Summary: A (sort of) pre-series story. Hikigaya Hachiman's essay response to Hiratsuka Shizuka's prompt on his high school life.
Rating: T (hinted themes may not be advisable for children)
Tags: gen, reflection, slice of life, drama, philosophy
Disclaimer: I own nothing - Oregairu and its characters are property of Watari Wataru.
What is love? A bitch and a half. What is life? Two cents of sense out of the five you wish you had
By Hikigaya Hachiman
When God made the world, I suppose He made it so that everything was perfect, or so they say; what they really mean to tell me is that because everything is in perfect harmony, things interact with one another and they align - that is to say that there are pairs, triplets, foursomes, and more, such as things simply just being on the same wavelength and matching.
But I'm not so sure about such a fantasy; you see, all this presumption means that every little thing has a purpose: that at least some sort of Fate does exist - though, if God Himself exists, does it or does it not already imply Fate does? Does He care enough to make Fate? Or is Fate just a byproduct of the fact that existence even happened? - because things are 'meant to be.' Is the existence of a god, or perhaps the God, a contradiction to Fate because one could manipulate the latter? It's quite frightening to piece this all together, let alone think of it altogether.
Of course, having time to think about these things is probably something I should explain: the best answer is that I spend too much effort and investment venturing in psychology, literature, and philosophy rather than pay attention to the testimony of non-office-boxed slave labor forced to deal with dunderheads and fools of the highest order (a.k.a., educational institution workers - more commonly referred to as 'teachers;' with some exceptions, of course). What most people may not realize is how limiting it feels to be confined to the shackles of routine that belongs not to yourself, but to the world. It's a bit of a hassle to use my time like this, spending it in school that is, when it could be better spent lazing around and staring at clouds, the wise words of one fictional genius, or lounging about between the shelves of a library.
Others often might disagree and in fact, one of my most vehement dissenters is a woman who likes to brag about her wisdom as our elder (and thus 'superior'); I cannot help but to lay waste to her corporate struggles as a cog in the wheel of the mechanical system known as 'Japan's education' which only serves to produce more seemingly autonomous, seemingly, because they are not, robots known as 'adults' (read: workers, or entombed, the damned).
I take many of her words seriously, with several grains of salt. Not because she is 'wrong' by any means, but more because I must parse them in order to part the Red Sea we call social order and bypass the firewalls of limited ethics, morals, and world views.
My head and the desk it rests on enjoy the subtle silence of sleep (how else would I find peace for these thoughts of mine?) every single day because I have long since come to understand the impossibility of trying to even 'fit in.' Small talk does not do anyone justice; and even worse, falsities are the only thing that people suppose are of any value - truth is an illusion, even though fact is proven. Opinions are also overrated, but not everyone also realizes that biases, opinions, can be bad or wrong; they also just don't care. But that is what our society has built itself on, and that is the juncture of my philosophy and a major factor toward the war which I wage, even as a lone soldier under the small banner of liberty - not freedom, no; no one is ever truly free of anything, for all things touch, even if indirectly - from constraint.
How about this: I shall provide my proofs via example of observation - scientific, isn't it? Although I cannot promise absolute consistency, I will do my utmost to maintain that level of order.
And so, without further ado, I shall start by noting that the students whom I attend classes with tend to walk on eggshells. But among them, there is one who stands out the most - his name is rather famous in the area, even beyond school borders and sports fields or courts. His very nature of being born had his whole life pinned against the wall; I could blame the parents, I do, but of course, much fault lay, and continues to lie, with said boy. Though in some small ways I pity him for even being born to such a cruel trap, because none of us being born were given the choice to accept or decline; we only lived or died, I cannot truly sympathize with him. Do not mistake my intentions and esteem. I am not 'jealous;' jealousy implies envy, the desire to take his place or being of similar station and situation, an image which I terribly abhor. Being born with a silver spoon cooling down the tip of your tongue is just not something that appeals to me, I'm afraid - at least not wholly; who would ever decline the freedom to not have to work? - but being made into such a spineless shell of a man makes me rumble with indignation.
His name isn't as important as people think, or even like to think. Let us start off with a fun fact (arbitrarily chosen, of course): his initials are actually the same as mine, if we look to the language of say, English, and yet, for some reason, our names, our identities, our visuals and mentalities, are so vastly different. Why is that? Are names not integral to our identities? If so, should there be some link between us? Just kidding. But jokes aside, our names are not at all alike. Neither in kanji nor hiragana, and yet, I have been told that our names have similar 'vibes' to them.
