Old Man A's Secret Gymnastics

An elderly man was doing gymnastics beside a gazebo in a park surrounded by trees.
Incidentally, I am already an old man myself.
A geezer.
He seemed to be the type who is still hale and hearty despite his age.
I usually sit in that gazebo to meditate briefly or drink a light beer.

I drank my beer on a different bench, which was slightly inferior in terms of location, with rice crackers and peanuts as a snack.
The reason I chose the combination of rice crackers and buttered peanuts over 'kaki-pi' (persimmon seed crackers and peanuts) was that I was in the mood for the sweet and salty sugar-soy sauce glaze on the rice crackers.
Also, I had a vague aversion to the way kaki-pi seems to force its spiciness on you.
At some point, I began to feel a malice in kaki-pi that seemed to flatten the world.
I also somehow disliked the smooth texture of the persimmon seeds.
That feeling when the smooth surface touches your tongue and the capsaicin suddenly raids your taste buds.
Naturally, after that, it becomes impossible to do anything other than feel the heat.
Whether you are thinking about climate change, the future of humanity, or the masses who sneer at demonstrations, everything is rendered meaningless in the face of that spiciness.
There was a time when I just enjoyed that.
There was a time when I was happily violated by it.
However, I became woke.
I realized it.
That there is something decisively missing from the combination of persimmon seeds and buttered peanuts...

Hasn't there been someone doing quiet gymnastics in the wooded area since around the 1970s?
In Japan, it is called Qigong, but it is one of the practices that came in from China following the normalization of diplomatic relations.
Those that came via Taiwan are also called Neidan (internal alchemy) and are somewhat esoteric.
Practitioners try to draw energy from trees, circulate energy back into trees, become one with the entire universe, defeat something with telekinesis, have psychic wars with other espers, or send waves of compassion to the world—they do somewhat mystical things.
There are countless manga and anime based on this motif, but that person was not a fictional existence; he was a real human being.
I felt my curiosity stirred, but I deliberately tried not to look at him.
It was not that I feared receiving a psychic aggression from him.
I thought that if I looked at him with strange curiosity, I would be in the way.
Therefore, I did not place him in the center of my field of vision, but in the periphery.
Referring to Castaneda's 'stalking,' I shifted my point of reference for consciousness slightly.

The man had a smartphone or tablet propped up on the bench.
I suspect his master was displayed on the screen.
Should I call it an online psychic meeting?
I think the master was performing exemplary movements on the display, and he was controlling his body accordingly.
Things like this are possible now.
I was impressed.
After a while, the man gathered his things and left the park.
At that moment, his face entered my field of vision for an instant.
He was an ordinary person.
In other words, he must have been training for a long time to become an ordinary person.
While there are many foolish people who try to be extraordinary at every turn, he must have deliberately chosen to be ordinary.
I think he can do as he pleases regarding that, and I have no particular desire to mock him, but he lacked the affectation radiated by those people who go out of their way to grow stubble, wear samue, get a crew cut, or wear a bandana.
His clothing was truly Uniqlo-esque.
It might have been Uniqlo.
It is also possible it was Muji.
As a result, he had become magnificently ordinary.

The man was not conscious of me.
At least, that is how he made it appear.
I also pretended not to be conscious of him.
Perhaps this was actually a duel.
Of course, neither of us had any intention of fighting.
If we both became interested in each other, we would lose.
It is clear from the start that nothing but a boring result awaits if we become acquaintances.
In other words, keeping one's distance while showing respect is the best course of action.
Is enduring that loneliness not one of the proofs of being human?