It's Not Too Late (1)

It's Not Too Late
The Founder's Idea for Aikido was to Seek Peace Among Humanity
Endô Seishirô, Aikidô Saku Dôjôchô

Translated by Daniel Nishina

When I first saw the TV news of the terrorist attacks on America (9.11.01), I thought it was just a fire. Then came information that airplanes had struck some buildings and speculation that they were terrorist acts. Next were the images of the plane striking the second building. I was glued to the TV and the repeating images of the moment of impact. I believed that a terrible thing had happened.

Several days after the incident, I glanced at an article in a Japanese sports newspaper. Several lines of comment by a famous American baseball player caught my attention. He said, "We play baseball here in America, pleasing many fans, and are seen as heroes. But in this tragedy, what can we do? Absolutely nothing."

This comment made me stop and think about myself. What have we been doing, and what are we trying to do?

Violence, terrorism, war - this is not an age that has gotten past all of these things. At this very moment there are many people in the world who are caught up in such crisis. Those vivid images of the destruction of the World Trade Center and the instantaneous loss of thousands of lives, from America, which could be called the symbol of modern civilization - they made us, the peoples of the world, see that it was a problem of our very own reality.

In 1932, there was a correspondence between Einstein and Freud. Einstein, on proposal by the League of Nations (the Paris-based organization for intellectual cooperation), wrote to Freud on whether humanity could free itself from the yoke of war. He posed such questions as, "Why are humans driven to war so easily?", "Is there something faulty with the human mind?", "Are there desires that lie in human instinct?", and "Is there a desire, driven by hate to annihilate one's enemies?"

To Part 2