Author's note: Written in anticipation of a trip to Japan. Though it does not directly involve the wizarding world but it explores a few of the significant themes that Rowling explores.
The stalls were bustling. To my left, I heard the turning of the old wooden carriages – a testament to the relics traversing through time. Or perhaps, more accurately, tourism was on the rise. It looked anachronistic with the tall skyline looming in the background. The movement of human progress, I supposed. Yet it looked as if it belonged to this very old, stone path that led to more small shops, more people. The continual interlinking paths twisted its way to create an old sprawl of history, marked indelibly on the map of Kyoto like ink calligraphy on paper.
I had been walking for most of the day. Hair in disarray. Cheeks slightly puffy and red from the cold. It was windy and the leaves had mostly turned themselves into a spectacular array of red, orange and yellow. Despite this most unfavourable weather today, my legs moved automatically down the well-worn paths passing the paper lanterns, fans on display. I wondered for such an advanced civilisation, could it have chosen a less flammable material? I supposed there were no songs about the "Kyoto bridge is falling down" so I guessed the choice of material was apropos.
On further reflection, I supposed paper was similar to the stones back in England. A mere reflection of the development in values and beliefs of two separate cultures. The penchant for the use of stones to build castles, little beautiful cottages in our lives or our graves in our death suggested this desire for eternality, resilience and durability. Paper, and to an extension wood, represented this juxtaposition to these occidental values. It was much more delicate, fragile and malleable. Strangely enough, I supposed they understood the own power of their own mortality.
Growing up, I feared death.
What would life be like after I am gone? What would I be thinking? Would I be able to think at all? I thought and dreamt about conquering death – achieving this freeing status of immortality. I would conquer time and my own mortality. It was incredibly empowering to think like that in my youth. As life moved and I grew up, I stopped thinking about death. I thought about living. Perhaps it was inevitable that I too fell into the same trap of attempting to immortalise my life's work, obsessing over the idea of being remembered, respected for my achievements. I wanted to endure the harshest of winds – time.
But as I wandered through this old corner, and knelt before this great architecture of red. This temple that had hosted many before me remembered those who had flung a coin down to pray for their own prosperity, to wish for the fulfilment of their own dreams. I clapped my hand in the manner that I had observed of the people in front of me and flung my coin down the metal container.
My brain became blank. Should I not wish for the prolongment of my own life? Or the secret desire for worldly glory? It was odd that in this autumn window of time, in this random place where I chose to go after my mother had all but shoved me out of the house to travel to take a break, I paused and reflected upon the unquestionable foundations of my life. Perhaps it was too late in my life for an existential crisis – or dared I admit a mid-life crisis. But at this moment, my mind spiralled into the deepest parts of my own fears and doubts that I had effectively blocked out in the name of work.
It was in this mechanical, almost insignificant action of bowing down to the statue in front of me that I realised that in fearing and working towards immortalising my memory, my presence in this world, I had all but rendered myself helpless and vulnerable to the illusion of death. If I was to live another day, I would be no different had I lived another hundred years.
It was the knowledge of this end that motivataed me but it was this very same knowledge that inhibited me from caring about aspects of my life I deemed as not worth my time. It was this knowledge that inhibited me from "meaningless", spontaneous discoveries that made my existence in this world all the more enriching. It was understanding this nature of my own mortality and its power to shape my way of thinking that I conquered my fear of death.
It was fateful that I conquered death through accepting death as an imminent calling and an imminent warning to not forego a day of my life without understanding my purpose of being here. As I walked through the magnificent sunset-red shrine counting one pillar after another, I counted the times I had taken to say "thank you", to say "hello" in a non-mechanical, non-perfunctory manner.
And as I tumbled down the stone streets of the Gion Corner, buying a clearly over-priced fan (a souvenir for my mother) without bargaining, I felt touched by this place of stone streets and paper lanterns.