"Gesuto" I said, presenting myself at the desk of the Tokyo Aquatics Center. This came after a small bow, begging-pardon word, and midday-greeting word.
Yeah, I'm a stranger here. It's the fourth day of my first ever visit to Japan. The travel means I am missing my daily swim routine. A friend of my son recommended a pool that accepts walk-ins to use the facility. It turns out, it's the facility that hosted the 2020 Olympic swim competition. I was to swim in the 50 meter by 50 meter pool, once occupied by gold medalists, below multi-level stadium seating, and under a giant television screen.
The facility was 10 kilometers across the city. The taxi driver knew a few words of English; I had a few of Japanese; and they weren't the same words. I found the Japanese version of the facility's website on my phone, and while the driver understood the location now, he was a bit confused as to why I would go there. After a long ride, we came to a giant concrete structure on a small peninsula jutting out into the harbor. It was isolated, alone, and there was no event scheduled. Still clearly baffled, the driver gamely drove around the facility to where there was a lone bus with a driver standing by. This driver pointed us to an unmarked door which was the participant's entrance to the facility. After bows, thank-you words, and well-wishes words, I stepped up to the reception desk outside the locker rooms.
My associative preference leads me to act through intuition. I get information by recognizing the patterns from the context I'm in -- in this case a public pool -- with my experience of these contexts. I find public-use pools most everywhere I travel. To get here, I had almost nothing to go on, but the intuition that Kosaburo was a trusted source for information. That small amount of trusted information, delivered second hand, allowed me to conjure the rest.
The driver, by contrast, trusted the system. The customer had provided a valid address, and indicated confidence in the choice. He went to the location, and searched for an entry door. He had none of the usual context which would have been delivered by a conversation in a shared language. While I was navigating on thin context, his process narrowed down to -- go to the address and find a door.
While an insider tip got me to a very special experience, what's life-affirming for me was the driver's willingness to engage. The two of us had just about every human difference: race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, language, occupation, age, upbringing, no doubt religion, no doubt cognitive preferences, probably politics, and no doubt other invisible differences. Nonetheless, he took on an uncertain mission with me. My wife, Susan, who accompanied me on the adventure, noted the driver genuinely cared. We'd asked to be taken out to what all appearances was a closed and isolated facility on a cold and rainy day. He didn't want to just abandon us there. He made the effort to converse with the other driver in order to be sure he was leaving us in the right place.
‘When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself."
The man drove away and out of my life leaving me wanting to be a better person.