fiction) - Currently reading this anthology of short stories about birthdays.
Atomic Habits by James Clear (Non-Fiction) - This book is everywhere. I avoided reading it because it was everywhere. Especially in icky motivational posts devoid of any nuance. The book by itself isn't that bad and can actually help make your life better.
Johnny Hiro : Half Asian, All Hero by Fred Chao (Fiction + Graphic Novel) - A chucklefest that I read with great delight in one sitting.
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos (Illustrator), Annie Di Donna (Illustrator) - The story of Bertrand Russel and his search for the foundation of mathematics and logic.
Bad Boy by Frank Miller (Fiction + Graphic Novel) - meh, leaves you wanting more.
🎧 PODCASTS
The Ezra Klein Show - Timeless Wisdom for Leading a Life of Love, Friendship and Learning
💻 ARTICLES
To be happy, hide from the spotlight - Even if you have no interest in being a pop star or the president, beware the siren song of prestige.
"Like our penchants for sweets and sitting around, some of our drive for fame can likely be explained by simple evolution: Being known and admired by others makes us more likely to attract a mate and pass on our genes in a competitive environment. Few of us recognize this kind of motive now; “I want 1 million Twitter followers so many people will have my children” sounds a little … odd."
What it means to design a space for 'Care'
Giving the “A” Grade for the Person You’ll Become - A more interesting idea than new year resolutions.
👾 OTHER COOL THINGS FOUND ONLINE
⭐️ 🇯🇵 History of Japan (Watch this!)
🇪🇹 Hierotopia - documenting Ethiopia's 'church forests'. "To its guardians, each forest resembles a miniature Garden of Eden and is essential to the dignity of the building. One priest I met described the trees as being the ‘the clothes of the church’."
🏔 The Third Pole - "The Tibetan plateau is part of what is known as the Earth’s Third Pole, an area with more snow and ice than anywhere in the world except for the North and South Poles."
🍞 Bread on Earth - All about bread and bread only.
🍟 Foods with misleading origins
👹 Mapping folklore : Mythical Creatures of the Baltics and Beyond
🖼 Signal A's Swiss modernist posters.
__________
Until next time (next year),
Warmly,
Sachi