Between the two of us, myself and the other boy, it is easy to say that a lot of the differences lie in our genetics - not entirely false, I can tell you that; it is simply based on science, which is knowledge. Quite literally - and that almost everything around us influences us, shapes us, whether we fit the molds or not, we find some tendency to center ourselves on some known quantity or qualities of certain slope. And again, I want to stress that I do not deny any of these things; I merely want to examine the fact that choice is available to all humans because of our intellect.
Yet the choices he has made, continues to make, are only ones that serve to drown him. He looks out for himself in the most brittle, yet possibly wisest of ways - he is selfishly selfless in that he seeks to please the masses and not himself. In that, he pleases more and does 'more good;' and yet in this, he commits the 'ultimate evil' of never becoming one who is himself. Is he nothing but that mask? Despite all he has been given and gives up, he is uncertain - as perhaps we all are, have been, or will be (for sure more than one time in our miserable existences) - and continues to strive for confusion.
Where does he belong, if at all? Why is it that, in the privacy of my thoughts,I have observed enough to conclude that, perhaps, just perhaps, he might envy my position? And yet, as a failure to foil his brilliance, I do not fancy his while he has 'everything?' Is it that my own position is truly of great stature that it is worth sacrificing his own; or is that thought simply sacrilegious. I do not know. There is truly no genuine answer in my thoughts as I recall all the look in his eye as he speaks and the way he places himself in every situation. It disgusts me, but it fascinates me to no end.
Is this boy merely a product of reality or is his reality a product of him; can it be both? Surely one cannot be without the other; but if we were to remove existence, what would the universe be? However great the import of his existence to the the locale of Chiba, I cannot imagine that within the confines of Japan that he is of such great priority in the grander spectrum of society. Perhaps the question I am asking is much deeper: whether or not Man is intrinsically tied to social hierarchy, or at least naturally predisposed to being against anarchy.
However, I shall take a break and make a tangent; follow, if you will. Let us suppose that, if there is God, then are there also gods whom we can to cry out to in despair? Or is it that if there is God there are no other gods? For in Scripture it reads that there are other idols, but none before God; and yet that does not simply deny the existence of these others gods. So is it that these gods are only artificial? Or is it because they are artificial that their existence is genuine? Or if not genuine, at least in existence - like a proposal.
You might be confused by this tangent. Good.
I bring this up because different mythologies introduce us to similar mechanisms with more varied logic and reasoning. Why is that important? Because boxing one's own eyes into a frame of narrowed correspondence makes it so that the brain itself refuses to see more than what you're seeing. As Hatake Kakashi, a man of great wisdom, once said: Look underneath the underneath,
For instance, there is the pantheon of Greek-Roman gods who reign supremely famous in the Western world, and there are also tales of the occult that sprang up, such as Lovecraftian. It also calls into question my earlier proposal about the harmony of the world: does it exist? Why so? How? Where - and in what; can the universe not just be organized chaos? If so, then why do we try to make order of it; why do we breed past instinct and strive for intelligence? Do we seek to defy the baser natures of existence?
Is that all we are - filthy conquerors who act with reason but are living for existences entirely without? It makes sense to see it from this perspective, truthfully, if we look at ourselves logically (objectively) and lay down the fact that we are nothing but animals, too; homo sapien.
Moreover, we must see the meaning of life in both natural and artificial, otherwise our discussion would be incomplete. If, that is, we can even begin to break down the barriers by which we establish those definitions. Let's look at a previously stated example: the Greek pantheon and compare it to the aforementioned male in my class.
They are, in essence, explanations not only in place of science but caricatures of our, that is to say humans', subconscious traits placed into beings of higher power, each with rather distinct physicality but also personality and mentality along with them. They are also given might not because of their names but because of the identities we have thrust upon them and rewarded them with (that is to say, they are associated with particular acts, abilities, qualities, and we immortalize them so). Does that mean, then, those particular qualities we give them are special? That we are rewarded for being like so?
If that is true, then we must live in fear; after all, they reek of jealousy, infidelity, revenge, and petty contests. And again, I say, in essence, they reflect humans, and as such, we are now stuck in a loop - which came first: the chicken or the egg?
