ItalianoGACKT Official blog update. Translation below:
Well,
it resonates heavily in the title but
while I wrote this, I figured that this was what it ended up as
so it felt appropriate to me to use this as a title..
Firstly,
I’d like to say that
【A man is one precisely because he sticks to his particularities】.
A man will always be a child.
That’s why,
we have the habit of doing what we like to the extreme.
This may also be because of the immaturity found in men.
Often, children are able to get absorbed in doing one thing.
Their ability to focus is also impressive.
When they enter their own world, they won’t be able to come out of it.
Voices around them wouldn’t reach them either.
They’re even able to play in their own minds
while drawing on their imagination to it’s fullest.
However,
as we grow older, we gradually lose the ability to do that.
Maybe it has something to do with the brain stem but
in the past, when I looked into this,
I found that this the impact of the growth process on the brain stem
and this ability to focus are largely linked but who knows how true it is…
Right,
I really hate men who are unable to be【particular about things】.
Basically,
men who aren’t particular about anything
are most likely unable to work.
If I were to make it very clear, it makes me disgusted but
in the end, this is my opinion,
and you don’t have to take my explanation as truth.
However,
thus far,
I’ve been through many experiences that led me to this conclusion.
This is one of the reasons.
Most of the people who don’t have opinions about things
don’t really do things thoroughly.
Somewhat shallow,
just by possessing somewhat general knowledge,
at a glance, they appear to join in any and every conversation
but often, when you try talking to them, you’ll find that they only have extremely shallow knowledge and only have secondhand information.
And many times, their information is wrong or misunderstood.
Because they’re not particular about things to begin with,
they don’t care at all, about whether that information is correct or not.
And,
even when it gets pointed out to them by others,
they can only recognise it at the level of
「Hmmm, I see…」.
This isn’t to say that people who are particular about things are correct.
Particular people are those who have the habit of delving into things deeply and thoroughly,
and if their obsession over things is strong too,
the amount of time spent on it will be long to start with,
and when that happens,
when they look back on the lives they’ve lived,
there are many cases when they find
that their memories are closely linked to their particularities.
Through their own opinions,
they’ll even be able to talk about a number of their own dramas.
And,
between people with particularities and those who don’t,
the way they spend money with regards to that is fundamentally different.
People with particularities
will be forced to spend in no small way.
And while those who don’t have particularities will ridicule them,
saying things like “What’s the point of spending that much money?”
they will still end up going through with their particularities.
It can also be said that one of the factors that is tied to that
skewed attachment is a deep love for it.
「Since I’ve already spent this much time and money on it…」
That thought definitely exists somewhere in their heart.
This will also become pride later on.
Sometimes, there are even those who possess a warped sense of pride.
Others would say that
『That guy is such a maniac, it’s disgusting…』.
Now, they can even be described as Otaku,
and they’ve been established as a cultural status but
until a mere decade ago, it was simply a discriminatory term.
Of course, there are quite a few strongly opinionated people
who sometimes look like they’re twisted.
However,
it’s extremely interesting when you talk to these people.
For example,
even if the other party has no interest,
people who are particular about things
are rather skilled at
bringing people into their own world.
That is
not that they intended to pull people in but
when you listen to their enthusiastic love-filled spiel,
they have a childlike likeability
that makes you think, 『This is a great person…』.
In the past,
when I went to Roppongi with Yamada Takayuki for a meal together,
there was an interesting story about the restaurant master’s special kitchen knives.
No,
instead of the story, it was the master who was interesting.
When he opens his mouth, he talks about cooking.
About tools.
About the market.
He gets absorbed in talking without end.
Because he’s particular about the taste,
he’s also particular about the ingredients.
Then he’ll be particular about the freshness,
and naturally, by insistence, he’s also particular about his tools.
One by one, he gently touches and praises
each of the kitchen knives lined up like they were his girlfriend.
「Well this one,
this ductility is over the top!」
As he held the kitchen knife and he spoke, he looked like a joyful child.
I can understand this feeling very well.
I really love knives too.
Although I prefer smaller knives,
I also have an exceptional number of knives at home.
In other words, I guess you can say that’s like a collector’s level.
Even after moving overseas, this hobby hasn’t changed.
Most of the time, when I say that I like knives in a public space,
I’ll be seen as a weird person so this topic is rarely brought up but
in any case, knives are profound…
While possessing a ephemeral virtue,
beauty and danger also coexists in it, and I absolutely love that balance.
