[E:7] 1993 April 18 to 21: Beginning of the end of the project finding myself ~ Lessons from the re-starting ~

(Pre-proofread version)
日本語版はこちら(Japanese version is here)
http://cycle93oz.takeshitakama.com/2013/12/j8.html

When I listen to a particular song, I remember days I have listened the song which was my theme song in those days. Before coming to Australia, I could not speak and listen English at all. So, when I use an English song as my theme song, the content of the lyric often does not fit in my activities. For example, if I hear the "Call It Love" by POCO, I remember days reading a macho novel such as "a whistle will sound before long and then our youth ends (Yagete fue ga nari bokura no seishun ga owaru)" and, just running in the winter of the second year at the swimming club in my high school.

When I listen to "Just Like Starting Over" by John Lennon, I remember the days of the fresh start from Sydney, so it must have been the theme song at that time. When I was riding a bike, I was thinking about crap generally. I think I am a human mathematical and logical but, I remember the important things until die in sound and image. I may not remember whether I brushed my teeth in this morning, but I can recall old things endlessly when I look at the pictures and listen to the music of those days. After I entered the university, I figured out that this can be used for examinations at the university and my performance rapidly improved. I talk about this study method in another opportunity; I get back to the story about the east coast of Australia 20 years ago.


From Sydney to Raymond Terrace, I had only the worst memories. I do not like to be in big cities because it may be I am a countryside-grew-up.  To come to Tokyo and London I am thrilled as hick, but medium cities like Stockholm are my better taste, and a town size up to Oxford, Iki island of my wife's home town, and Bali's suburb where I live now are within my comfort zone. In particular, to move in and out of the large cities such as Sydney by bicycle is a nightmare. To exit the Sydney by bicycle, I have to: 1) go through normal roads that are disturbed by the traffic and signal while abrading brakes, 2) run the shoulder of highways in a cold sweat, or 3) skip those nasty things quickly by getting on a train. I have experienced 1) in the last time and it was very uncomfortable. As can be seen from the accident of a road train, 2) is not safe. As a fear becoming trauma comes to revive if I look at a track in particular, it was not an option for me. In addition, I could not think about riding three days while remembering the unpleasant memories of trauma, so I decided to go with a train piling my new bike to Newcastle where I have already been by my last bicycle that I brought from Japan and was "Starting Over" from there.

On the same day, and I was able to go beyond Raymond Terrace somehow. I wanted to go beyond the accident site on the same day absolutely. Repairing a carrier one of whose bolt came out took time, so I use up all of my energy at a little vacant lot of a roadside called the fireplace. This is the first sleep beneath the open sky becoming the mainstream of the journey in Australia from now on. The wound on my back had not healed yet and my lazy life in Sydney for nearly 2 weeks caused this sluggish progress on the first day, I think. Day 3 and Day 2 were worse still. The second day was lingering as I experienced the first flat tire, but I ran 100 kilometres somehow. As 20-year-old-i wrote, I went to bed without doing what should have done. It may because I may want to catch up my delay due to the accident; I had ridden my bicycle 120 kilometres that was beyond my limits of that time on the third day. Indeed, I did not have enough water and a police car came in while I become dizzy due to dehydration and I was questioned by a policeman. I was not in the situation continuing to pedal a bicycle. It might be OK if camping out on the spot, but there is no water. He said it would be 14 km when I asked about the distance to the next town.

Police officers are adamant to send me to the next town. I refused to get on a patrol car; I said "all right, I go on my own" in halting English while becoming dizzy. However, I decided to get in a police car at the end and went to Kempsey 14 kilometres away from there. Immediately, it became no longer a round Australia trip completely by a bicycle, but I think it was good. 20-year-old-i also wrote like this.

"It became no longer round Australia trip completely by a bicycle, but I feel I found something more important."

It might be a postscript, but 40-year-old-I try to speak about this. In the matter of the road train accident, I was convinced that there was a death. And I began to take a safe side to some extent. This has become a useful strategy to cross a desert and to enjoy life. And, I think that experiences of getting on this police car and having the accident are the beginning of the end of the project looking for myself "implementing without compromising my plan."

I read a book "Luck is no accident" written by Prof. Krumboltz of Stanford University much later after this trip in Australia. Before the accident, I was a commander of the Japanese Army in World War II who "do not think of withdrawal without calculating calmly the possibility of losing the war to the United States." I do not justify neither the atomic bomb, nor carpet bombing to the general public, but if there was no event like that, the Japanese might have in full fling to one hundred million suicidal.

For me, I think the accident run over by a truck saved me from the path of honourable suicidal defeat. If I have a chance to survive, I will be flexible to catch a chance. To keep plugging away is important, but to live a happy life and survive, it is also important to have a wide viewpoint to catch a chance. To get anything done, it is necessary to go forward thoroughly the way that you believe. However, I want to have at least a broader viewpoint. For me, "diligence" is an absolute justice. Although I have not had a conclusion if "to live in flexible" is a right thing, I think I have lived like this as a fact since the accident. It just shows the results as "I am ..." in the positive economics, but I am not possible to affirm this like "I should be ..." in the normative economics.

When I who was minors presented my bicycle travel plan of Australia to my parents, my father opposed my travel plans at first and said "In the future, will you be a battlefield photographer!" However, 20-year-old-i did not become so in his future. I expanded the field of my view, went to New Zealand after knowing the needs for education and English, went to Oxford by listening the words of my Kenyan master, and came to Indonesia as there is an invitation from Japan.

A plan "to go vertically through Africa by 30" that I made in my high school days did not happen, but it does not matter now. After Australia, I have never been to myself that I thought I become is five years time. However, I only has advanced it steadily hard everyday. I try not make a wall in myself and live also in flexible if there is a chance. This might be a reason to emerge my "loose character" now.

I heard from my wife that my father said such a thing to her during his lifetime.

"He may look like that, but Takeshi is okay because he is progressing well in his life with dexterity."