Living with Purpose

山火事続いています

広いサンディエゴなので私達が住んでいる所ではまだ切羽詰まった危機感を感じてはいないのですが、ほとんどの学校が学級閉鎖になり、知り合いも避難し始めたりして気を許せない状態が続いています。 昨日もフリーウェイから火事が見えました。どうか一刻も早く鎮火しますように・・・

山火事

写真はウェブサイトからですが、今年も山火事が恐ろしいことになってます。
私が住んでる所は今のところ大丈夫です。

ドラえもんが観れなくなったのは・・・

ジャパンTVでオリジナル声優さんの一昔前のドラえもんが始まってから数ヶ月。

日本語教育にいいかな～とジェイクに見せるために録画し始めたのですが・・・

ドラえもんって、こんなにイライラする番組だったっけ？と思わずにはいられませんでした。

のびたのだらしなさにイライラ。

ジャイアンの威張りっぷりにイライラ。

スネオのお金の匂いたっぷりの子供らしくない発言にイライラ。

子供をこきつかい、びんたしまくるジャイアンのママにイライラ。

歳のせいなのか、異文化に長くいすぎて感覚がついていけなくなったのか・・・。　

ドラえもんの道具や未来の設定は面白いし、時々泣ける話もあるから大好きだったんだけどなー。

たまたまエピソードがイラつきやすいものだったのかもしれないけど。

アメリカでも最近いじめ問題が深刻化しているので、子供たちに与える影響について深く考えすぎて敏感になっているのも事実です。

大津市のいじめ問題についての記事が今多く掲載されていますが、大西広さんの意見がとても的をついていると思います。

大津市いじめ自殺事件、その後の不気味さ

http://ohnishi.livedoor.biz/archives/51339269.html

子供たちに正しく「競争」を体験させ教えないといじめもなくならない

http://agora-web.jp/archives/1473298.html

コンサバ？

パメちゃんが面白いメールをくれたので、コピペします。

Conservative Vs Liberal views:

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college.  Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed.  Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.  He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew.  She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.  Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?”  She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by.  All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA.  She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast.  She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.” Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0.  That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”    The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, “That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair!  I've worked really hard for my grades!  I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work!  Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree.  She played while I worked my tail off!” The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the conservative side of the fence.” If anyone has a better explanation of the difference between conservative and liberal or progressive or neocon I'm all ears. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you ever wondered what side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test! If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed. If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone. If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life. If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect. If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him. If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down. If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.  (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!) If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his. If a conservative reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh. A liberal will delete it because he's "offended." Well, I forwarded it to you. Pick one

 

スティーブ・ジョブスさんのスピーチ

 

Steve Jobs 2005 Commencement Speech I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parent’s garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance and Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.

スティーブ・ジョブスさんがアップルを辞めた時に、パメラが送ってくれました。　

彼の冥福をお祈りします。　

スティーブ・ジョブスさん

パメちゃんと彼のコメンスメント・スピーチの素晴らしさを語ったのはほんの一ヶ月半前。 アメリカってすごいって思わせる人物の一人でした。 本当に残念です。

＊＊＊追記＊＊＊

昨夜はiPhoneで書いてて、3行の短い投稿でした。

今朝のラジオでも、スティーブさんを追悼する内容のものばかりです。

ロジャー・ヘッジコックさんが、ドンピシャなことを言ってました。　

アメリカは、アイデアに対して、リスクを負うことに対して報酬を受けることのできる国だと。

スティーブさんがまさにその例ですね。

失敗をしてもいいんだという彼のスタンスが、常に斬新なアイデアを生み出していた基盤になっていたんだなぁ。　うん。　これからの私の生き方に彼のそんな要素を加えて生きて生きたい。

 

大停電

昨日サンディエゴは午後3時40分ごろから夜中の2時ごろまで大停電でした。　仕事中突然ブツっと電気が切れた音がしました。　私のPCはバックアップのバッテリーにつないであるので、ファイルは保存できたのですが、室内は薄暗くなり、電話もエアコンも停止しました。　携帯でサンノゼのオフィスに電話をしようと思ったのですが、つながりません。　数分待っても電気がつかないので、オフィスを閉めて早退することにしました。　ラジオで聞くと、サンディエゴカウンティ全体に影響が出た大停電とのこと。フリーウェイに乗るまで一時間かかり、ブンの実家に到着するまで2時間もかかってしまいました。　

