Abnormally normal

People appear to be going about their business as normal today in the city. Admittedly, the streets are a lot quieter than they would usually be on the sunny Sunday of a three-day weekend. But folks are working and shopping and chatting and walking.

There is a certain raw energy about the place, though. It's like Tokyo is pulsating to the elevated heartbeats of 20 million inhabitants. We are all on edge: the rumbling of a heavy sliding door or a ring tone that sounds too like an early-warning siren bring on nervous glances in all directions.

And you wouldn't have to scratch too far under the average Tokyoite's controlled surface to find some anxiety about the nuclear reactor. It's like one step forward and two steps back with that situation. All I really know is that the greatest danger at present is irrational panic and that we owe a great, great debt to the brave workers who are struggling to get the thing cool.

I'm trying to be philosophical in the midst of all that is going on around me. Because of events in my life this year and last, I had been reading a lot about death and the human condition before the earthquake struck. I'm now glad of this because some of it has been really helpful. We are all going to die - it is an unavoidable certainty. It seems the point is to fill our hours with as much compassion, generosity and wisdom as we can while we are here. I fail at this most of the time. But a disaster like the one that has befallen Japan is a reminder to at least keep trying before our time is up.