Silver Lining to Dark Clouds

Living a peaceful and comfortable life is one of those goals that many people strive for, simply because the opposite wouldn't be very favorable. But what if you could gain something for being uncomfortable for certain, or even short, amount of time? Would people be able to sacrifice their own comfort for something you are guaranteed, but not quite sure what it may be?

Really, it depends on where you are in life, and how comfortable you are in other areas of you life. Gin no Saji happens to be one anime that explores this concept, through the agriculture sides of things.

Whether it be learning how things are made on an intimate level, or finding out an animal that you spent so much time with, has to be sent to a slaughterhouse to be turned into meat; these are the type of discomfort that can really test your ability to, not only cope with this kind of situation, but be able to process and grow as a person.

Although Silver Spoon is a slice-of-life comedy at heart, I really find it fascinating that the anime manged to slip that type of message throughout most of the series. With something as establish as agriculture, I'm not that surprised that the idea of shaking loose firmly planted ideas is the focus of this anime.

Like people, businesses are very fond of comfort. Almost to the point of sacrificing better models for things that were already commonplace; this is where the idea of introducing people, not trapped in the culture of a specific field, to point out things that don't work well. Hachiken Yugo seems to be showing that he is the man for that job. He is one of the few that is willing to step outside his comfort zone to change something.

The first sign of Hachiken doing something that he wasn't use to was organizing and making pizza for most of his class. Through it, the class intuitively figured out that bring the departments together to make something delicious, was an idea worth venturing in; and later Mayumi Yoshino wanted to do her second year project with the meat and livestock department to experiment with whey. This kind of display tied the learning experience together, making it feel like the pizza part wasn't just something to fill time.

The other sign was way more obvious, that being Pork Bowl the pig. Many of the students have the idea that livestock is to be treated like nothing more than meat to be processed at a later date. However, Hachiken took a liking to one of the weaker pigs the first time around. By slowly making Hachiken realize that Pork Bowl would be killed soon, this was one of the bigger tests for him to face. And in the end, he figured that he wants to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and the second time around he names all the piglets that were born.

That idea, "being comfortable being uncomfortable", is very foreign to most people, but I think it is something to really strive for. When you settle for good enough, and become cosy, you stop the learning process entirely.

For me, that is something I don't want to happen. Even if I have some aspects of my life that are indeed comfy, I try to push for discomfort in at least one space of my life. Not everyone is willing to do something like this, but it is something worth trying out; it doesn't really hurt to try -- of course it depends on what you are doing. You can only learn something new from the experience