Mila's logs

When I was a young girl living in a remote prefecture of Japan, the world felt so incredibly closed off. Every day, there would be media coverage that always sparked a feeling of injustice and loss within me. Stories told of ignorance of women’s rights, of cruelty against girls younger than I was, and the foundational societal structure that discouraged young women from performing to their fullest potential. As an impressionable teenager, it was almost natural for me to begin my small activism—writing speeches and performing them in front of my all-girls middle school, imploring my friends with what I deemed was the truth that would liberate them.

It was through an accident that I discovered my very closest friend resented all I had to say in my defense. To her, my words cut like a knife. The Japan she saw and the Japan I saw were entirely different. I didn’t understand her then, and to me, it felt like a betrayal and invalidation of the very thing I called morality. Although, now I understand. Although it can be obscured at times, we all carry fragments of our environment within us as our identity. All the comments I had made about our government and our country were not informative, but just coldly sharpened remarks that chipped away the feeling of security she held that had deep ties to the warm, welcoming community she saw in her day-to-day.

In the world today, there are many polarizing opinions at war with one another. Pro or anti, this political party or the other one. In such an uncertain time like the present, the divide feels too deep to cross. Inherently, we are urged to choose between good and evil. Yet, I feel that nobody is ever born purely good or evil. Aristotle and Nietzsche would argue that so long as moral virtue is upheld through intention, it is then moral. Where do you draw the line between Good and Evil? They are only the perspectives that define how something is seen. It can be felt through interaction with individuals. I sometimes think about the taxi driver who drove me home seeing me utterly at a loss on the streets, with no wallet, and no running trains. The compassion, love, and kindness we have all witnessed at some point in our lives. Whether it be a stranger, family, friends, or even foe.

It seems as though we’ve lost a sense of connection and open mind as the world progressively grew more hostile. It is scary to admit our wrongs, and even more so when we’ve built so much of our identity around it. It was a struggle for me to admit that even if my intentions were good, my actions were causing a living human being pain. It was, and still is, a large part of my identity to listen to the most hated of opinions, the ones that at first glance, register as nonsensical in my perception of the world. The freedom of self is limited in the way that it cannot trample the freedom of another. The following is only an example to the multitude of social divides today—To demand removal of the agency from an unwilling woman and at times even life from a girl through coerced birth, trespasses into the freedom of another. Yet I try to empathize with those who view issues such as this differently. Their belief lies upon the foundation that all life is sacred, and from their eyes, they are the good. I am a Christian myself, and I understand that it comes from a place of wanting to save everyone. It only becomes a problem when the belief takes, instead of giving, the freedom of others. I implore such believers to think of the pain of losing one’s daughter due to child pregnancy. To sympathize with children who are raised in poverty and neglectful or abusive homes due to the circumstances that occur after. To be an unwanted child is a torment. To be made to undergo life-altering changes forcibly, is akin to losing one’s human right, to be degraded into something lesser.

I have been told I am an idealist in my beliefs, and I agree wholeheartedly. There is always collateral damage in politics, and some things just simply cannot be compromised. Even so, difficult times are when empathy and compassion are needed most. When we liberate ourselves from the binds of collectivism, it is when we see each other as human beings, rather than “the other side.”

“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen.” (Arthur Schopenhauer)

Milas logs original

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.