＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
Everyone knows “Tsurezuregusa,” a collection of essays by Yoshida Kenko (1283?-1352?), a recluse, government official, poet, essayist, and man of great influence who was active from the end of the Kamakura period through to the Nanboku-cho period.
By the way, I’ve always wondered about the meaning of this “jodan（prologue)” part.
“I spent my days in leisure, sitting at my inkstone and writing down whatever trivial things came into my mind. It was as if I was going mad.”
1. The meaning of “Ayashiu koso mono kuru hoshi kere”
(1) Interpretation learned in school
When I learned it in high school, I remember being taught that it was interpreted as “something that makes you feel insane,” “something that makes you feel like you’re going crazy,” or “something that makes you feel strangely funny.” However, this interpretation never really resonated with me.
(2) My interpretation that I realized while writing my blog
However, since I started writing this blog in July 2018, I have noticed something about a variety of topics, from current affairs to life, work, and nature, based on my experience and knowledge up to now.
That is, things that were in my head vaguely and unorganized up until now can be organized by writing, linked to other things, new ideas can be born, and things that were chaotic can become clear.
And I feel like I’ve come to understand the world and the essence of things more clearly than ever before.
So, this is just my own interpretation, but I think he means “I’ve become able to see and understand the world so clearly that it’s scary,” or, more jokingly, “I can see the truth, the deeper meaning, and the hidden meaning of what’s going on in the world so clearly that it’s troubling me.” Or maybe he means, “As I continued writing, I got excited and started to feel strangely elated, as if I was ‘possessed by something,’ ‘as if a god had taken over me,’ or ‘I was in the zone'”?
In Tsurezuregusa, Yoshida Kenko on the one hand encourages seclusion, while on the other hand expounds on the way of life for commoners. At first glance this may seem contradictory, but perhaps he intended to provide commoners, for whom seclusion is the ideal but for whom it is not possible, with useful precepts and life lessons for living in this world.
As an aside, other literary diaries and essays compiled from the Heian through Kamakura periods also contain “prefaces” that are very similar to the “jodan” in Tsurezuregusa.
“When I was bored, I remembered trivial things, things I wish existed in the world. If only the evening had not been so dark and dreamy.” (Izumi Shikibu Collection)
“When I was bored, I told her trivial stories, past and present.” (Sanuki no Naishi Nikki)
“When I was bored, I wrote down trivial things.” (Tsutsumi Chunagon Monogatari)
However, these are sentences that express general modesty and humility.
In that sense, the line from “Tsurezuregusa” “Ayashiu koso monokuru hoshi kere” stands out for its straightforward expression of feelings and originality.
2. About Tsurezuregusa
“Tsurezuregusa” is one of the “Three Great Japanese Essays,” along with Sei Shonagon’s “The Pillow Book” and Kamo no Chomei’s “Hojoki.”
The currently accepted theory regarding the date of Tsurezuregusa’s creation is that “Kenko Hoshi compiled the writings he had been writing for many years, starting in his 40s, around 1349 (when he was around 66 years old).”
It is a 244-section essay that brings together thoughts, musings, impressions, and anecdotes gleaned from his own experiences.
It is something like a modern-day “miscellaneous blog.”
It went unnoticed for about 100 years after it was written. However, during the Muromachi period, the Rinzai sect poet monk Shotetsu (1381-1459) took notice of it and, in a “manuscript” he wrote himself, attributed the work to Kenko Hoshi and included a brief biography of Kenko.
This spread to Shotetsu’s disciples, the poets and linked verse poets, who seemed to sympathize with it as “an excellent essay with an underlying view of impermanence” during the Onin War.
こころ彩る徒然草 兼好さんと、お茶をいっぷく [ 木村耕一 ]
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