A Thousand Paper Cranes

I wanted to learn to fold origami paper cranes. I don’t know why, exactly - I suppose it was an extension of my weird obsession with colourful paper, which originally started out as a tool for faking my way through being a residence advisor and having to deal with people. (Residence advisors are like gregarious kindergarden teachers hopped up on caffeine and possessed by the spirit of Michael Scott. They ooze enthusiasm out of every pore. I tend to resemble a sad broken eggshell, even on my better days.) People tend to assume you’re perky and confident when you hand then handmade pink die-cut invitations covered in green and purple sparkles. Or so experience has taught me.

Then, my sister and I were talking about the atom bomb and all the effects of its fallout. Because, when you’re with a sparkling and bubbly person like myself, the conversation inevitable ends up at the long-term implications of nuclear weaponry. That, or the Holocaust. Any genocide, really.

She told me about the story of a little girl in Hiroshima with leukemia, and how, according to the Japanese, a thousand paper cranes entitles you to a wish (much like blowing out birthday candles in Western wish-mythology). So the little girl had folded a thousand paper cranes in the hope of wishing her leukemia away. And when her cancer did not go into remission, she started again. Because paper was in short supply, she folded the labels off of medicine bottles, paper bags, anything. She had folded a total of over one thousand, six hundred paper cranes before passing away.

And, because I had just heard a heartwrenching story of a little girl’s sad, hopeful battle against a trifecta of warfare, atom bombs, and cancer, and the needless loss of life that was one of thousands and millions of people whose lives were destroyed within a single, terrifying act, my thoughts immediately went to this:

Folding a thousand paper cranes can grant you a wish? Seriously? I can do that!!

So I bought a bunch of paper and began folding away. The internet assisted me, with helpful diagrams and videos, and eventually I figured out how to make a functional paper crane. And after fifty or so paper cranes were folded, I was presented with the following conundrums:

1. These are a lot of paper cranes. What will I do with fifty, much less a thousand paper cranes?
2. If I have a ton of paper cranes all over my house, will it become creepy? Like houses of people whose shelves are all lined with glass-eyed porcelain dolls, or cat figurines, or stuffed, posing animals that used to be roadkill?
3. Are all hobbies creepy, or just the ones involving dead things and obvious crippling loneliness? Or do all hobbies imply loneliness? Oh god....
4. What am I going to wish for, anyways?

I did not have leukemia. I did not have any crippling life threatening illnesses, that I know of. And, because all of my basic needs are basically met, I could think of no tangible thing deserving of a wish.

I could wish for money, but how much? And how, exactly, would the money be delivered? I may believe in wishes granted by invisible forces of the universe by virtue of folded paper, but I do not believe in thousand dollar bills falling from the sky without good reason.

I could buy a lottery ticket and wish to win, but in some clause in my head wishes and gambling are incongruent forces that should never be combined. Plus, of all of the sad people buying lottery tickets, who isn’t wishing to win - be it with happy thoughts, birthday cakes, shooting stars, or paper cranes?

I could wish for a yoghurt maker, because I really do want a yoghurt maker. But I don’t need a yoghurt maker. And a lot depends on the brand, because certain machines are finicky, and I’d rather have no yoghurt maker than a disappointing, crappy one. Plus, if I’m getting any appliances at all, I should really get a microwave.

I could wish for health. But health isn’t really helpful unless you’re happy. And happiness would be an okay wish, except that happiness always seems inversely proportional to intelligence and awareness of the shitty world around you. And I wouldn’t want to be happy whilst obliviously perpetuating the misery of others, because then I’d be everything I hate. And hating yourself is the opposite of being happy.

World peace, but not at the expense of human rights and challenging dehumanizing regimes, the definition of which is constantly evolving? No more famine, but also, a comprehensive education program designed to curtail birthrates in impoverished countries through empowerment of women and widespread availability of effective, cheap birth control? (Any and all interventions would have be culturally appropriate, though, and preferably grassroots, and still allow women to choose while making sure they make the right choice to have fewer children....arggggg.)

Nothing that I want to wish for seems easily summed up into sentence form. And every potential wish could be twisted to inevitably create a world and life infinitely more crappy and miserable than the one I have now, where at least all of my basic needs are taken care of and I have endless time available to sit folding paper cranes.

Inspired by:
This comic was inspired by experience - Hyperbole and a half