You mentioned your music, which reminded me that I didn’t talk about “practice,” which is another element of a personal “investment.” This writing project of mine definitely is practice in the craft, and higher levels of this investment is with the motivation to improve or to evolve in expression.

I remember a study cited in the news some years ago. People assume that a lot of professional experts in arts and athletics are naturally gifted–genetically. This is true only in a few cases, but this study discovered that the vast majority of these very skilled folks (professional instrument musicians in this case) simply practiced throughout their childhood into adulthood. They never stopped practicing. Hours and hours and hours of practice. THAT is investment.

Maybe a better word is dedication…

What’s so interesting about looking for social information on an “alien” culture is that (1) observers can easily misinterpret things without being immersed for a while themselves, and (2) the observed are usually so unconscious of their own behaviors and attitudes that they can’t clarify these nuances explicitly. One of my research topics for Syncope involves Japanese business culture; I think I mentioned that somewhere before. Boy, that’s *tough*.

The comment about the Japanese sense of fiction vs. reality reminds me of something I found a while back concerning gays in Japanese mass media. In particular, the famous “Hard Gay” TV comedian, 住谷正樹… Thing is, for all that show’s popularity, the guy was heterosexual. It wasn’t something actual homosexual men watched, just like yaoi is neither written for nor by gay Japanese men (it’s mostly by/for heterosexual women). It’s all very fake and over the top–clearly, being “gay” in this representation is either a comedic trope or other social symbolism that has nothing to do with homosexuality, which is not something one commonly condones in actual life anyway.

(…I could go on, but I’m afraid I’d start throwing paper and book citations left and right.) ^^;

Thanks for the comment!

My own work varies wildly in how much I invest in it. As far as my writing fiction goes, it’s something I started in order to learn how to express myself as and to other human beings. It’s a work in progress with several tiny chapters and tons of scrapped beginnings. Sometimes I’ve fallen short on the research but there’s quite a bit of investment there- of course, it gets dwarfed by what I have and will put into my music projects.

Hmm, the average Western, internet savvy anime fan… yeah, I know how far that kind of research doesn’t lead. Ericka Friedman has written some interesting theories though. One of the better perks of checking the yuricon ML once in a while is hearing a few voices of attempted reason trying to even out the masses. Anyway, one of the later things she put forward was that the abundance of homosexual characters in anime could be attributed to a larger sense of distance between fiction and reality in Japan. Reading or watching a situation is a safe way to experience and consider all things taboo because it ‘doesn’t mean anything’ as it’s not ‘real life’. Either way, it’s an interesting take to consider.