Like the discussion so far! I’m not sure Charlie’s thoughts are necessarily an explicit moral for the story, though. It’s just how things worked out for him. I do kind of agree with him. Like @Iwasneverhere, I’ve had many experiences where attaining something left me feeling a bit empty. However, these were usually things that could be purchased or achieved through simple means. On the other hand, completing things that were dear to me and involved a lot of thought / effort left me not just more satisfied in the moment, but enthused to do the same sort of thing again - not that that motivation necessarily always lasted… (I guess I’m answering @Snowflying’s Q3 here.)
The story actually reminded me of a Flaming Lips song about two people climbing a mountain looking for gold (see below if you’re interested). Not exactly the same and the song has a very different and more uplifting conclusion.
For Snowflying’s Q2, I guess the standard things would be measurable achievements like graduating, finding a job, romantic partner, having kids etc. However, what it is that Charlie’s machine uses as information is far harder to imagine. A wedding would usually be considered a happy occasion, but equally a couple could have been forced into a marriage by an unwanted pregnancy or parental pressure - only they would know. If the machine is basing things purely on someone’s psychological state, then that’s very hard to measure. As mentioned above, it’s easy to be left feeling a bit empty while outwardly achieving something positive, while at the same time sometimes something as simple as eating a delicious meal on a lovely day can fill you with more satisfaction than it has any right to.
One thing I thought about while reading was this: how does Charlie know his machine worked? The big achievement would be if it can predict the future. Only by allowing his life to descend from that point would the machine be proved correct, but if his life didn’t get worse the machine would be wrong - but then he might be unhappy because his big plan had failed, which would prove the machine right, which would make him happy, which would…I’m sure you see where I’m going. Kind of a paradox.
Although I understand what you are trying to say, the story doesn’t say anything about prohibitive about achieving one’s life’s goals. I does say that people are happiest when pursuing their dreams and when their dreams have been realized, the happiness that went along with those dreams go away. Based on this statement, if one always has a new dream to fulfill, there should never be a shortage of happiness, right? If anything the story points to the importance of not putting all of one’s eggs into one basket.
傍から見れば, which basically means observing from the perspective of being a third party.
申し分のない, which means ideal, everything being perfect, etc.
For both of these I wasn’t sharp enough to deduce these meanings, but I did look them up in the dictionary. The discussion on discord only confirmed that my interpretations based on the definitions were correct.
Personal accomplishments, relationships, life milestones, personal losses, tragedies, to name a few.
Yes that’s how I interpreted. See above.
I somewhat agree with this conclusion. Rather than saying dreams, I believe that one’s dreams can be a source of their purpose in life. If one doesn’t seek to fulfill their life’s purpose, they will be unhappy. I don’t think one’s purpose can be reduced to a single dream (or goal), but a person can mistakenly believe that that single dream (or goal) was their sole purpose or meaning in life. Perhaps in Charlie’s he wasn’t really looking to think beyond creating that pointless happiness contraption.
I agree with that, BUT in the current scenario, the main character does not recover from accomplishing that dream, and I didn’t see any extra message saying that it was because he was too short sighted to find something else (or keep pushing on the current project). All the story says is “he accomplished his life-long dream, and was sad ever after”. That does seem to imply that accomplishing his dream was a bad idea.
I don’t think it would explicitly measure life events. Based on the description of what he had to focus on to make the machine (genetics, astronomy, …), I feel it’s kind of a big data approach, where he feeds everything he can inside, then magic deep neural networks happen, and voila, you have a graph.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I got from the story. See my previous messages for what I think of it.
First of all, it doesn’t say that. The story said that according to his invention, it is projected that he won’t be happy anymore. And Charlie accepted this. After which, the narrator speaks in general saying that people, after they achieve their dreams, lose the happiness that goes along with chasing that dream. In order to make the conclusion that Charlie accomplishing his dream was a bad idea you have to make the assumption that the machine Charlie built could really predict the future. (But we don’t know if the machine actually works because the story ends before its confirmed that Charlie really is unhappy for the rest of his life). Even if the machine really does tell the future, we don’t know how much longer Charlie lives after finding out that his happiness goes to nothing. Maybe he gets hit by a car two days after seeing the results and dies while he’s still brooding over the results. Or perhaps he lives for 30 more years in misery, we don’t know. It’s a little much to presume that he doesn’t recover because it’s all implied that the invention works and that he is unable to develop a new dream.
