2012/12/13＊Takuro
「December 13th (Thu)」
It’s cold everyday. It seems to be an especially chilly winter this year. Let’s be careful not to catch colds, yeah?
9mm’s been super busy with songwriting this December. It’s been a constant back-and-forth between the recording room and the sound booth. We’re pretty focused and coming out with great results. We might play some of them at the end-of-the-year show, or we may not. We’ve got a good feel for the songs we’ve written and performed live this year, so we’re feeling pretty good about that. When you’re performing songs in front of an audience, your perception about them changes as well.
The elections are coming up this weekend. It’s nothing special, but I thought I’d just write down my thoughts on it.
My two grandmas are now going in their 80’s and 90’s. I never got to meet my grandpas as they both passed away before I was born. I got to hear stories about the war from my grandmas when I was little. Even though I thought I was listening properly, I can’t recall those stories very well anymore. Maybe they were too difficult for a child to understand, or maybe I was just listening to them halfheartedly for a homework assignment. When the time comes that our grandmas’ generation is no longer here, Japan will have no more people who know the war. There will be no one left speaking about it from personal experience.
North Korea have fired a missile. The countries next to them, we’re in disagreement with over territorial disputes. There are people who are saying that these are problems that should be settled by armed forces. However, I refuse to partake in war; to kill and be killed by people from foreign countries. I have friends in both South Korea and China. Someone might say: “So, what? You’re just going to let Japan be invaded if it comes to war? I’m going to fight. You won’t fight even to defend your own country, your family? You coward.” That’s exactly right. If it comes to down to war, I will definitely not surrender. But I will not partake in war. Is that the same as not wanting to protect?
Isn’t it too late to start thinking about protecting your family once a war has already broken out? If you really had something you want to protect, you’d begin much earlier by not letting it escalate into violence. It’s not about governing your country or about picking your politicians — it’s about doing your job as an adult. I’m against partaking in war, but partaking in fighting war is something I must do. I can not support someone who is proactively trying to expose people important to me to danger. There’s no such thing as a person who never makes mistakes, but I think you can try to figure out the sorts of mistakes they might make — if only you just look carefully.
“Say, can we not prevent war just like we could a common cold?“
I think I’ll drop by the polling place next to our studio. Let’s all go. I wonder what kind of a Japan it’ll be next week?