It stands to reason that, then, we should also consider ourselves innately blank (I credit this observation to the great John Locke for the famed phrase of 'tabula rasa') but never entirely free of that cycle, as we are a product of our environment. Do we know what about our traits is crafted from genetics, aside from the obvious phenotypes? What about the choices in front of us; many of us can say there are 'umbrella topics ' that cover a decent enough range of what we can and cannot do, and by asking one another 'What would you do?' you will find that so many people respond in similar ways with only slight differences; but then, what constitutes those differences?
Where does personality come from? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? Our social norms, if you take a step back and truly attempt to look at things, shatter that individuality no matter what country you live in, be it poor or rich. We confine ourselves to these think-tanks and mobile, equipped suits
Let's look at something together, shall we? And in this example, we shall again go to the power of words, and return to my name. I am named after a Shinto god of war: one who protects, from a distance. We can make the case that this boy is could also be infamously blessed by the rites of other deities incorporated into human form.
An interesting proposal of modern-day mythology (read: manga) that aligns with me is something I saw the other day. You could liken me to the Gilgamesh, in some ways: born above, but not above - in essence, I am in contrast to his position by being his foil - of intellect prime and solid body, but of such little stature and position that I am no more than peasant. I am not arrogant in my expression, for it appears that I have knack for a game which most know as 'tennis,' and I have often been able to run past many others in the distance races I have participated in, signalling that I must have some form of athletic capability.
My test scores reflect some of my intellect, but not perfectly so; perhaps it is because I sleep in class and never bother to do work that I appear to be of lower standards, but I assure you, reader, that tests are rather trivial and honestly display little connection to true intelligence.
After all, correlation is not causation. You know something quite fascinating to consider? People put so much stock in their birthright; their unearned positions and their immediately apparent skills and intellect - people think that being born of a higher grade gives you all those things because, honestly, 'nobility' and wealth can afford to marry 'better.' That's true. But that had nothing to do with the kind of person someone can prove to be.
Exhibit A: myself. I am nothing 'special' by any circumstance. Earlier, I admitted that I had the natural disposition of skills and intelligence to complement the mandate of success, only to say that it was part of the things that matter less. I point this out because there is a phrase which aptly sums up a lot of life's struggles: 'who you know is just as important as what you know.' Because I am me, that is to say, a cynical loner whose tendencies leave him often figuring solutions in the dark of his room or in the shy corners of a class, could be as smart - or smarter - than almost everyone else, and to a certain extent, my efforts would reward me.
Who knows; I could go on throughout my entire life unimpeded. But that is likely not the case. The chances that I would 'hit a wall' are so likely that I would go as far as to say that the odds are absolute, one hundred percent, albeit some walls may be manufactured rather than au naturale. But to explore this train of thought, we will look at this instance: if you are an employer or owner of a company or business, you will say to yourself 'Who brings me more profit? Person X vs. person Y?'
Let us presume that persons X and Y are two separate persons, with the former being a stranger and the second being the child of an associate - a close friend of either family, perhaps a high ranking member of your organization, or possibly someone whose reputation precedes him or her. Should the results yield that person X would bring you greater benefit in the economic sense, then the apparent 'best choice' would be to snatch that person for yourself. But on the other hand, what if their skills and work ethic are equal? Or what if person X is only slightly better?
Because humans are not 'monsters of logic,' it seems prudent to indicate the obvious that person Y would have some portion of bias towards their status, thus boosting their ascension as a valuable asset. That is the kind of wall I fear I shall hit, because despite only being a student in high school, I fear I have hit that wall already. And now we return to the aforementioned boy in my class as an example of this; the school believes that he and another student, a girl in a class which differs from ours, are the most valuable people in the school.
The reason being? They are 'models.' Not in their occupation, though I suppose that most people would not be hard-pressed to tell them to attempt said profession. Apologies for the tangent. I digress; their families have been established for several generations and their monetary status, their political authority, and their web of associates are all things to be feared, in addition to their charmingly 'well-bred' looks and regally taught wit. Thus, it is obvious that everyone expects them to be 'perfect.'
And that is the greatest evil I have witnessed in my high school life which I know shall continue to permeate in my future. You see, due to some unnamed resources, I have discovered that perfection is not as perfect as people believe; instead, it is the perception of perfection that is truly the conqueror of worlds.