For this reason, the most that can be implied is that despite Charlie being a genius, who had it easier than most, he really is a fool to believe the results of a fortune-telling machine that he built himself. Like I said before, I understand where you are coming from, I choose to disagree.
Yeah, that pretty much sums up my opinion too. I guess our difference in opinion is mostly due to how we fill the blanks left by the story, and as such it will remain undecidable.
Just thought I’d mention, having read this week’s stories, I think I’ll go for たどり着けない星 as this week’s focus. It’s the shortest of the three, but I also found it the most difficult as well as the one with the most potential for discussion.
I did find the zoo story scenario pretty amusing, but there’s not really much to discuss there beyond what actually happened. Maybe which animal would you choose to impersonate…? Seems a bit of a comedown after the last discussion.
For 空席, I’m wondering if it missed something big? Because this story didn’t seem as impactful compared to the previous stories.
So basically this guy is super excited to see this musical performance, and he has this luxury seat, but he sees and old man and an empty seat next to him which are also deluxe seats. And the man tells him the seat is empty because his wife died two days ago(or something) and that he knows no one else will take the ticket from his family because they are all at the funeral and then he becomes filled with delight as the shows starts. Is the big shocker thing that he didn’t seem too mournful of his wife’s death? Or is there something I’m missing?
I think you have it. I think the ‘twist’ is that it seems he’s attending as a kind of last respect to his wife, and it all seems very touching, when in actual fact he’s skipping her funeral for his own enjoyment.
I don’t know, that was a big twist for me. Especially the fact that he chose to come to the concert instead of attending his wife’s funeral with their friends and family.
It’s also “funny” after all the angry overthinking from the other character on how that old man may not really like music after all
Okay, I see guys. I guess I just wasn’t getting the “Aww that’s so touching he’s still going in order to honor his wife”. I was kind of seeing his attitude as “Well the seat is empty because the owner didn’t come , she’s my wife, she’s died, and her funeral was today.”
But I see why the twist is more of a twist if you’re thinking of it as touching before it happens. Probably my own mistake for misreading the atmosphere.
To be honest thought the two characters in this story were pieces of crap. For the young man, I thought he was a horrible person for asking unnecessary questions and getting angry that anything in this world was less important than watching some show. For the old man, because he thought watching a show was more important than his family. And to be quite honest, (assuming it was set somewhere in the West) he probably had the choice to set the funeral a different day if he wanted to go to the show. So, I didn’t really understand that situation whatsoever.
So I don’t think you misread the atmosphere if you found the situation puzzling/disturbing. I think the twist was this event was so well anticipated, even this old man skipped his wife’s funeral to go watch it.
Is… Is it a meta unexpected conclusion? It’s so much like what we would expect that we actually didn’t see it coming?
(As @Iwasneverhere said, 100% saw it coming though…)
So, question time for たどり着けない星. I took it along to read with my teacher earlier this week, by the way, so I’m pretty sure I have a very clear idea of the whole thing if anyone needs any help.
Q.1 The advances in technology made by the two nations in the story are said to have come about as a direct consequence of their rivalry. To what extent would you be willing to sacrifice friendly relations with a neighbouring country in exchange for technological advancement?
Q.2 What was your impression of the professor and his character? Did you feel reading about him revealed anything about the wider world of the story? What (if anything) about the Japanese used by / about him influenced your opinions?
Q.3 After the boy asks his question there is a シーン of silence. What do you think the other attendees are thinking? Has he finally voiced the question they’ve all been wanting to ask for years? Or do they disapprove of him? How do you think everyone will react after the initial moment of shock has passed?
Q.4 Did you see any parallels between this story and any real world (current or historical) events? Do you think this was deliberate?
None. While the rivalry has pushed them to develop space travel very quickly,
They both developed the similar technology in parallel, which is a wast of time and resource.
Based on what happened during the cold war, that push probably came at the expense of investment in OTHER important areas, such as public infrastructures (schools, hospitals, …), research in topics that where not “hot”, and the like.
