Life's Decisions

Many decisions that we come across during our lifetime have the power of altering our life path in ways that we have never even imagined.  Some decisions may seem to be the correct choice at the time that they were made but may over time lead you into a life of depression and regret.  In the novel An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro, Masuji Ono finds himself in a situation were a choice was made and in turn it ended up changing his life in ways that no one could have expected.

Masuji Ono, the main character in this novel, has many similar traits that resemble that familiar grandfather figure living out the retired stage of their life.  Ono is a once very famous  Japanese artist who is considered to be at the higher end of the class system in Japan.  During his life he has been a father of three children, two daughters and one son.  Ono lost his only son in the war out in Manchuria “..attempting that hopeless charge across a minefield…”(pg.57) in September of 1846.  His two daughters are still alive and apart of his life along with his grandson.  Although Ono is now considered to be a quite successful artist, Ishiguro is quick to remind us that Ono’s life has had its fair share of bumps and bruises dating as far back as his early childhood.  Growing up as a kid, Ono’s father was not as approving of his sons art work as one would like to hope.  Once commenting “Artists live in squalor and poverty.  They inhabit a world which gives them every temptation to become weak-willed and depraved.”  Not exactly an inspiring speech but Ono used these words as sort of an inspiration for his work.  Ono went forward against his fathers wishes and was taught different forms of art from Seiji Moriyama, his first art teacher.  Ono then decided to go against Moriyama’s teaching and started creating propaganda art work before WWII.  It was in his political art where Ono gained his high social status that enabled him to live in the beautiful house occupying a commanding position on the hill.

During this novel Ono is caught between two very different worlds of pre WWII and the aftermath of post WWII.  Before the war had started, Ono had a lot of positive thing happening in his life.  He was becoming a very successful artist, his loving family were all still alive and doing well, his work was socially accepted and respected by his peers and other in the political arena.  After the war had ended, it was as if he was living in a different world.  Death had made its way into his life and questions started arising if his work had really reflected the way that he was living his life.  Depression made its way into his life and Ono seems to be letting it take over his mental state of being.  He spends more and more time remembering the good times of his past instead of making the most out of the life he still has to lead.

One lesson that we can learn from this novel so far is to not let the decisions of your past drag you into a state of self-pity and regret.  It is inevitable that at some point during your life you are going to make a decision that you look back upon and say, “What the hell was I thinking!”  Instead of continually harping on what went wrong, try to learn from that mistake and find out how you can avoid a similar decision from happening again.  Nobody is perfect but it is how you deal with adversity that the true measure of success can be achived.