If you study the Peak Oil predicament and all associated global issues with an open mind, it's bound to change your thinking. It did mine, the 5 or so years that I've been looking at it. After reading widely I've travelled through a tunnel and out the other side (like Alice in Wonderland?). It made me ask philosophical questions such as: What does it mean to survive, given that we're all going to die anyway? What makes it more important for me and mine to survive, given that everyone is equal? What does 'surviving' mean, beyond merely existing? The upshot is that Peak Oil is no longer the be and end all of my living.
Nevertheless, I have chosen to relocate to Japan from New Zealand. I've decided to leave a country that, by most measures, is a highly desirable location. It may, therefore, be informative for others to read what has prompted my move, so here's a rough and ready list of a dozen reasons:
- Comparison of countries: I have accumulated several years' worth of experience in Japan - enough to be able to compare countries and decide what I prefer. Unless you build up a knowledge of different grasses, the grass under your feet is always the greener devil.
- Feeling at home: It may just be me, but I have never felt particularly 'at home' in NZ. My best friends were always friends from other cultures and ethnic groups. I'm not a typical Kiwi, and I've always felt more comfortable in places like India, Japan and Europe.
- Climate: This one is a biggie. I've clocked up several decades in Dunedin, and the verdict is out. It isn't warm enough to live there without power. Sorry Dunedinites, but there are simply too many months of the year when the weather is miserable. Some years, there's not even a summer.
- Family connections: My wife is Japanese, and her twin sister lives near her parents whose only grandchild is our daughter. I get along well with them.
- Rural Japan has an eco-village style living arrangement: My wife an I had thought about joining an eco-village in NZ, but if that way if living is already largely established and practiced in rural communities, why re-invent the wheel?
- A history of sustainability: Edo-era Japan was one of the few sustainable communities that have ever operated in the world. I can see that way of life returning here without causing too much social upheaval.
- Psyche of the people, cooperation and working for the group: The Japanese are famous for pulling together and working as a group. Think how they would get behind the Transition Town movement once the need to practice such a lifestyle becomes known. No population of gun owners with a sense of paranoia and entitlement.
- Agricultural base: The country is deeply-rooted to the land. Away from the cities (and even sometimes within them) almost everyone has a garden.
- A population that is reducing: It is true that the government like governments everywhere is trying to get people to increase the population for economic reasons. But the people know better. In another ten years the population will have fallen substantially.
- Zen mentality: I feel in tune with a cultures that infuses literature, flower arranging, sumo, calligraphy - in fact almost any activity - with a spirit of reverence and contemplation.
- Being able to be myself: According to Rita Golden Gelman in her book, Tales of a Female Nomad:
Once I leave [my country], I am not bound by the rules of my culture. And when I
am a foreigner in anther country, I am exempt from the local rules. This
extraordinary situation means that there are no rules in my life. I am free to
live by the standards and ieals and rules I create for myself. - Midlife crisis? Yes, it's true that I'm middle aged. Yes, it's true that there is a crisis looming. And no, I'm not done living, and I do enjoy a change and a challenge. Bring 'whatever may be may be' on.
Finally, I feel that Dunedin was hacked by the powers-that-be against the people's wishes to invest hugely in a monstous new stadium. I don't want any part of that; it was the straw that broke this camel's back. Sayonara, baby.
