Fish Hearts and Water Hearts -- A Proverb (Patreon)

Hey hey! End of the year business going on here. Everyone else, too? I have some updates I'll write in another post later in the week. But for now...!

I came across this proverb ages ago, promptly forgot it, then the other day when I was signing into an old gmail account and found that I had emailed myself about it, so I relearned it. Since I quite like it, I wanted to share. 

The proverb is gyōshin areba, suishin (魚心あれば水心) or "If you have a fish heart, water heart" (literal). Or better, "If a fish shows affection, the water will too". 

To better understand it, originally the phrase was: uo kokoro areba, mizu kokoro ari (魚心あれば、水心あり). "If there is a fish heart, there is a water heart." Or something like that. It meant something like if a fish living in the water has affection for the water, the water reciprocates similar feelings toward the fish. 

You can imagine a fish swimming in a river and going peacefully along with the current perhaps. Basically, the fish and water both love and respect each other and that's a wonderful, mutually beneficial relationship. Harmonious!

Gyōshin areba, suishin then means that if you show kindness to another person (or animal or anything in life really) that kindness will be shown back to you. So lovely💕. 

I don't like Reddit. I go there occasionally to watch crow and rat videos or to see if anyone is recommending a really good book. Invariably (meaning almost always), though, I'll get shown some subreddit of some angry, panicked, scared, mean, evil person going off on someone or someones and "altercations" follow. That's my cue to put the phone down and pick up a book. 

Anyway, watching someone ordering food at a restaurant start freaking out at the cashier makes me think of my mom. (I'm going somewhere with this story, bear with me.) It makes me think of my mom and how freaking NICE she is. Once (YEARS ago) I was at the DMV being yelled at about something I had no control over and I had to leave the room. This lady wasn't only not helping, she was all raging oni. My mom had been outside waiting and went in after I'd left. I took some breaths, cursed, paced, then went back in to find her and that purely monstrous woman behind the counter both laughing and smiling like they were old best friends. They'd never met each other. But I remember the woman's smile and thinking, Oh, she's not so horrible. I think about that moment a lot. And I imagine this phrase might originally have had that connotation. You get what you give or give what you get. It still does have that meaning, mind you, but thanks to a period drama called "Sekitori Senryou no Nobori" -- that was based off a popular Edo Era play about sumo wrestlers and the hierarchal structure within that world. Something-something about bribes and the phrase was used as more of a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" or "if you do a favor for someone, they'll do a favor for you" kind of way which tainted it a little. 

So that now depending on how it's used it can also have a negative context as well. 

Basically, it can be used in almost any situation (business, friendships, romance) and means that by conveying your own feelings or actions you will get a similar response from another person and vice versa. That our emotions and actions influence others' emotions and actions. 

But I love that first image of a fish blissfully swimming along in water and the water just as delighted, caring for the fish. 

Utagawa Hiroshige's "Carp"

A scene from Sekitori Senryo Nobori (1859) by Kunisada

Thank you, love you, XO, and some more bits of news soon (involving crows!),

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