Fiber Optimism

246 X Shibuya

The ancient Greeks believed in the Omphalos, which is both a thing and an idea. While the “thing” is one of a few actual stone artifacts located at Delphi, Jerusalem and other religious mystery sites, the idea is that of the “navel” or bellybutton. If you’ve been to the Delphi Museum and seen one of these very large urns, you will know that they are generally crisscrossed with intricate web-like patterns, all lines originating from one point, expanding out and contracting back in, perpetually interconnected, though likely unaware (if awareness even plays into it) of this interconnectedness. Though this idea was not solely a Greek one, but can be found throughout various cultures that are both long dead and still extant, maybe it is the direct experience I have in the Greek isles which makes this hit home. That or the fact that these urns, or in their smaller more portable forms, chalices, likely held wine, or some other intoxicant (a distilled amanita muscaria perhaps?), which induced the kind of religious fervor that likely got Zeus drunk enough to screw around with the hot, olive-skinned Mediterranean ladies and have babies emerge from his thigh (Dionysus) and head (Athena).

This is where the idea for HESO came from, my anachronistic love of Greek mythology. And interconnectedness. And wine.

Actually it was probably after I was interconnected with some lovely ladies in Greece while drinking wine that I came up with the thought to create a culture magazine in Japan. Obvious, that.

The point being that wherever you are, and wherever I am, no matter how far apart, we are together. Jeez, that feels a bit too much like a Beatles’ song, though maybe you get the point. Whether it be hitching on the crowded streets of Shibuya or walking the lonely backroads of Mongolia, just look down at the only thing that everyone – no matter how different they may appear to be- has: your belly button, and know that you are not alone.