Quite some time ago, I read a book called “The Origin of
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” by Julian
Jaynes. No, don't go look it up. You're not going to want to read it.
It's heady stuff and of interest mainly to people who enjoy talk
about historical texts and the analysis of language in order to
extrapolate something about the psychology of our ancestors. I will
just say that the general idea of the book is that humans didn't
always possess a conscious mind as we do now.
When I speak of our current consciousness, I mean the way in which
we talk to ourselves in our own heads. You see a couple on the street
and the woman looks angry and the man is touching her arm and talking
softly to her. You wonder if they just had a fight and he made her
mad and is trying to calm her down or make amends. That “wondering”
is you talking to yourself.
In Jaynes's book, he makes a case for our minds not always working
in this fashion. He postulates that we used to actually have
conversations like a schizophrenic has audio hallucinations. That is,
humans in the past used to hear a voice that does not sound like
theirs and that they interpreted as being not their own. He felt that
this was interpreted by those with such “bicameral” (two-sided)
minds as the voice of God. Our own personal deity was instructing,
advising, and interpreting for us according to his theory. Instead of you wondering to yourself whether or not that buy pissed off his girlfriend, your own personal god was saying, "Hey, that guy is mad," and you would say, "I see. Thanks God! I couldn't have figured it out without you, man."
It's a fascinating postulation, and it cannot be proven in any
way. However, it would explain why many cultures had a lot of
different gods in their religions. With so many minds hearing so many
different unique voices, there would have to be more than one god to
encompass the perspectives and individual experiences of reality that
each person was having. Creating a god of love, of peace, of war, of
hedonism, etc. would allow for a way to understand the reality and
represent the thought processes of each person or groups of "like-minded" people.
Inhabiting the reality of other people is a tricky business, and
we do not tend to operate in a world in which we have a bunch of gods
to represent various perspectives anymore. Each “inner voice”
which is a part of an individual's consciousness is relatively
private. The only way that we can come to understand to some extent
the reality that another person operates in is through their relating
of their unique stories, feelings, and opinions. For me, the beauty
of writing has always been that it allows me an opportunity to help
others see what it is like to live in my skin and live with the
particular “voice” in my head. The beauty of reading is that it
permits me to gain a window into reality as others experience it.
The reason that humans have a rich tradition of story-telling
throughout history – a tradition which predates writing and started
with handing down stories orally – is that
most of us value this
sort of perspective broadening. Though we often want to negate the
experiences of others when they do not synchronize with ours, I
believe on some level that we are seeking to know their reality. We
want to know what secrets go on behind the eyes of other people
because they will confirm something about what goes on behind ours.
If you ever wondered why people in Japan read Japan blogs when
they already have firsthand experience, and, indeed, some who believe
they have seen and know it all read most vociferously (and argue), it's because somewhere in their smug
complacency, they know someone has had some unique experiences that
they have not. They want to know them, even while saying they don't
need to. I feel that we all need to be open to reading about the
experiences of others, especially when they come from someone who
lives in a “skin” which is very different from our own. You can't
fully understand what it is to be another person or to do the work
they do with the people they do it with, but you can at least get a
taste.
To that end, I want to talk about Baye McNeil's second book. It's
a book that I've already read twice. In fact, I edited his book for
him because I respect his talent and story-telling ability so much
that I wanted to be a part of his growing career as a writer. If you
read his first book, you know that he is an energetic, entertaining,
and humanistic wordsmith who has lived a life in Japan which few of mainstream Japan bloggers have lived – and that none have written about so
well. There are bloggers and there are writers and,
as I've said before, Baye is a
writer.
Baye's second book is rather different from
his first in that it
is focused more upon the people of Yokohama and his anecdotes from
his time with them. It contains multiple slices of his life that come
together to form a tasty “cake” with delicious nuggets that
sometimes shock and often delight. You'll be reading along and you'll
bite into a chapter and be surprised at that spicy little tidbit
hidden in the fluffy content. You'll find something bitter that
shocks you, or something super sweet which warms your heart.
I lived in Japan for 23 years, and had a lot of experiences during
that time. You might think that I saw and lived it all, but there is
very little overlap between Baye's life there and mine. In terms of
the types of people he has met, the relationships he has had with
them, the places he has been, and the things that he has done, we
have little in common aside from our sensitivity, astute observational skills, and desire to analyze and understand and to grow from our experiences.
The only thing we have in common in terms of
our Japan experiences is a general experience with prejudice, and
even then, beyond the oh-so-common “empty seat”, there is a
marked difference in how each of us encountered bigotry in Japan.
This book was engaging to me despite my vast base of knowledge and
experience because, I did not work where he has worked and certainly
did not have the experiences with (frankly, somewhat scary) children
that he has had. And, rather obviously, I'm not a black man. That does make quite a difference in how you are related to by the Japanese. If his stories are “cake”, then mine are “pie”.
They're both sweet, but the texture and substance are quite
different.
Comparing his book to a confection is actually somewhat inaccurate
as it may imply that it lacks weight or heft. I will say that it is
not nearly as much about self-revelation as his first book, but that
would be impossible given how personal it was. His second effort is
as much or more about Japan and the Japanese people than about Baye,
but it is a perspective on them that only Baye possesses. It is his
inner voice, or "personal god" if you like, and the only way you can also hear it is through his
stories. It's a voice worth hearing, and I hope that my readers will
consider listening.
Posts
