Underground
First of all, I just want to say that this is not my typical book entry wherein I comment about what I think of the characters, of the writing style, etc. While I do read a lot of books, only a handful of titles that I own really move me, and I can say that this book hit the right spot. I am glad that this is my last “read” for the year for what I am going to say in this entry is going beyond than my regular review.
I read Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche because I want to see how Murakami writes outside his “comfort zone.” But what I get from this book is not what I was really looking for in the first place, in the sense that I really didn’t pay much attention to Murakami’s writing style. Instead, I learned something more important, and is appropriate to be my last entry for this year.
I have no idea about the Tokyo Gas Attack prior to reading this book. After reading, I just thought to myself that in some cases, even the countries that we think highly of can be also caught off-guard with certain circumstances.
What also caught my attention was the idea that based from the testimonies that I have read, when trouble comes in, only a few people are willing to help. I guess, some of us have this mindset that the reason why we help is because if we’re caught in that particular situation, we would want someone to extend their hands and help, right? But there are only a few people who are really altruistic — they help because they want to, and not for any other reasons. I guess “paying it forward” is a hard principle to follow.
People who were involved with the release of Sarin were mostly graduates from prestigious Japanese universities, and who would have thought that these people, whom we consider as “more enlightened” or “logical” were the ones being controlled by a cult? I am not saying this to spite my current belief, or everyone else’s, but sometimes, people are asking questions that are way beyond their knowledge, and some cult/religious organization will offer “enlightenment” and “peace”. We all need that, of course, but most of the time, cult members offer their everything to the head of the cult. There’s nothing left for them, for they have to surrender every little bit of something that they have within them.
To be blunt, I think that’s a sign of cowardice. There are billions of people in this world who face problems every single day, and most of them — us — try to go on and live our lives. To surrender every authority we have for ourselves is like saying that we’re afraid to handle things on our own, and we’re afraid to make mistakes. People are weak, but if we continue to live on and pursue our dreams together with other people, that makes us strong, too.
One thing that really struck me with this book is the fact that the some mediamen tend to sensationalize incidents, and when they cannot extract anything from the story, then it’s time to pack the bags and leave. The Philippines has its share of accidents and calamities this year, but when you think about it, these things happened way, way before. When will people learn? When will people understand? At some point, some people are pointing fingers at one another, when in fact, that shouldn’t be the case. We should all learn how to solve these problems and learn how to prevent them in the future (or, if it isn’t possible, we should know by now how to conduct things when such incidents happen).
These calamities are not only applicable to things that affect the society. We also have “storms” and “earthquakes” within ourselves. We have our own “poison gas” within us. Bad habits, crimes, hatred — these things go inside us and slowly strangle us until we ran out of breath. As this year’s about to end, I hope everyone will take a short time and think for themselves — what are the harmful things that I’ve “taken in”? What am I supposed to do to “exhale” these things out? Like the disasters that our society experienced this year, we should also look back and think of things on how to avoid doing the same mistakes over and over again. Because, no matter how cliche it sounds, we should all learn from our mistakes.
Angela Solis grew up in the Philippines before moving in to Canada in 2003. She became a Canadian in 2006. Angela is 22 years old and an alumna of University of Manitoba with a degree in Psychology. She has been blogging since 2002. She maintains a 
January 1st, 2007 at 12:20 am
when i read the phrase “Tokyo Gas Attack” in your post, naalala ko yung show sa Discovery Channel na Zero Hour. na-feature yung terrorism attack na yan dun eh. scary grabe. lalo na yung religious cult na gumawa nun. hindi ako nakatulog kasi natakot ako sa mga weird beliefs nila. haha.