Silence

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:29:31 GMT

I'd finished reading Shusaku Endo's Silence near the end of the previous week, which I started maybe a week or so before then. It's a book I'd owned for a while now but hadn't really taken much thought about what's within its covers till recently. As I'd taken greater interest in things related to Japan, I thought it seemed appropriate to read a seemingly well-known Japanese author. I was surprised by how much it registered with where I've been at in my life, barring anything especially cultural.

Concerning what resonated the most with me from the book, it had to do with Rodrigues' honest voyage to understand what he believed. Very often, it involved him addressing ways of thinking that were outrightly contrary to the things he previously understood to be true. The different situations he was put through while in Japan became a testing ground for him. Though nothing obscenely heretical or what have you, the views he found himself wrestling with the most had to do with how someone responds in the face of situations that pits the limits of humanity against something that requires something beyond them: a seemingly-divine silence. Enter the realm of the supernatural. At the end (and a spoiler for the end of the book, so don't read the rest of the sentence if you're wanting to read or are presently reading the book), Rodrigues underwent the "formality" that labeled him as an apostate in an event that ultimately resulted in the proving of his faith.

All that is not to suggest I've gone and apostatized, but I feel like I can say I've confronted ways of thinking over the course of this year that has forced me to re-evaluate my reasons for believing what I do. The result is a more genuine understanding towards what I do believe, yet also realizing how many things that get lumped alongside beliefs actually aren't, but are more like approaches, traditions, or even procedures. We tend not to question good-sounding motives or sayings, while allowing them to assume a power and authority not inherent to them.

I guess the reason I even take the time to share about this from the book is because it's left me seriously wondering about the type of things we regard as acceptable nowadays. How exactly can we pinpoint the rightness of a given disposition, or are these things merely the reality we've come to accept, on our own or as a sort of inheritance of beliefs? A cultivated attitude? This has very little to do with living in a culture without all of the "cues" common in one's home culture. Instead, it's the opposite, being about the subtle insulators that one's home culture can be towards how values and beliefs get shaped. It would seem there's too little time to really take a real step back when around a crowd that would not question/take account of easily-accepted ways. There should be more opportunities to gauge what one claims to be the truth.

What's the real standard we hold against what shapes and solidifies our views towards life and reality?

Seasons and motion: Books

Silence