You’re absolutely right. My wife calls it ‘bonsai culture’, Japanese people ‘love’ nature, but only when it is rigidly controlled and presented in certain forms. Meanwhile, the dolphin hunts continue, animal experimentation for cosmetics is still the norm, Japanese zoos are the saddest places on earth, etc etc
However, on the other hand, it has to be said, that Japan is the only country in the world where natural forest cover is actually growing! Thanks to population decline and the abandonment of villages! So not all bad!
And I love your generous way of looking at today’s proverb, which demonstrates your own large and generous heart.
ooooooh that’s lovely I might steal that one at some point!
I re-read a few articles that were tangentially related to this, but i’ll have to check some more tomorrow. I don’t feel I have a real picture of how their ideas relate to our ‘bonsai culture’ yet. There’s some assumptions I made back when I first read these, which was before I started to learn japanese/study japanese history, that I don’t think were wrong per se, but could definitely use another closer pass now that I have a lot more context to work with.
I’m having a hard time exactly putting words to it, but thinking about these proverbs has definitely given me a lot to chew on. Definitely counts as not forgetting to do my 反省, though