Hyouka: Art of Thinking
The genius brain of Houtarou and Chitanda’s curiosity, if combined in one person, could create one genius and dangerous human.
Hyouka
“Ice cream”
As always, let’s talk about what Hyouka is. Hyouka is an anime adapted from four novels created by Honobu Yonezawa. The novels are Hyouka, The Credit Roll of The Fool, The Kudrayavka Sequence, and The Approximation of The Distance of The Two. The story is about the Classic Literature Club of Kamiyama High School, specifically Oreki Houtarou and Chitanda Eru, the main characters of the series.
Hyouka told a story about how Oreki’s life’s — once a very gray life — start to become more colorful, rose-colored is how the novels/anime illustrated it — because he met with Chitanda. Chitanda is a very energetic girl with high curiosity while Oreki is a lazy kid with amazing deduction skills.
Oreki and Chitanda along with The Classic Club, solve quite a ton of mysteries throughout the stories, and in the process of solving it, the colorful life of Oreki starts to take its form. It’s a slow anime, but for me, the way anime takes its time for the club to solve a mystery and take its time for Oreki to do his amazing thinking ability — that makes me jealous not gonna lie — is actually what fascinates me about this anime.
Chitanda’s curiosity and Oreki’s thinking ability is not the main core of the stories but since I watched it the first time, second time, and read the first novels, I can’t keep my head from thinking about those two aspects and that’s what I’m going to talk about today.
Why Thinking and Curiosity?
Even though it’s not the main focus of the story, Oreki’s ability to think and draw a precise conclusion and Chitanda’s high curiosity intrigued me because I think I and most people lack those two points. I believe having those two points could make you an incredible human being. But, people value more people that “act” rather than think. While taking an action is important, but the question that I have is why do people that “act more” than think are more valuable? Is it because what they do could be observed physically? Or is it because the impact is more tangible? If so, is it actually better? Does doing things that people can see physically and feeling the impact right after it improves our well-being?
Here, I kind of want to present an antithesis to act-more-and-think-less-beliefs based on what I get from Hyouka. I believe people would be better off if we use our brain instead of our muscle just a bit.
Oreki Houtarou: Thinking
“If I don’t have to do it, I won’t. If I have to do it then make it quick”
Oreki is a lazy kid. Despite being blessed with amazing deduction ability he doesn’t have the will to actually ask a question. Nevertheless, he is an amazing thinker so let’s talk about thinking.
Thinking is a fundamental activity of a human being. We constantly think whether we realize it or not. Also, thinking, for me, is the most powerful “weapon” a human can have. It’s the highest of god blessing — if you believe in Him.
Through thinking, we advanced as a civilization. However, now people tend to “act more” rather than think. A lot of people said that philosophy is a waste of time because you just spend most of your time thinking rather than getting the job done. People keep demanding and asking “What’s your action?” A ton of people have this belief that what is the point in thinking about a certain problem instead of “do something about it”. There are also people that said that thinking is a boring activity, you just sit there alone and play with your own brain. And a ton of other misconceptions that to be honest, irritates me.
First, thinking IS fun. Having your own little thought exercise could actually more fulfilling than you imagine. In one episode from Hyouka, Oreki and Chitanda have their own little thought exercise about why this certain kid is being called to the vice principal office. At glance, it sounds boring and has no point. However, it’s actually a fun activity and does have a point. That feeling when you reach a satisfying conclusion to your own “silly question” is like when you finally nailed a song you always wanted to play. Watching that episode actually inspires me to have my own little thought exercise. It’s difficult at first. You realize that your own thought could contradict your beliefs, but that’s the good part. When you finally able to solve that contradiction in your head, that feeling of satisfaction just flows through your body.
Not only that, it’s good media to train your brain and your reasoning skills. You forced your brain to think about this silly, unimportant thing and forced to rationalize it (“why this is wrong?” Or “why this is right?” Or “what if we do it the other way around? “ Or “well this is wrong, but does it have to be wrong?” etc.) Does your conclusion has to be right? No, it doesn’t. Just like when you learn a song, you don’t have to play it accordingly, you just need to make it sounds good and fun to play. Same with thought exercise, you don’t need to reach a groundbreaking conclusion, you just need to use your brain and have fun with it.
Next, more on the technical side, thinking could make others do things for you. Don’t worry, I’m not saying slavery, but what I mean is negotiations. “Don’t you need to be a good debater to get a good deal in negotiations?” Yes, that is true, but, a good thinker is a good debater while a good debater does not necessarily a good thinker. In a small event in the show, Oreki could actually threaten his senior to do things for him — bringing old anthologies of the Classic Club that are stuck in his senior club’s room. Threatening your senior is not an easy task, especially when he/she comes from a noble/important family in the area — it’s a cool scene, not gonna lie. So, just knowing how to speak (debate) is not enough if you don’t have anything up your sleeves.
Looks trivial, but the reality is that people believe that in order to get a good deal, you just need to know how to speak. There’s a ton of people that can speak (debate) but not all of them can think. They might be able to persuade you, but their proposed deal is awful. Yet, if you are a good thinker, not only you can persuade your interlocutors, you can propose a deal that is actually good, not only for you but also for the people involved.
The point is that thinking could actually give you something. A lot of people believe that thinking not going to give you money and stuff. It’s actually the other way around. If you know your cards right, thinking is your most powerful weapon to get money. If you can rationalize your point — why your side of the deal is better and what is wrong with the other side of the deal, people will give you money. This rationalizing thing is not easy as it looks. A good debater without a good, strong, and sounds point — things you can achieve if you know how to think — is not going to have a nice ending at the end of the negotiations.
Last, and what I think is the most important, thinking actually gets the job done. Yes, sitting around playing with your own brain gets the job done. If you are in a group project — I believe almost all of us have this sin — when someone proposes something, either we just go along with it or propose another thing without having carefully thought about the previous proposal.
This habit is the factor that hinders our job and even if the job actually runs, most likely the result is not going to be optimal. In one episode, Oreki able to solve a mystery by carefully thought about all of his friend’s hypotheses for the answer to the mystery. He thought about what’s the flaw and what’s the strong point of his friend’s hypothesis. That way, he can construct his own hypothesis — a strong one — because he knows what not to do and what to do, and yes, the club’s job done. While it’s impossible to do your job without any flaws, the result is the most optimal.
This is a hard thing to do. We have to end up debating with our own colleagues — something that is not pleasant for most of us. And if you are working on your own project, you have to debate with your own ego — you have to admit that your own plan is not perfect. However, if we actually can do it, our job will be done optimally and effectively because we got to the root of the problems and not just put on some “band-aid” to the problems. This is my critique of those who said that philosophy will not solve any problems. While philosophy can’t offer an explanation as science does, philosophy can show you what is the problem. Identifying a problem is not easy you know and I believe that identifying the problem is the key to get our job done. If you can’t think, which means you can’t identify a problem in your job/project, I can only say good luck with your job, best regards from me.
However, I do think Oreki has a flaw and that is assumptions. Throughout the show, Oreki will use an assumption that he thinks appropriate related to the problems/mystery. