Towards a year of kindness

What I learned from Tokyo Story

On Boxing Day, for the first time in far too long, we went to see a movie, in a theatre, on a giant screen. That is the way that motion pictures should be experienced. A phone, or laptop, or LCD screen are not the same.

Tokyo Story was released three years before I was born, but feels as relevant as anything being made today. This film, by Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu, tells the story of a family, an ordinary family. The parents come from their rural home to visit their adult children in Tokyo. It sounds simple, but really it’s complex and leaves you thinking about it days later. The characters are complex, and contradictory, and not black and white.

Watching the interactions between the members of the Hirayama family, I find myself thinking about my own family history of course, but also about the larger world around us.

The wars in Gaza and Ukraine sadden me greatly, as do the conflicts in other nations. The seeming inevitability of a civil war or a fascist regime in the US, and the equal likelihood that Canada will elect a government that - like those in Ontario and Alberta - will happily bend to whatever Trump demands, is something that worries me greatly.

Beyond that, when I look at the technological universe that seems to rule every part of our daily lives, and the rush to force AI into every part of that universe, it leaves me - someone who has embraced and often mastered decades of computer technology - wanting to abandon my smartphone, and laptop, and the bizarre apps that live in the dashboard of our Mazda.

With all of the international battles and changes, and after a year of seemingly endless health scares, and with a global decision to do nothing at all to try and halt global warming, it feels like a time when we might all benefit from less technology, not more, and especially from less on-line media, and less of the inflammatory garbage that passes for “news” today.

What I’m going to suggest is that you leave your phone at home tonight, and instead go and see a real movie, on a big screen, with a crowd of other people. If you can, find a film that was made before CGI, when the things you are watching actually happened in real life, without computer animation.

Or see a play, with live people on a real stage. Or sit in a bar, with a cool drink, and talk to whoever sits down next you you.

Or just sit on a park bench, and watch the people that walk by: how they stand, how they talk, how happy or sad they appear.

Feel a connection.

Because that is the one big change that happened during and after COVID: we forgot how to relate to each other as human beings.

Leave the car parked at home, and walk where you’re going. Or just walk in any direction without a plan.

Look in windows and imagine what people are doing. Stop in little shops and just explore what they sell. Stop for a coffee and a piece of cake.

Visit your local library and take out a real, printed book. Read something new to you; a romance or some history. Take an hour or two without TV or radio or podcasts, and just sit in a comfy chair and read without interruption. Sink into the words.

And stop reading the news over and over each day. There was a time when the news came once a day, in a newspaper, and when you had read that, you were done. It didn’t consume your entire life, and every minute of every day.

Think about un-subscribing from most of on-line. Do you really need Facebook, and Twitter, and BlueSky, and Instagram, and TikTok? Could you be more happy with just one of those?

For myself, I’m choosing next year to try and let most of the news pass me by. I know that the US, and likely Canada, are going to hell in a hand-basket. I know that the Israelis are going to continue to slaughter the people of Gaza. I know that Russia will continue try and take over as much of Europe as possible.

And I know that the insanely wealthy oligarcs will find ways to amass even more wealth from each of these disasters.

I don’t need to read the front page of the New York Times. I don’t need Facebook to feed me AI generated friends. I don’t need Spotify to feed me AI generated music mixes.

Instead I’m going to concentrate on my own writing, and on connecting with other writers, and on finally building, or rebuilding, family connections.

Part of this year has been about delving deeper and deeper into my own family history, and although some of it is very troubling, it also reminds me that these connections matter greatly.

And part of looking at our history means that I’m also looking at my own past, and the things that I’ve said and done.

Ultimately I am powerless to change the horrible things happening in the world around me, but I can try doubly hard to fix some of the things in my own life, and the lives of those that I care about.

And, like I learned watching Tokyo Story, to do that before it is too late.

None of this is necessarily negative. Part of my plan, and part of what I’ve found in recent months, is that by putting aside the negative I can find more room for those things that bring me peace, and happiness, and joy.

Just as walking around this city lets me explore it on a more granular and intimate level than can ever happen while driving, it’s true that by slowing down in life you make space for new and wonderful things to find you.

So yes, I am choosing to reject the things that make the world horrid, at least for a while, and instead to bring close to me the things that make my world a place of happiness and peace.