Citizens of the Floating World ...

As humans we tend to develop comfort zones, social behaviors that are accepted by society, responsibilities, and so on. There are no rules to decide how to particularly develop our comfort zone, it just comes naturally, and each individual has its own idea of what ‘their’ comfort zone is. Human behaviors vary from culture to culture, each culture choices to socially accept certain behaviors. We as humans we inherit responsibilities, some we choose, and others are forced upon us. In order to be a responsible citizen of the floating world, it entails an entire new way of thinking. “To be a citizen of the floating world is to make ethical choices when framing our understanding to the world,” Rob Burton, ‘Artist of the floating World,’ pg. 131. I did not choose where I grew up, but I also wouldn’t choose to leave now. As Americans we are given the freedom to choose, but sometimes that choosing can be overwhelming and dangerous, forming this block in our heads to the rest of the world that surrounds us.

One might ask what a ‘floating world’ is, “it is a condition of living in a world that doubles back and forth between different states of mind and being,” (Burton, pg. 124). It is difficult to determine if your being a responsible citizen of the floating world, but one can learn from others surrounding them using their successes and unfortunately failures as well. In the novels “An Artist of the Floating World,” by Kazu Ishiguro, and “Jasmine” by Bharti Mukherjee, we will examine lives of people who exist in this world, to see how unique a person’s one life can be depending on the decisions they make to survive in society.

In, An Artist of the Floating World, a story about the character Ono unfolds to show us a man caught between two worlds. He is confronted with his past and trying to live his future. As humans we try to only remember the finer things in life and tend to block the negative things in life. This forms a sense of nostalgia. The character Ishiguro tells us about Ono’s life as a painter and what he had to endure through out his life. At the beginning of the novel we are lead to believe that he established a high standing in the community through his work paintings, however he was called upon to make propaganda posters for Japan during war. He considered the paintings to be beautiful, however society didn’t. Ono became irresponsible for his actions and leads us to believe he lost social behaviors that are normally accepted by society. Ono never admits that he regrets anything, even through destroying his family and friends around. It is hard to decide whether he was being a responsible citizen of the floating world. Ono proves that we as humans can choose the narrative track that we are on.

In, Jasmine, the main character endures a lot of pain. She goes back and forth from happiness, to being scared, to having hope, and to living in fear. She sees her husband die, she travels to America like an immigrant, she finds love, she gets raped, she tries hard to ‘fit in’ and yet still has a positive attitude about making the perfect life for herself. She lets her past determine who she will be in the future. Each time something happens in Jasmine’s life she changes her name to reflect that time in her life. She has hopes of becoming a responsible citizen of the floating world. She let her past and society decide who she would become. “I wanted to become the person they thought they saw,” (pg. 171). She tried to be a responsible citizen of the floating world. She put thought into life; she tried to listen to, and tried to learn the world surrounding her.

Trying to ground myself of who I am scares me. The world is large and impossible to understand at my age. I try to be aware of what is going on outside my door and also what is going on 40,000 miles away, yet I still feel that I am not a perfect citizen of the floating world. I try to be aware of my surroundings and make decisions based on them. I also try to remember my successes and failures, but I feel that I have a sense of nostalgia when looking back to my future. It’s something that humans do naturally. We as humans have to stay conscious of over surroundings and love our brothers and sisters. I am just a speck in the world; however millions of specks make up the world. Sometimes I don’t feel that I impact the world as a whole, but I try to impact the world in parts. By understanding the floating world, I try to have a free mind and open heart to my surroundings. I try to work everyday at becoming a better person in my floating world.