サン・オノフレの原発が緊急停止したと聞いたときは、何事かと思いましたが、テロではなかったみたいです。140万世帯がこの影響を受けたとラジオで聞きました。911同時多発テロから10周年目になる直前なので、多くの人が不安な気持ちを抱いたまま眠りに着いたと思います。　

久々の停電で、電力がないとどれだけ不便かということを身にしみて感じた10時間でした。

しかも、今週のサンディエゴは本当に暑く、節電がどれだけ大変かということをしっかり学びました。

比べたら本当に失礼だとは思うのですが、正直に書くと、自分で経験して真っ先に考えたのは3月の震災後の東北の被災者の皆さんのことでした。

ジェイクも電気の無い不便さを学んだようです。　

ろうそくが灯る家の中はなんともいえない雰囲気だったけど・・・　やっぱり寝苦しい夜でした。

ところで、震災用の準備が全く出来ていないことに気付いたので、緊急時のバックパック、しっかりそろえることにしました。　電池を入れたのにラジオが聞けなかったのがショックでした・・・。

奪われてしまったもの

今日アマゾンで本のオーダーをしました。

 

先週末日曜日にABCのプライムタイムでダイアン・ソーヤーによる二時間のインタビュースペシャルが放映されました。　統計では約1500万人の視聴者という信じられない視聴率を出した番組でインタビューを受けたのは、二年前（2009年）の夏、性的犯罪者による18年間の監禁から奇跡的に救出された女性、ジェイシー・リー・デュガードさんでした。

その被害者であるジェイシーさんの本が出版され、水曜日に発売されました。　発売日初日で17万5000冊の売り上げだったそうです。　

自分が親になってからは、子供の虐待や誘拐・監禁事件に対しては本当に敏感になりました。　実は先日ジェイクが、もう少し大きくなったらスクールバスで学校通うよ！と言ったのですが、「ママとしてはスクールバスは避けたい」と思わず返答してしまいました。　過保護と思われてしまうかもしれませんが、個人的には今のところスクールバスに乗せることを拒否してます。　ジェイクが大きくなって状況が変わるかもしれませんが、できる限り息子たちが高校生になるまでは学校の送り迎えは、友人のご両親たちと協力してでも何とかしたいと思ってます。

なぜなら、アメリカだけでなくこういう誘拐事件は学校の登下校中に起こることが多い。　そして変質者が狙っているのは小さな女児だけでなく、中学生くらいの男の子だって被害者になるのです。　2002年に誘拐されたショーン・ホーンベック君は当時15歳で、約４年間も監禁されていました。

自分の息子たちがこういう被害を受けたら・・・と想像するだけで、殺意さえ感じる怒りが湧き出てくるのは、私だけではないでしょう。　

ジェイシーさんのインタビューでも泣きっぱなしだったので、自分の中に本を読めるだけの強い精神力が備わっているかどうかも疑問ですが、ジェイシーさんの強い意思を尊重して本を購入し彼女の社会活動に少しでも貢献したいと思っています。　ジェイシーさんが誘拐される前から、加害者のガリトーと私たち社会の闘いは始まっていたのです。　それはガリドーが20歳のときに14歳の少女に犯した性犯罪。　彼は信じられない皮肉な幸運により法の網をすり抜けてきましたが、やっと監獄されました。　ジェイシーさんが、社会的立場で成功を遂げ、彼女の伝えたい思いを世間に広く浸透させることが、ジェイシーさんを通して被害を受けた人たちの勝利のような気がします。　彼女たちが失った沢山の貴重なものへの償いになると信じています。　

11歳という大人になり始める思春期の貴重なときから18年間にも渡って奪われた時間は大きすぎます。監禁された後しばらくは全裸で手錠をかけられていたそうです。そんな彼女は泣くことも許されませんでした。なぜなら泣いて涙がほほをつたえば、涙が乾いた後痒くなってしまうからです。　手錠をかけられているので顔をかくことができないから、涙を流すことさえ我慢しなければならなかった・・・。　こういう聞くに堪えない細かい事実を知ることにより、性行為が何であるかということすら知らなかった、純粋無垢な11歳の少女を、どれだけガリドーが苦しめていたかさらに深く理解することができます。　彼がジェイシーさんから奪ったものは大きすぎます。

「でも彼は私の全てを奪ったわけではない。」というジェイシーさん。　ガリドーと共犯の彼の配偶者が必死に奪い取ろうとしていたジェイシーさんのアイデンティティーが残っていたからこそ、救出後にジェイシーさんがこうやって闘い続けることができるのでしょう。

