國分功一郎さんが書いた『暇と退屈の倫理学』では、暇と退屈が対比される。暇のなかでどう生きるべきか、退屈とどう向き合うべきか。人は退屈が嫌いだから、退屈する隙がないように、次々に快楽に身を委ねさせるのが現代の資本主義社会とされる。
In "The Ethics of Leisure and Boredom," written by Koichiro Kokubu, leisure and boredom are contrasted. In "The Ethics of Leisure and Boredom," written by Kokubun Koichiro, he contrasts leisure and boredom, asking how we should live in leisure and how we should deal with boredom. Since people hate boredom, it is said that modern capitalist society makes people surrender themselves to pleasures one after another so that there is no room for boredom.
11月の初旬に奈良に訪れた。吉野や天川村と呼ばれる中央部で行われる芸術祭に訪れることと、これから住むことになる奈良の家を内見するためだ。芸術祭は山の中をかけめぐる形でアートが設置されており、自然を楽しむトレイルと共にアート鑑賞を楽しむという趣旨のもの。
I visited Nara in early November to visit an art festival in the central part of the country called Yoshino and Amagawamura, and to preview the house I will be living in. The purpose of the festival is to enjoy the art along with the nature trails, as the art is set up in a way that goes around the mountains.
今まで、大地の芸術祭や瀬戸内国際芸術祭に訪れたことはあったが、そこで見かけた名前とは違う作家がたくさんいて新鮮だったことを覚えている。吉野のアート巡り、はじまりの作品は谷川俊太郎だった。
奈良の山は深い。奈良は海に接していない。和歌山とも三重とも山で接している。たまたま出会った金峰山寺という修験道の寺では、蔵王権現の特別ご開帳を行なっていた。
I had visited the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale and the Setouchi International Art Festival before, but I remember that it was refreshing to see many artists whose names were different from the ones I had seen there. The first work I saw on my Yoshino art tour was by Tanikawa Shuntaro.
The mountains of Nara are deep. Nara is not bordered by the sea. Nara is not bordered by the sea; it is bordered by mountains, both in Wakayama and Mie. I happened to come across a Shugendo temple called Kinpusanji, which was holding a special opening of the Zao Gongen shrine.
これだけ深い山であれば、確かに修行も捗るだろう。寺沿いには商店と宿屋が立ち並んでいて、柿や葛切りばかり並んでいた。お昼に訪れた古民家を改装した夫婦が営むカフェは、主人が裏山で仕留めてきた鹿をカツレツと鉄板焼きでいただいた。裏庭には、１匹の犬が置物のように寝ている。聞くところによるとこの家の猟犬が最近３匹の子犬を産んだらしい。
With such a deep mountain, it would certainly be a good place to practice asceticism. Along the temple, stores and innkeepers lined the streets, selling only persimmons and kuzu kiri. We visited a café run by a couple in a renovated old house for lunch, where we were served cutlets and teppanyaki of deer that the owner had caught in the mountains behind the temple. In the backyard, a dog was sleeping like a figurine. I was told that the family's hound had recently given birth to three puppies.
結構な急斜面をロープを伝って降りたり、こっちで道合ってますかね？と見知らぬ旅行者たちと目を見合わせながら、なんとか宿屋に帰り着いた。その日は私たちだけの貸切だったようで、お風呂も片方だけ沸かしてくれていた。ありがたくお湯をいただいて、私たちしかいない貸切の大広間で御膳のご飯をいただいた。
I had to climb down a steep slope on a rope, and I wondered if I was going the right way. As we walked down the steep slope, we looked at each other and wondered if we were going the right way. It seemed that we were the only ones who had a private bath that day, and only one of the baths had been boiled. We were grateful for the hot water, and enjoyed a bowl of rice in the private hall.
次の日は天川村を一通り巡り、青というよりは蒼？に近い川沿いを歩き、軽い山を登り、降りてきて特産品の漢方薬である陀羅尼助を購入し、奈良駅の近くまで戻った。
The next day, we toured around Amagawamura, walking along the river, which was more blue than blue. We walked along the river, which was more blue than blue, climbed a light mountain, came down and bought some Daranisuke, a local Chinese herbal medicine, and returned to the vicinity of Nara Station.
