Sumo Wrestling

I watch a lot of movies and shows.  Multiply that with being home sick, and I watch a ton.  Now compound that with Hurricane Sandy, and I may need medical assistance.  Today I watched the book-based documentary "Freakonomics."  And it was delightful.  I recommend that junks.  The book/documentary is split up into chapters/stories.  And one of them centered around the statistical evidence of cheating in Sumo wrestling.  Random, but fascinating.  And that's when I finally heard how to articulate something I've been struggling with for some time now.

In Japanese culture, and especially in the Sumo world, there's a duality of Honne and Tatamae (pronounced "hon-nay" and "tata-may").  The way these two concepts were described in Freakonomics was that Honne is the truth and Tatamae is the kept-up perception, image, or what's expected by society.  So in the Sumo world, Honne was cheating, yet the Tatamae was a world of purity, tradition, and reverence.  And because of the Tatamae, no one dared to ever question or discover the Honne.  

Why does Selbouez care about Sumo wrestling? 

I am growing increasingly more tired of myself and others not discovering the truth because of the glass box of perception that surrounds it.  I believe it stops people from being who they truly are, and I firmly believe it encourages corruption, unhealthiness, and disillusionment.  It's rare to find someone courageous enough to break the glass in search of truth.  I think for many, the broken glass isn't worth what's behind it.  And so people would rather have a nice, well-put-together glass box, even if the truth inside it was decaying.  What's funny about my anology (and I literally JUST put this thought together as I was typing) is that even if your glass box looks pretty…it's still glass…and people will see through it at some point.  When the box starts to crack, when it undergoes too much pressure, then what's inside gets exposed.  And I think most of the people I know are just banking on the unlikely event that nothing will happen to their glass box.  Otherwise, they'd have to realize the truth…and even worse: address it.

I don't mean to sound high and mighty, so please don't read this as condescending.  If anything, every blog post I've written was something I had to learn the hard way.  And the posts are just manifestations of me thinking out loud.  I also apologize if you felt this entry was vague.  I do it intentionally because this thing lives on the internet and I never want to call out specific people or bring light to anyone's faults but my own.  But the reality is that Tatamae often supersedes our personal Honne.  And that can't be a good thing.  Just ask the Sumo wrestlers.