Photo/Illutration A memorial service for author Kenzaburo Oe is held in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on Sept. 13. (Kazushige Kobayashi)

I don’t know why, but I feel rushed. This tumultuous year is wrapping up in a hurry. Why are we feeling so irritable? So anxious?

Let me take a moment to reflect and try to figure out the present age from the words of people who died this year.

“People waiting for slow trains at train stations look truly well-off and cool to me,” screenwriter Taichi Yamada once noted. He seemed to sense something unnatural about seeking too much efficiency in life.

“Our society seems to be striving only for something purely positive and upbeat,” he said.

Are we looking ahead at an era of artificial intelligence? Manga artist Reiji Matsumoto, who was deeply interested in human-machine relations, made this observation in one of his works: “At the moment of truth, what’s needed most is a human person who is able to think.”

However, the automatons created by Matsumoto possess an unmistakable softness or warmth, as if they are trying to teach us what makes us human.

“It’s difficult to like oneself,” wrote Ryuchell, a social media personality, in his book. The 27-year-old celebrity had a tough time searching for his own identity. “Perhaps I could start by pampering myself,” he suggested.

Humans are unable to stop killing and warring. Khalid, a 7-year-old Palestinian boy who loved swimming and horseback riding, was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza. He was learning English, saying, “I want to know the world outside Gaza.”

What are we supposed to believe? After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, author Kenzaburo Oe commented: “In addition to the physical burden to be borne by the next generation of Japanese people, I am also thinking of another burden called mistrust.”

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 29

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.