Creativity v. Kindness

I find myself feeling like part of the family here even when outside of my town. Just by watching the news on the tele I feel the strong bonds working on me. Perhaps more than any other community I've been a part of - counting Claremont, Putney, Cambridge, Siena, Maui - I've felt the post-partem anxiety well before actually parting. It's almost inconceivable that I would leave Ubuyama - it's akin to betrayal. To put it simply I do not feel good about leaving this town or this country. It means saying goodbye to something that will be too far away for too long....

But this is not because I have the life of a king here. Quite the contrary, I am little more than a lonely monk in my town five or six days of the week. There are the few, but cherished, hours of sunshine: teaching the kids. The eight 4th and 5th graders today were so delightful to teach. (They are learning numbers 11 through 30.) And the two students in the 1st and 2nd grade class learn so much in a short time that I have to be creative and make them do yoga. But even with this brilliant sunshine in my life (of which I like to boast), I am not living the kind of life that I should be - the kind of life full of excitement, friends, and goals.

So why is it so hard to leave this place?

The Japan that I've been exposed to is extradorinarily kind. But that kindness comes with an enormous amount of responsibility. When someone bows to you and says "yiroshiku onegaishimasu" (roughly "please be nice to me"), that person is not only being fully respectful to you, he or she is also asking for you to give just as much, maybe even more, back.

There is a phrase in Japanese "the customer is god." This takes the phrase "the customer is always right" to an entirely different level. The culture of service here runs almost ubiquitously through society. It involves kindness, dedication, and politeness. Kindness can break down only when the important layer of politeness is abused; even so it is a rare occurrence.

The extraordinary kindness in Japan is coupled with a strange dearth of creativity. I've come to wonder whether creativity and kindness are somehow diametrically opposed; it seems that the individuals who assert their own (creative) voice and ideas are also the individuals who are considered the least kind, the least polite. It is unkind to be creative.

Back in my native country, the United States of America, there appears to be no lack of creativity. Partly because much of this creativity isn't pretty, it's not hard to wonder whether part of the classic American rudeness is attributable to crude creativity. I am talking about the kind of creativity that could also be deemed mere laziness, partisan politics, or rudeness. Creativity's bad side seems to be the force that makes harmony so difficult to achieve.

There is a special kind of harmony in Japan that is rarely disturbed. Like the excess of creativity in America, Japan's harmony also has its bad sides. Perhaps what I'd like to do in my life, on a very abstract level, it try to promote the kindest, most harmonious forms of creativity in society. America could benefit so much from more harmony and Japan could benefit so much from more creativity. A harmonious, creative society would be utopic, wouldn't it be?