Fifty Years After the Pencil Rocket - On the frontier of Japanese space exploration

摘要

I'm sure there must be lots of people who are so busy every day that, when they stop to think about it, they find themselves doubting "is this really all my life is going to be? Doing this day in day out? I myself am one of them. When I feel like that, there is a Japanese phrase I remember: "Shoshin wasuru-bekarazu" They are the words of playwright Zeami Motokiyo and mean "never forget why you started." My father used to perform Noh theater, so I became used to hearing the words of Zeami's book "Fushi-kaden" (The Transmission of the Flower of Acting Style) from an early age. It was one of my father's favorites. Even so, these days, when I spend every day working round the clock, devoting all my time to the likes of management issues and negotiations, which on the surface seems to have noting at all to with outer space (the very reason why I chose to work in this field), my head does start to swim with doubts like those I just mentioned. At times like that, I look back to the spirit of Zeami and for encouragement.