He sounded pompous and full of himself. His speech also sounded more like propaganda than actual science (but it was not related in enough details to know for sure). It makes sense, though, since the People has to be satisfied with the space program.
I think they are mostly shocked he would ask about it. Since their government’s propaganda is probably going full throttle, no one “in their right mind” should ever want to have anything to do with the neighboring country. Once the shock is passed, I guess reactions would be overwhelmingly negative. Even people who actually agree with him would probably voice a negative opinion all the same to not become a target. (Again, we can look at what happened during the cold war).
I think I mentioned it twice already, but yeah, that’s pretty much what happened between the USA and the USSR during the cold war. I can’t believe it’s not on purpose, but I don’t know for sure. (I could try to google the story/author to check, buuuut…)
I wouldn’t be willing. Fear is one hell of a motivator. And as Nath said, the money spent on some pointless pissing match affects all aspects of society because the inappropriate allocation of funds.
Haughty. It kind of reminds me of the attitude of those who are blindly nationalistic. Yes it points to any so-called leader’s weak-point of not properly assessing themselves. The narrator describes him as the 宇宙開発の第一人者 for their country, which I construed as someone who really believes that they are doing something for their nation. Then when it came to his announcement the narrator say that he announces 意気揚揚と, which I construed as though he found the key to all problems they were having. That coupled with the ending I feel influenced my opinion about the professor.
I think the silence was like a “damn, he has a point” moment. I’m not sure if everybody else was thinking the same thing, but I’m sure other had had that thought in the past. I’m also sure there were people who were as gung-ho as the professor who felt the boy might have oversimplified everything. I’m sure after that moment, all kinds of chaos ensued.
Yes, I immediately thought about the Cold War between the US and the USSR. However, I don’t think that’s the only parallel in the real world. Since I don’t know when this story was written, I can’t tell whether it was deliberate, but it does seem like it was inspired by real-world events.
I think the other two pretty much said it. Not only that, I think it’s as easy as deciding to sacrifice relations with another country, I think it’s just kind of happens. So It’s hard for me to say because I don’t anyone could really be present with such a choice.
From what I remember(I don’t remember what kind of Japanese was used), but from what I remember He just seemed like an arrogant person that feed off people paying attention to and praising him.
I also think here lucas and nath pretty much said what I wanted to say and I don’t really have much to add.
Same as 3.
So for this weeks story, I was kind of confused of the message they were trying to tell?
for Fate It seems that the boy went on a trip and a devil got attached to him so experience a series of encounters with bad luck that almost took his life so he stays at home and only eats the food he grows sp that he is not poised. And he decided to like this life until death, but the fact that he lived like this made him have a longer life because it was so healthy? Or is the irony on the devil because it tried to kill this boy because of these failed attempts he ended up living a long life? I dunno but if he didn’t like his life he should have just ate the poison.
And for after the rain, The young lord mistakenly thought they liked to eat moss because he say a villager eating moss. (still the villager said it was as a last resort so I’m not sure where he got this impression from.) But since the young lord is so nice I’m sure they could just clear up that they don’t eat moss and need real food and he would probably give it to them… So I felt that the shock value of the story was really low. Unless I’m missing something here.
So yeah, Unless it’s my own misunderstanding, I have to say I think the quality of the endings are dropping. For this week at least. I honestly don’t care for either of these stories… Which should I pick for discussion?
As for Fate, the main character does not know for sure what the fortune teller was trying to tell him. For all we know, HE is a demon in human form and just does not know it. But anyway, he just decided that it meant he was cursed and followed by death and misfortune. However, he didn’t want to die, so he started going out of his way to avoid dangerous situations: not traveling, not even going out anymore, etc. just so that he could extend his life a little bit. The twist is that he’s been doing that for more than 80 years…
If I was him, I might have been affected for a few months, but I would definitely go back to normal after a while.
For after the rain, that’s also how I understood it. I feel a better twist would have been for the young lord to be actually cruel, and force them to eat the moss…
Hey guys, just fyi, I am way more busy than I predicted moving and setting up in a new place so I will not be able to be a discussion leader. Sorry!!! Hopefully I will have some time to participate again soon!
she’s my wife, she’s died, and her funeral was today.”
