Welcoming the New Year: Reflections in My "Kanreki" Year on How to Perceive and Utilize Time | Yasuo Takagi (Dean of the Graduate School of Health Management)

2010.02.04

This is a story from the West Coast of the United States on Millennium Eve, amidst the excitement of the countdown. A Japanese friend of mine was celebrating with his American friends, getting excited for the countdown starting with New York time, then making a racket for Chicago time. By the time their own West Coast countdown arrived, they were all exhausted. When my friend muttered, "I guess they've done this kind of countdown 3,000 times in China," his American friends started talking about their distant ancestors, saying things like, "My ancestors were apparently from Ireland," and "Mine were from Hungary." For Americans, whose country declared independence less than 300 years ago, perhaps any discussion of a timeline on the scale of a millennium must inevitably lead back to Europe.

I also have an interesting experience with a child's sense of time. When my daughter was in elementary school, she asked me, "Dad, were you born in the Jomon period?" I was astonished by her perception of time. Learning about Japanese history for the first time, she must have made the connection: Jomon people = people from long ago = Dad. Although the logic connects, she didn't yet understand that the "quantity" of time in each case is different, and that a difference in quantity leads to a change in "quality." Still, I couldn't help but smile at her adorable question.

Once you reach the age of "Kanreki" (the 60th birthday), you are freed from such misconceptions and can grasp history more accurately. While it may not be a new century, welcoming the new year has given me a precious opportunity to reflect on my own timeline, thinking, "Ah, so this is the year of my Kanreki." Especially for me, born in 1950, I can't help but be conscious of the timeline in 10-year increments: the millennium at age 50, and 2010 for my Kanreki. At 60, one becomes able to roughly grasp a unit of 100 years within one's own sense of time. I can clearly grasp the 50 years since I finished elementary school, and it's a moment when I feel glad to have grown older, thinking, "I see, twice this is 100 years. Three times is 150 years."

Now, how to make use of what I've grasped through this perspective on time? Should I think there is still plenty of time, or should I feel rushed, thinking that the remaining time is short? I will make this my challenge for the year.

(Date of publication: 2010/02/04)