Mr. Kuramoto in Rural and I in Urban

I rejected Mr. So Kuramoto’s idea of “poverty-happiness” (hinkō), and I also brushed aside Ms. Chizuko Ueno’s notion of “being equally poor.”

Sometimes I feel a twinge of guilt about that.

Even so, it’s also true that I couldn’t go along with the idea that:

“Poverty itself is ‘good’ and ‘beautiful.’”

To begin with, as for me:

・I was born right in the middle of the bubble era.

・My father is an investor who’s good at paired trading/hedging with stocks, and I’m a petty-bourgeois type whose living standards are a bit higher than others.

・I grew up in cities—Chiba and Sendai—my whole life.

・And because I have a developmental disorder, I probably can’t control myself as much as I’m “supposed” to.

Well, maybe it’s simply the difference between someone who’s lived in the countryside and nature, and someone who’s lived in the city and civilization.

Come to think of it, something suddenly came back to me. According to a “behind-the-scenes” setting for Castle in the Sky (Laputa):

“Back in the era of the Industrial Revolution, the Paro family—of Muska’s line—aimed to revive Laputa, broke with the Toel family—of Sheeta’s line—and abandoned the land of Gondoa.”

If you flip that around, the royal family that once ruled from the sky can be seen as splitting into:

・those who abandoned immense power and chose modest happiness (the Toel family), and

・those who yearned for immense power and sought to reclaim it (the Paro family).

Thinking that way, maybe a confrontation between Sheeta and Muska was inevitable.

Even now, in what’s called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, I keep wondering again and again how I should live.

I should have decided:

“Survive this era of change, and see many things in Japan and the world,” and

“Spread Japanese culture—starting with Hakkenden—to people overseas.”

To do that, it’s probably true that I need to make effective use of AI and cryptocurrency.

In reality, I’ve already paid money to try things like AI animation, and I’ve also been steadily buying Bitcoin.

If Mr. Kuramoto is Sheeta, then maybe I’m Muska.

That said, what I hate most is “lying to myself.”

Apparently there are people who say, “Muska is attractive because he lived honestly to the very end.”

If I earn money efficiently, invest it, see many things in Japan and around the world, and then reach the end of my life—what will I be thinking then?