36. I Am A Wolf Myself, After All
Posted by T.T. and P.R. in May 2020

A comic writer and illustrator, Maki Sasaki, wrote a children’s book entitled I Am A Wolf Myself, After All. The Japanese wolf is actually an extinct species. But, in the story, a young male wolf has survived and remains. He strolled around several communities where there were various animals, looking for children that were like him, but could not find any. Finally, he decided to live alone, feeling insecure, somewhat ironically. The image below is the cover of the book.

The cover of Maki Sasaki I Am A Wolf Myself, After All, Fukuinkan Shoten, 1973.

If an individual human from the remote future were to visit us here, in the present, she or he will be regarded by us as an alien, and they will inevitably be isolated from our present human society. This future human will observe our society, and no doubt will soon discover the fact that present humans only enjoy their lives with others who are also living at the present time. After searching endlessly for some friends to live together with, the future human will have found no possibilities to live among the present human society in the present world.

If humans do survive until the remote future, they  will be our descendants who are genetically and culturally closely related to us. They will live on the same planet earth as we do. They will breathe the same air as us and consume the same natural resources. They will keep many cultural resources in common with us. However, we always neglect them and we are always indifferent to their very existence. We seldom try to send any message to them. We don’t prepare any single gift for them. We don’t try to share our possessions with them. 

However, if we repent for our present-centred lifestyle and seriously worry about the future human, we can have hope for the future. Now, we must avoid extinction of the humankind. Our gift to the future human is to give them the opportunity of birth and we can give such a big gift as this to the people in the remote future. We can imagine their joyful smiles. Comedy writers will no doubt create magnificent stories including those from the remote past to the remote future, with clever illustrations which will amuse people in all generations.

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