You've been working in Osaka for a couple of weeks now, commuting from Kyoto and back each day, a distance of some 60 kilometers, and you've learned a few basics of the fine art of Japanese commuting. You've experienced firsthand the relentless and dedicated pursuit of the objective, the fearless defiance of odds against. Already it is clear that the innocent foreigner, in his rigid territoriality, his righteous sense of individual liberty, is no match for this mass progress. You perceive that few Western governments have ever understood this.

At first the movements of the individuals in the station mass had seemed to be random in nature; this misjudgment stemmed from both your ignorance regarding the higher laws of Japanese commuting and your indignation at the repeated violation of your personal territory. Your indignation waned, however, as you surrendered to the support of the crowd that twirled you along like a twig, when you began to grasp said higher laws and the truly impersonal nature of mob satori.

So today you've left the office only seconds after 5:30, to give yourself a reasonable chance of success in this event. Yesterday you almost had a seat, but it was the wrong train. This time, to make sure, you double-check the schedule before purchasing your ticket, wasting precious seconds while the pass-carrying professionals shimmy and elbow fluidly around you, seeking superior pole positions in the platform lines upstairs, all in obedience to Japan's highest law of commuting: if you see empty space, occupy it.

The competitive tension returns now in a rush of adrenalin as you spot an old lady shuffling ruthlessly toward the wicket you're heading for: no contest. First blocking your latter leg sharply with her cane at shin level, she mounts your advanced instep and shoulders you back a notch, shopping bag then ballasting her neatly through the wicket, leaving you stunned with her expertise.

She waddles off toward the escalator. No way: you lope for the stairs with a youthful stride, taking the steps two at a time, leading the old lady by about 4 lengths at the top, where three lines are feasible: which is shortest, which looks most professional? As you pause to decide, the old lady moves out like a tank from the top of the stairs. Not a chance: go for it. Dashing forward, dodging the lost and the hesitant, you round the guide rail, lope confidently toward the end of the shortest line just as the old lady slips her brick-filled shopping bag into the space and scuttles deftly under the rail to take her place in front of you, a benign smile playing about her wrinkled lips.

Immune to your microwaves of indignation, she stands solidly in pole position 12; no window seat for you; but still, a chance for a seat. It is the way, you reflect, of elderly women in this country to grab their rights at last, if needs be from naive and sentimental foreigners. Moreover, it is all impersonal; you yourself are not the object of these buffetings, these defeats; it is merely your physical manifestation that must suffer them. No need therefore to steam with indignation like this, a costly drain of energy not to be borne every day. Thus one learns--still, that twinge of the instep, that sting of the shin, the abruptness and heft of that shopping bag--preoccupied, you are pushed with sharp discretion from behind: the train has come in.