Perhaps the best thing about living on a small island in Japan of just 583 people (258 men and 325 women) is that you can walk out your door and kiss the online world goodbye. Here, most people don't walk around glued to their cellphones, the majority don't even have smartphones, and very few take pictures of their food and upload them to the Internet.
People here just live — the way we all, somehow, used to. For some people, it's hard to imagine — like trying to understand how life was before the automobile. We've all heard about it, but who can really imagine going out to the garage and waking up the horse, feeding it breakfast, and then riding it to work? And you complain about car expenses!
One thing I really enjoy about the island life is the tranquility of nature uninterrupted by man-made noise. I don't mean that it is quiet here, but that the noise stems from quietude — sounds emitted not from movement, but stillness. Sometimes in the summertime, I sit in my house with the windows open and listen to the litany of the cicadas outside — and this is when I reach cicada inner peace (it does exist, really!).
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