#61- Pashinyan- The Other Side of the World

ՆԻԿՈԼ ՓԱՇԻՆՅԱՆ. ԵՐԿՐԻ ՀԱԿԱՌԱԿ ԿՈՂՄԸ
61. արարում եւ ծրագրավորում

Ես ինձ հայտնաբերեցի անծանոթ մի զուգարանակոնքի գրկում. սակեի չարաշահման հետեւանքներն էին: Երբ դուրս եկա իկեբանայի նմուշներ պատկերող սալիկներով այդ զուգարանից, ինձ ընդառաջ եկավ սեւ կիմոնոյով մի շատ սիրունատես կին.


The other side of the world


61. Creation and Programming

I found myself in a strange restroom, the result of too much Sake. When I came out of the bathroom I ran into a very beautiful woman in a black kimono:

“I’m the wife of Kikoutzi San. My name if Yukiko,” she said.

“I’m sorry I appear in your house in this condition,” I said and started walking directly to a door, which, I thought, was the exit door.

“No, No, where are you going?” Yukiko stopped me, realizing what I was planning to do, “I can’t let you go in this condition. I’ve prepared your bedroom. Kikoutzi San will be upset, too, if he wakes up and doesn’t see you here.”

Dawn was breaking already and my bed in the hotel seemed unreachable at that moment. So the temptation to sleep here and now became insurmountable. Yukiko San took me to a room where a bed had been prepared. She bid me goodnight and left. Butterflies collecting nectar from flowers had been embroidered on the shoulders of her kimono; these were large white butterflies.

I was embarrassed to look into Yukiko San’s eyes. At first I thought it was because of the way I looked. Later on I realized that there was something very pure radiating from this woman and I was afraid that I would cast a shadow on her purity. Yukiko San was one of those women with whom you could easily fall in love with the ardent love of an adolescent, to have great feelings, knowing full well that that feeling will forever remain in your heart, a secret that you won’t admit even to yourself. It’s the kind of love that can burst and crumple and can turn into hatred and disgust at your first contact with your loved one. It’s the kind of feeling which must only remain a dream, exclusively a dream; its realization would only be its death.

Kikoutzi San had in fact overcome this experience. This probably meant that he had met Yukiko San as an adult. That’s what turned out to be the case. They said they had come face to face in the hallways of Tokyo University and independently of each other they had thought: “I will marry this man (or woman.) And that had actually happened. Since then Yukiko San was seriously worried about her husband’s success in the creation of robots. She wasn’t excited by scientific and technological gains in that area, which, in her interpretation, would replace human contact. That’s what Yukiko San thought of television and the computer, and the anticipated creation of robots to serve people, especially people who were alone. And she was terrified that her husband was involved in that:

“I think that nothing causes greater satisfaction, nothing makes a person happier, as contact with other people. And it’s obvious that in the contemporary world people are in contact with each other with more and more difficulty, and join the mania of replacing human contact with technology. Can you imagine how horrible it is to have robots serve people who are alone? This means that you officially keep them from living in a human environment and do everything to stop its return,” Yukiko San said.

And the best approach to preserve the culture of human contact she thought, was the preservation of traditions, as for instance, the tea ceremony which, according to her, is the most beautiful form of human contact in Japan. Yukiko San had a winter garden in their large, 9th floor home with an enclosed space which she had prepared according to the traditions of Japanese tea enclosure. And that’s where she served tea to Kikoutzi San and me, to get us out of our stupor. Yukiko San prepared tea in a uniquely graceful way. She had a stove which she lit with coal and where she boiled water in a kettle. She served tea according to traditional rules, in old-fashioned cups made by Japanese masters, each one, one of its kind and irreproducible. It was very hard for me to sit the way they did, on cushions. But I kept trying and after a while I was able to.

Yukiko San was a history teacher and said that just as people now run away from tradition, sometime later they will run back to tradition.

Kikoutzi San had not told his wife about what had happened with the robots and suffered from that. He didn’t want Yukiko San to know about it but then he also didn’t want to have any secrets from her. That psychological dilemma had pushed him into his drunkenness. I didn’t know how he explained his absence at night to his wife. But there was no expression of nervousness, spite or scolding in Yukiko San’s eyes. The conversation between them would take place after I had left or had already taken place.

Yukiko San kept serving me tea in different cups and I was convinced that each one of those cups gave a unique flavor to the tea, and enriched it. Yukiko San kept talking about the tea ceremony, would ask my opinion on different subjects and compelled me to look into her eyes; there was such purity in those eyes.

At first Kikoutzi San was confused when he saw me in his wife’s winter garden, and couldn’t figure out who I was and how I had gotten to their house. When he did remember, he warned me not to say anything to Yukiko San about the robots. Kikoutzi joined our conversation and said that many people see the hand of the devil and anti-God elements in technological advances:

“In fact, man reveals that which the Almighty allows him to reveal,” she said and underlined that many people who are great scientists are believers and are convinced that they work under the aegis of the Almighty.

“Do you believe in the existence of the Almighty?” asked Yukiko San.

“Yes,” I answered.

“You are a Christian, aren’t you?” she wanted to clarify.

I answered in the positive and Yukiko San made a surprising confession:

“Buddhism, in my opinion, has an important flaw: it lacks the idea of God the Creator. It would be the same if Christianity didn’t have the Old Testament, that is, it didn’t explain how the universe came to be.”

“Are you interested in the Holy Bible?” I was surprised.

“Yes, it’s a professional interest. Don’t we all in some way create?” I was afraid to look at Yukiko San.

“Without shame you admit that you create anti-man,” Yukiko San said, distressed. Her husband pretended that he hadn’t heard the remark.

“And have you thought about how God created the world and people?” Kikoutzi San asked me, unexpectedly.

“What do you mean?” I didn’t understand.

“Well, it’s said that God created the earth and the heavens. But there is no description of the activities he undertook to create heaven and earth.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Look, let’s say that this kimono was made by such and such master. By saying that, we mean that the master picked up the fabric, tailored it, cut it, then embroidered it. And haven’t you thought about the specific actions the Almighty has taken to create the world?”

To be frank, this line of questioning was unexpected and I admitted that I hadn’t thought about it. Kikoutzi San wanted to know if he would be offending my religious sensibilities if he put a theory forth. I told him I was ready to hear his theory:

“You know, in the last years of my activities I’ve started thinking that the earth and everything that takes place on it, the universe in general, is like a computer program. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying a computer program, but something like it. In creating the earth, the Almighty sat down and wrote it like a computer program—but why a computer program, they also write literary creations. Let’s say there are two variants to erect a building on a field. One is to lay the foundations, raise the walls, put a ceiling, etc., which takes some time. Then there is another variant. You sit in front of a computer, or you take pen and paper and write: Once upon a time there was a field and in that field, a building. The rest is a matter of taste. You may write about the number of floors the building has, the color of the walls, and who lives in those building. If we look at all this from the point of view of creation and believe that God created the world in six days, ten it’s much easier to register the creation of the world in six day by computer or human or any other method, and describe what is in it, rather than do it physically.”

“You’re saying strange things, Kikoutzi San. So, none of us is real?’

“No, you didn’t get my point. It’s not that we are not real, but that there are different levels of reality. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about; I wanted to talk about methods of creation, about what specific methods God used to create the world. I’m almost convinced that it was done by a mixture of a computer program language and literary language. Man is equally a masterpiece, like Hamlet is a masterpiece, which is imaginary and real at the same time and to the same degree.”

That’s how our conversation ended because what Kikoutzi San was saying led you to reflect. And for reflection, you need to be alone.