THE TREE-Hidetake Takayama

[00:12.14]You know what troubles me? [00:14.25]They say that nobody ever changes [00:16.69]Despite their impressions otherwise [00:19.51]And despite my efforts, I'm daunted by the same faults as always. [00:24.93]While I'm tired of their jabs, they seem ever renewed by some hidden source of sustenance. [00:35.34]They say that living 25 years is just the amount of time it takes [00:38.44]To harden in your mold, in flexible [00:42.32]But I'm past that line already [00:44.44]I shuffle down the downhill side past broken trees and decomposition [00:49.64]The bittersweet medley that blends death with hope of the ultimate oblivion [01:20.72]Thirsty for a time when I would sit down, my work complete [01:24.38]Surrounded by a field of fallen enemies in defeat [01:27.65]Orbited by planetary jewels of my own design [01:31.86]Made happy forever by their luminance [01:35.73]But to break out of the present was impossible. [01:38.09]The future doesn't exist yet; the past doesn't exist anymore. [01:41.41]They've never existed: only this, [01:44.42]the perpetual present where we're all stuck. [01:48.32]But it felt like the coming day would just be a replica of one before [01:52.31]With pain and boredom, and just brief bursts of pleasure [01:55.99]And so miserable and feeling the futility of my existence, [02:00.49]I lifted up my voice, and to my future being I sang this lament: [02:05.95]Swear that I will crawl out the crater [02:11.07]To smell the land that's left when the smoke clears [02:16.97]Swear that when I slide down the side [02:22.04]My troubles won't be close at my heels [02:28.40]I can't promise you will be free from the ghosts [02:34.61]Of fear, of pain, of doubting, but [02:39.25]You will know the faces they show you [02:45.08]And recognize they're only a vapor [02:50.93]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway [02:56.48]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway [03:03.48]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway [03:08.25]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway [03:14.15]Burned up, beaten down, bleak and weary [03:21.76]Weakness is a wall that you have got around [03:27.31]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway [03:32.95]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway [03:39.51]My future self cheered me with these words [03:41.68]And it was as if, though nothing had changed in my external world, [03:47.16]I saw my future existence and my present unified in a strange eternal present [03:53.45]As I continued to slide down the slope of the crater's outer wall, [03:57.11]I thought, with great clarity, about the misery that had marked my life [04:02.74]while I was struggling, inch by inch, to the crest of that vast volcanic mouth [04:09.99]And I saw the singed bark of the stately trees, [04:12.95]and I looked down and saw the darkened flesh of my own singed arms [04:17.36]It was then that I realized that I had demonstrated, [04:21.17]in my own fragile way, [04:23.32]the strength of the tree