さっきまで底が透き通るぐらい綺麗な川を眺めていたが、昨日買った柿をかじりながら１時間半ほどで奈良駅の近くまで戻ってきた。奈良の山は深いが、近い。街の周りはすべて山だからだ。簡単に内見を済ませ、直感的に良いと思ったのでそのまま契約に進んだ。３ヶ月ほどのち、ここ奈良駅近くに引っ越すことになる。
会社の同期であり映画監督やドラマーでもある友人が、以前ツイッターで「奈良は人も鹿も退屈そうだから好きだ」と言っていた。今回、修学旅行ぶりに奈良を訪れて、その言葉が半分ぐらいわかった気がした。
山に囲まれていて、新幹線が通るわけでも港があるわけでもない奈良は、明らかに「取り残されている」。京都駅で新幹線を降り、近鉄線に乗って向かうとき、それを強く感じた。街を歩けば古都という言葉に当たるぐらい、古くは都だったことを観光資源にしてはいるが、その後の長い歴史のなかで、京都に、あるいは東京に、東京的なものに圧倒的に取り残されてきた場所が、奈良だった。駐車場に併設されたレンタカー屋でクレジットカードを使うために、なぜか本部に電話をかけて５分ほど待っていた。その一点で何かを判断するつもりはないが、あぁこれが奈良なのかと思ったりした。もちろんPayPayで支払えるかとは聞くこともできなかった。
人は退屈が嫌いだ。もちろんそれは奈良の人も一緒だ。若者が大阪や京都に出て行く。東京から帰ってこない。卑屈な奈良県民botというツイッターアカウントがはなかなか面白いツイートをしているように、県民も奈良の奈良的なところを皮肉めいたりしている。
一方で退屈は強い。新幹線も港もないから、新しい何かに流されることはない。時間の流れはずっと、じっとりしたままだ。たまにくる観光客も宿泊施設がなくて京都や大阪に帰って行く。変わらないことが、奈良の地味をつくっている。
Earlier I had been looking at the river, which was so beautiful that the bottom was crystal clear, but it took me about an hour and a half to get back to the vicinity of Nara Station, biting into the persimmon I bought yesterday. The mountains in Nara are deep, but close. This is because all around the city are mountains. About three months later, I will move here near Nara Station.
A friend of mine, who is also a film director and a drummer, once said on Twitter that he liked Nara because the people and deer seemed to be bored. When I visited Nara for the first time after a school trip, I felt I understood half of what he said.
Surrounded by mountains, with neither a Shinkansen line nor a port, Nara is clearly "left behind. I felt this strongly when I got off the Shinkansen at Kyoto Station and took the Kintetsu Line to Nara. Nara is a place that has been overwhelmingly left behind by Kyoto, Tokyo, and Tokyo-like things in its long history. In order to use my credit card at the car rental agency attached to the parking lot, I somehow had to call the headquarters and wait for five minutes. I'm not going to judge anything based on that one point, but I thought, oh, this is Nara. Of course, I couldn't even ask if I could pay with PayPay.
People do not like boredom. Of course, Nara people are the same. Young people are leaving for Osaka and Kyoto. They don't come back from Tokyo. The people of Nara are also sarcastic about Nara's "Nara-ness," as seen in a Twitter account called "sneaky Nara people bot," which tweets quite amusingly.
On the other hand, boredom is strong. On the other hand, boredom is strong. The flow of time remains still and unchanged. Even the occasional tourist goes back to Kyoto or Osaka because there are no accommodations. The unchanging nature of Nara is what makes the city unique.
大きく変わって行く世の中で、変わらない場所に住んでみる。契約した家は、古民家と呼ぶとちょっとよく言い過ぎかもしれない、昔ながらの平屋の半分だ。夏は暑くて冬は寒い、隙間風も吹きそうな畳敷きで天井も低い家に住みながら、考える年になりそうだ。じっとりとした退屈のなかで。
In a world that is changing so much, try living in a place that remains the same. The house we signed a contract for is half of a traditional one-story house, which might be a bit of an exaggeration to call it an old house. It's going to be a year of thinking while living in a house with tatami mats, low ceilings, hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and a drafty atmosphere. In the midst of the boredom.
