I wish I could say I’ve lived straight and true, but I keep making the same mistakes. When I learned how jellyfish live, I caught myself thinking: maybe this me is fine as is.
Go to the sea and you’ll see a jellyfish drifting, light as breath between the waves. Go to an aquarium and you’ll find one pulsing quietly in a dark tank, lit from above. Either way, just by being there, it has a strange presence.
A Human Story
Human life is easy to tell as a story.
“I was born to my father and mother. I grew up, stood on my own feet, met someone dear and we made a life together. We were blessed with children. I grew old, and in the end I was watched over and drew my last breath.”
—From start to finish, a straight line. Like a board game: from the first square to the last, one path. That’s how the “ideal life” of a human is often told.
A Jellyfish Story
Jellyfish don’t go that way.
A tiny baby hatches from an egg and simply drifts, looking for a place to belong. Then one day it chooses a rock or shell and settles down, starting a life of stillness. It’s like a shut-in who’s taken a step back from the world.
But then, one day, it begins to split. As if slicing itself into rings, it produces many small jellyfish, one after another. Not just a big family—an entire copy crowd.
Those little ones each set off on their own, grow into adult jellyfish, and drift the seas. Then they scatter eggs again, and the next generation begins. Some kinds even pull a “cheat move”: after growing old, they can return to a baby-like stage.
—So the jellyfish story isn’t a straight line; it’s about loops and copies. Beginnings and endings blur. Things circle, and sometimes they go back.
A Bonpu Story
We humans like to think, “I’ve lived my life straight.” But when we look back, we repeat the same mistakes, and circle through the same regrets. We think we walked a line, yet our footprints sketch a circle.
Round and round. That’s our weakness—and our ordinary, fallible self (the bonpu).
Watching jellyfish in the water, I think: there’s no need to laugh at a self that can’t live in a straight line. Maybe—just maybe—the jellyfish reflects the truth of this bonpu better than I do.
Japanese original on note:
クラゲ日記──人間は直線、クラゲはループ
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