四季から二季へ：季節の喪失が形づくる未来From Four Seasons to Two: A Future Shaped by the Loss of Seasons

Reflecting on the past year, the most significant change I have observed is the disappearance of the four seasons.

Since the last glacial period, for some 10,000 years, the passing of the four seasons has slowly, patiently shaped the heart of Japan. But now we have two seasons, a run of terribly hot days or a run of cold ones, and it is no coincidence that, in parallel, the heart of Japan, cultivated over history and culture, is rapidly disappearing.

Climate change is not limited to the Earth. It is shaped by the movement of the universe itself, so our ancestors too were affected by it again and again, and there is no doubt that they brought forth varied sensibilities and cultures within it.

But a human life averages only about 80 years and cannot take in the whole of a change that spans more than 10,000. Naturally, we who live in a span of barely a hundred years are greatly affected by even a small shift of the seasons; our hearts are torn, and we go through the cycle, again and again, of adapting to a new environment.

In the near future, a Japan that has lost its four seasons: will the beautiful cherry blossoms of spring and the red leaves of autumn disappear this quickly and wipe away, without a trace, the many sensibilities of our hearts? We stand now at a great fork in the road.

At the end of the year, people in Japan have pictured the cherry blossoms that bud after winter, and have taken the sight of them as, quite literally, a symbol of being alive. The heartfelt words, “This year, I was able to see the cherry blossoms again,” naturally emerge from the lips of elderly individuals enjoying hanami (flower viewing). But at the same time they say that someone who had watched the same sight with them until last year is gone.

No one knows since when people in Japan have loved the cherry blossom so much. It is known that, under the influence of Chinese dynastic culture, there was originally an aristocratic custom of admiring plum blossoms, and at some point the symbol changed to the cherry. In western Japan, long the political center, the turning of the seasons is slow, and given the vegetation there are many cherry trees but beautiful autumn color can be seen only in limited places.

The Tohoku region, by contrast, holds many kinds of deciduous broadleaf forest, and the autumn colors there are overwhelming. This “cherry of the west” and “red leaves of the east” have become a symbol of the line dividing east and west Japan. The boundary lies at the Fossa Magna, a great rift lowland, which became a major reason the two sides grew different while nurturing different developments.

Under today's great climate change, western Japan loses its cherry blossoms to harsh summers, and eastern Japan loses its autumn color to harsh winters. That the cherry and the red leaves, symbols of these two different cultural spheres, are vanishing shows, just as it is, a great turning point for Japan.

The presence of four seasons has allowed us to enjoy nature’s changes, observe them closely, and live in harmony with the natural world. But in a new living environment of extreme heat and cold, that room in the heart is gone. And little by little everyone falls into a harsh, competitive environment, a survival environment, where one must keep oneself, or those one loves, alive. In Japan, in fact, I feel we have already entered that stage.

What has changed is not the seasons but the environment in which human beings live, and that means the rules of survival have changed. If so, perhaps we no longer have the room in the heart we once had, the room to nurture culture.

From four seasons to two: 2024 was a year in which I felt the omen of a great change in many things.