I'm living in the future

We crossed the International Date Line two days ago and are now 14 hours ahead of the eastern U.S. In less than 48 hours we’ll be in Yokohama, Japan and I’m so excited. Michael and I do not have full plans on what we intend to do once we get there but we have a general idea. My friend Sean who lives close to Yokohama will be meeting Michael, our friend Andrew (who prefers to be called by his last name ‘Hua’), and I at the port. From there we will be taking a train to Tokyo where we will check in to the ‘b Roppongi’ hotel. After that, who knows? Tokyo is a ridiculously large city so we should have no problem finding something to do. We’ve talked about visiting a few strange stores, seeing a Japanese rock concert, and of eating plenty of food. After our 2 ½ days in Tokyo, Michael and I will be taking a train to Kobe to get back to the ship in time for the departure of our group trip to Kyoto & Nara. Things are moving quickly now. After many monotonous days at sea we’ll be traveling through Asia with only a few day of rest in between each country.

I am enjoying my classes. The two linguistics classes I am taking (Languages of the world and The history of the English language) are interesting though I find the latter more interesting because it has more depth. I was hoping we would look closely at the syntax and grammar of the various languages we’ll be encountering but so far the teacher has said very little about them. I’ve always been interested in the development of English and how it was influenced by events such as the Normal Conquest and the text book for the class details all of that magnificently. The Global studies class that the entire student body attends is also interesting. Every day two faculty members speak for 35 minutes each on various topics related to the countries we will be visiting. For instance, one day this past week we heard lectures on the Kobe earthquake in 1995 and the karaoke phenomena in Japan. At the end of the lectures two Japanese students who are traveling from Hawai’i to Japan with us spoke a little about their experiences during the Kobe earthquake.

The Philosophy class I am taking is probably my favorite though. The professor is excellent and the texts we are reading are interesting. We started with Pascal’s Pensees in which he argues that humanity is perpetually unhappy because we can neither find our place in nature nor avoid death. As a result we divert ourselves from these vexing questions with entertainment, customs, traditions, and other ultimately useless things. Pascal felt that reason and science could never help us answers the fundamental questions that make us unhappy and that the only way we could ever feel content is through the grace of God (such as a mystical experience). However, Pascal denied that religion could help us any more than science, so in effect we are doomed to a life of misery unless God decides to grace us with a mystical insight into the nature of the world. For Pascal then the best one can do is hope to be graced by God and in the mean time live a moral life. While his argument is essentially a defense of the fundamental ideas of Christianity (e.g. original sin, Jesus Christ as savior) our class is focusing on his ideas about the inadequacy of reason and the contradictions in human nature.

I certainly don’t agree with most of what Pascal wrote though I find it very intriguing that he went from being the greatest mathematical and scientific mind of his time (he discovered probability theory, binary computation, and invented the first automatic counting device - a precursor to the modern computer) to being a religious ascetic after a mystical experience that he called a ‘night of fire’. After that experience he ceased all work in mathematics and science and instead focused the remainder of his life on theological and philosophical issues. He felt that charity was extremely important and he died somewhat young as a result: After taking in poor people suffering from smallpox and tuberculosis he succumbed to the latter disease at the age of 39. We’ve begun reading Spinoza’s A Theologico-Political Treatise in which he discusses how theologians and politicians use religion and superstition to manipulate people and that religion, stripped to its bare essentials, consists of simple piety. Spinoza has always been one of my favorite philosophers, I consider his Ethics to be one of the greatest philosophical works of the western world. An excerpt from the text I am currently reading for class demonstrates his brilliance: […] faith has become a mere compound of credulity and prejudices which degrade man from rational being to beast, which completely stifle the power of judgment between true and false, which seem, in fact, carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the last spark of reason! You can imagine the reception his work must have received when it was published in 1670. He too anticipated trouble so he had it published anonymously.

Besides the four classes I am taking there is not much to do on the ship. We’ve entered slightly rougher waters today but it hasn’t made me feel seasick. In fact I was only slightly seasick for the first few days on board, but it was never more than a slight feeling of dizziness and queasiness. I’ve been watching a lot of movies and TV shows that Michael and I brought with us to help pass the time. We played a four hour long Monopoly game one night with friends that ended when I landed on the Free Parking and received $5,000 (we were playing with modified rules in which any money that normally goes to the bank instead goes to Free Parking and is awarded to the first person who lands on it). Last night at 10 P.M. Michael and I went up to the 7^th deck to look at the stars. The crew turned the lights off on the front of the ship and the sky was full of stars, it was impressive. That’s all I have to say for now. The hotel we’ll be staying at in Tokyo has free internet access so I will upload pictures and maybe a few videos since the internet connection on the ship is very slow. I’ll talk to you soon.