The boy in my class heads the school's football team as the captain and yet the school is by no means above the district level; and still, people wax poetic about the his skill. But a little known fact is that he was actually the third candidate for captain and the seventh best player on the team. Yet he holds a greater position and more recognition. Furthermore, he is touted to be the second ranked student because he clearly has intellect beyond the rest of the mortals in my class. Again, something that I can lend a hand in disproving because that so happens to be me. The beloved boy whom I share initials with happens to be ranked fifth. Additional fun fact: the aforementioned 'perfect girl,' who, by the way, I have yet to meet and thus would recommend taking some of my opinions and comments about with a grain of salt, is third.
How could I know all these things? While I am a loner, I have reached out to those who are of the upper echelons in study and pieced together the puzzle by myself, mostly through rough estimates and some decent (notably: half-assed) thinking. But our names are not read out loud like those who have popularity and inspire awe with their looks (appearances mean much, even when they are nothing but deceiving). Instead, people such as myself are given notes that read that we are not permitted to speak about our achievements, though our transcripts shall 'do the talking for us' when it comes to university applications and whatnot.
The reason I find this odd is because one of the people who is commonly associated for being a ditz is actually one of academia's fiercest competitors, but again, I find it almost hilarious that she can charm them all with a foolish act. It simply lets me breathe in a fresh dose of cynicism, coupled with a healthy tang of skepticism concerning the world I reside in, which I believe is rightfully adorned as a coat of arms (unfortunately, its tangibility is subtle).
My literature teacher, also, is by far the most powerful member of the female species that I have ever encountered, in my humble, but worthless, opinion, for even my cute little sister has limits to what she and I endure together. But she, the teacher that is, perseveres daily to slave away at helping us fools obtain knowledge and attain some sort of enlightenment, however misguided both those veins might be (after all, social etiquette, while polite, is merely a survival skill and not actually the mandate for proper behavior - i.e. following the hierarchy bestowed upon our kind is not the only way to live, but we are being taught that, told that, this is the most reasonable and therefore also the most human[e] way to exist).
It astounds me to profess that I have so much to learn, not because I am ashamed of being marked as foolish or dumb, but more so because it means my mind has room to expand. Listening to her talk makes me wonder what wounds she bears; but none bare, her bearing is nothing but strong for us. At least, in my own eyes.
No matter how bleakly I write or sound in class, she seems to never give up on me. And that confounds me. Do I remind her of herself? If so, then my dreams of becoming a house husband are dim. Though I suppose I should not be so selfish; perhaps I am biased since I am writing of my own experiences. I would not be surprised to learn that she is so selfless with her other students. It makes me wonder, however, why someone so strong lives for such little recognition.
That is not to say her job is without merit, however. Even though few, I have noticed students of hers who constantly return to the school, though the motive may not be my teacher herself. Still, I can see the traits of my teacher in these former students and it shows that humans can change. A wise bug once said, "Change is good." I can only nod to that, as Father Time is inevitably closing in, I can only believe that we, mortals under that father's hand, must adapt to said change and morph it into meaning (i.e. life itself).
However, I cannot help but slowly drink in the sight of her, day after day. If adults, such as she is, are the product of aging, then is life more about the future than the present? If so, then what is enjoyment and what can be found as release and pleasure? Where is the harmony in this dissonance? Who and what shall complement us and thus make us fulfilled; if we require another, then what is loneliness in this world? And why does it plague such a large portion of humanity, though seemingly more powerful in my current age group, and enslave us?
It eats at my rationality as I sit here. Writing. Contemplating. There is reason, but is reason man's, or is man a cog in the big wheel or logic? Are my conclusions nothing but smoke and mirrors? What is truly valuable in my life? I glance outside my bedroom door as I hear my sister's voice ring throughout the house and I cannot help but be reminded of how wonderful she is to me. And yet, in the coldness of objectivity, I cannot find a place for her in this system.
As such, it does not pain me to say it though it pains me to accept it. Youth is nothing but lies. And reality is nothing like the silken marble; it is but a gilded cage. This is what it means to live.
Teacher's comments:
Hikigaya… you fail the assignment. Again. One. This is too wordy and not at all compact. Instead of giving me an essay, you have given me a lecture and one that is all over the place. Two, I see no coherent set of points; you simply just from A to T without any true transition or driving factor. Although I do see quite a lot of effort in this piece compared to the others, I cannot justify this as acceptable.
Marks: Negative. Like the apparent amount of fucks you gave when I told you to write a god-damn essay about the topic I assigned.
~Hiratsuka-Sensei