Whenever I look at knives, I think, how ephemerally beautiful…
In the past,
I’d have a knife in one hand
and stare at it while drinking alone in my room.
I remember when the band mates I was living with came home
and saw me staring at the knife while sitting in the dark, they said
『Gaku, what the hell are you doing!!!』
and were completely put-off.
I was probably grinning quite a lot,
but I guess I looked like a rather dangerous guy…
It’s the same when it comes to wine.
In the past, I had around 1500 bottles of wine stocked at home.
These days, it’s become a lot less but
even so, my favourite wines are still crowdedly kept together.
This is also ephemeral.
No matter how wonderful the wine,
there’s no point in just displaying it.
Wine is meant to be drunk.
However,
once you open it,
it has to be drunk within a limited period of time too.
After removing the cork, check the flavour,
and while confirming it’s splendour,
enjoy the taste that changes bit by bit as time passes.
If it’s a wine from 20 years ago,
the moment you open it, it’s as if
suddenly it starts to run to regain those 20 years
In the past
there was a Mel Gibson film.
What was the title…
His wife gets into an accident and he freezes his own body,
and after sleeping for a few decades,
he was awoken by a chance accident,
and then,
when I watched the main character rapidly ageing in the middle of the movie,
I thought, 『This is the ephemerality of wine!』,
building on the true nature of wine.
Wine is something that struggles desperately as it rapidly takes back
the amount of time it was dormant for within a short period of time,
That is what ephemerality is.
Mmm… Ephemeral…
And,
speaking of what I’m particular with recently, it’s this.
Texas Hold’em poker.
In the past, it became a hot topic on AbemaTV too but
when I started liking poker,
I studied like hell about how I can get better at it,
and how to gain the ability to read the opponent’s cards.
Even now, I’m still learning.
As a result of that,
I have now become friend
with many of the world’s top professionals,
and I’m also grateful that there exists something
that I can be this hooked on even at this age.
Poker has led me to
many encounters around the world.
Of course,
not only am I particular about playing poker,
I’m also particular about the tools.
I had the table custom made,
and also modified it so that you can see your cards with LED.
This table is beautiful too.
Poker’s ephemerality comes when you least expect it.
For poker hands, the strongest one
is called the royal straight flush,
and it requires all the suits of the cards to be the same,
as well as the cards 10, J, Q, K, and A to be present.
52C5 = 2598960
This formula is the number of patterns
that can be formed at random from a deck of 52 cards.
The probability of this royal straight flush appearing
is a only roughly one in 650000.
One game takes between 3 to 6 minutes to play.
Assuming that you can play 20 games in an hour,
even if you play for 10 hours straight, that’ll only be 200 games.
Even if you play everyday, it’ll take 3250 days.
In other words, for this hand to appear,
even if you play everyday, continuously,
it’ll only appear once in 10 years.
This is the probability if you play for 10 hours everyday.
Of course,
I don’t play everyday.
So if you take that into consideration,
I suppose the probability is that it’ll appear once in 40 to 60 years.
Coming this far,
it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that a royal flush
is almost like Haley’s comet to normal players.
However,
in my 6 years of play, I’ve already
seen a royal flush appear before my eyes 4 times.
Once was for myself.
Once was TAKUMI’s.
And the other day,
when practising at home,
one of my friends got it.
Even for TAKUMI’s,
it appeared when it was just the two of us practising.
I remember an intense excitement when it appeared but,
『Why here…
Why at such a meaningless timing…
did you appear?』
I thought,
and as tears like Amuro Ray’s welled up,
I could not help but remember that moment.
This is the ephemerality of poker…
【It doesn’t appear when you want it to】
Too transient…
As to what I wanted to say,
it is that ephemerality will definitely exist together with
whatever you’ve done thoroughly,
and whatever you’re particular about.
In other words,
Men often have their hearts moved
by 【ephemeral】 things.
Girls who are reading this,
recommend something that is ephemeral to your boyfriend
or subjects of【ephemerality】 to him.
Because this 【ephemerality】
is the weakest part of a man!
And,
to you who are reading this, when you get your hands on that【ephemerality】,
no matter what kind of man he is,
he will definitely fall head over heels in love.
They have no choice but to be infatuated.
Work hard.
Women who are dressed in ephemerality.
Men who are in love with ephemerality.
Mm, ephemeral…
Aren’t men sad.
Source: GACKT Blog
Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team
Translation © GACKT ITALIA