真摯にジェイシーさんを応援したいと思います。　

JAYC Foundation (Jayceeのチャリティーサイト）とフェイスブックページ

 

 

東日本大震災の深刻さ

日本国内で観測史上最大の震災を受け、母国が想像以上の壊滅受けている中アメリカの私たちの生活は、いつも通りに時間が過ぎていて正直心のバランスを上手に保つことができません。

世界中で災害が起こる度に、胸が締め付けられ心に大きな痛みを感じるのですが、自分が生まれた国、そして母国語で語られるニュースを遠く離れた地で見聞きするのは、説明し難いやるせなさや、せつなさがどれだけ自分が無力かという罪悪感を拡大させます。

周囲の人たちにも、「何かできることは？」と聞かれるのですが、今はとにかく赤十字やユニセフ、ワールドビジョンなどを通して募金をしてくださいとしか言えません。

自分と年回りが近そうな女性が、カメラには目を合わすこともできず憔悴しきった横顔を見せながら、「息子が津波に巻き込まれた可能性がある。　息子の行方を探している」と涙ながらに語る姿は、見るに耐えない数秒のインタビューでした。　地震発生から３日たち、生存者からの生々しい経験談を聞きながら、現実としてなかなか受け止めれなかったこの壊滅的な状況が事実であることを強く実感しはじめています。

私の母国。　美しい日本。　頑張ってほしいという言葉はこの状況では軽々しく聞こえてしまうかもしれないけど、国民全員が一体となって力を合わせてほしいと心の底から願っています。

 

 

イメージの価値

衆院選よりも、のりピー事件のほうが深く関心が寄せられてる事実に対して、皮肉っぽいことがどこかに書いてありました。

この事件、多くの人が関心を抱いていると思いますが、改めてメディアの恐ろしさを感じているのは私だけでしょうか？「清純派だったのに」という意見を読むたびに悲しくなります。

友達のＭさんも指摘していましたが、プロデューサーが創りあげた彼女のイメージを通して人間性までジャッジしようとしている世間の人たちの意見に対しては、コメントすらできないほどあきれてしまいます。

そしてその反面イメージの価値についても深く考えさせられます。

覚せい剤をやったら日本では芸能界復帰はほぼ不可能・・・みたいな感じで語られていますが、私個人としては一人の女性として、母としてののりピーが一日でも早く社会復帰できるように支援したいと思います。　彼女ほどの人気者であった芸能人が、引退して静かに社会復帰するのは難しいのですが・・・。　

今回の事件ではのりピーの麻薬常習が発覚し、日本経済はＣＭや広報、音楽活動などで億単位のダメージを受けていると聞きました。

ある意味それだけのイメージ価値を持つ女性だからこそ、その影響力を活かして麻薬撲滅運動に支援していただけたら・・・と思います。

心理学者の視点から見たのりピー事件のほうが、的をついてこの事件が簡単に説明されています。のりピーの刺青など（どうでもいいこと）に焦点が当てられた記事は、この事件の中で本当に注目しなくてはいけない事実を見逃してしまいます。

本当に関心を寄せなくてはいけないことは、これほどまでに麻薬が世の中に広がっていること。

そして感受性が強いがために判断力が弱い子供たちをどのようにして守っていかなければならないかということ。

誰もが「麻薬は人間を滅ぼす」と知っていながら手を出してしまうのは、心の底にある弱い部分に悪魔が囁き続けるからです。

華やかな世界にいたからこそ、彼女は孤独だったのではないでしょうか？

維持しなければいけない美しい容姿や社会的、経済的なステータスなど、想像できないようなプレッシャーの中に生きていたのではないでしょうか？

持ってるものが多いほど、失うものも多いのです。

今回はのりピーの覚せい剤常習が発覚して本当に良かったと思っています。　

このままいけば彼女は廃人と化し、死という頂点に突き進んでいたことでしょう。

あるインタビューでは、麻薬を絶った人は一生かかけてその誘惑と戦い続けていかなければいけないということが赤裸々に語られていました。　やめた後でさえ、毎日麻薬について考えない日はないそうです。　

"あなたは言う、「人がわたしを撃ったが、わたしは痛くなかった。　わたしをたたいたが、わたしは何も覚えていない。　いつわたしはさめるのか？　また酒を求めよう」と。"　（箴言23:35）

" 傷つくまでに打てば悪いところは清くなり、むちで打てば心の底まで清まる。"　（箴言20:30）