There’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since I started writing this book.

I found myself wondering what I had actually been aiming for during all the time I’d spent working in the local community.

I created a new product. I devised a new system. I opened up a new market. But looking back, perhaps I wasn’t actually creating anything truly new after all.

We redefined the significance of snow. We took a fresh look at sake lees. We re-examined the relationship between farmers, breweries and consumers. We ventured out into the world and took a fresh look at the concept of ‘region’.

What I was doing was rediscovering something that was already there.

The word ‘future’ usually refers to something we have not yet seen. A world different from the present. A world more convenient than the present. A world more prosperous than the present.

But I’m imagining a slightly different future.

The sense of reassurance that comes from picking up something made by someone you can picture. The feeling of sensing someone’s life and the passage of time in a well-worn tool. The rhythm of life, where you decide what to serve at the dinner table each day whilst attuning yourself to the seasons and the weather.

All of these were once taken for granted. But now, little by little, they are slipping away.

The future I am striving for is one in which that feeling returns. A future that feels nostalgic.

In Part One, I wrote about how the land is something entrusted to us by our children.

There is a way of thinking that suggests we do not inherit the land from our ancestors, but rather borrow it from our children. This is not merely a matter of property, but a matter of time. We receive it from the past and pass it on to the future; in between lies the present.

That sensation is rather like fermentation.

Fermentation is a process that takes time. As human hands intervene and microorganisms do their work, something gradually changes. It cannot be rushed. It is in that slowness that its value lies. Just as the Uonuma strain was nurtured over hundreds of years in snow cellars, so too does the value of the land lie in the passage of time.

The same goes for snow. The snow that was treated as a nuisance throughout the winter becomes spring water, a summer experience, and the ideal temperature for brewing sake. Multiple dimensions of time overlap within a single natural phenomenon.

I have written about constellations several times in this book.

The stars had always been there. But the moment someone drew lines between them and ascribed meaning to them, the constellations were born. For those who read the seasons to guide their farming, they became a calendar. For seafarers, they became a map.

The same goes for local resources. The sake lees had always been there. The Uonuma strain had always been there. The farmers and the brewers had always been there. Yet no one had drawn a line between them just yet.

Value lies dormant until one meets someone who gives it meaning.

I’ve come to believe that a ‘nostalgic future’ might be a state in which dormant values have been reawakened.

It is not about going back to the past. It is about imbuing the wisdom and activities that once existed there—the human warmth and the layers of time that have accumulated—with new meaning within a contemporary context. I believe that is the essence of working in a local community.

No matter how far technology advances, the landscapes of the future that people find comforting will surely bear the mark of human hands. We will surely be able to see someone’s face. There will surely be a sense of the weight of time.

The reason I sought to bridge the gap between consumers and the brewers was that I felt a human touch was needed in that space. The reason I considered adding more chairs was that I believed bringing in another chair—rather than pushing someone aside to sit down—would enrich the community.The reason we went out into the world and gathered round a round table was not to sell Japan’s finest products, but because we wanted to speak on an equal footing with people from every corner of the globe.

In each case, it was relationships rather than novelty that they were seeking.

FARM8One of the company’s missions is encapsulated in the phrase ‘Draw the Nostalgic Future’. This means ‘to depict a nostalgic future’.

Anyone hearing these words might find them a little puzzling. After all, the past and the future seem to point in opposite directions.

But I don’t see any contradiction there.

That what once existed in the past is still needed in the future. And that we, having almost forgotten this, are rediscovering it once more.

Perhaps the future we long for is not somewhere far away. If we delve deeply into our local community, we may well find it lying just beyond.

If reading this book inspires anyone to look a little deeper into their own lives, I could not ask for more.

There are still many things in this region that have not yet been given meaning. There are constellations that no one has yet drawn lines to form.

The next person will be the one to draw that constellation.

So that children can play in the footsteps we have left behind.

ATSUSHI KABASAWA

Conclusion to the next chapter, ‘Regions That Become Constellations’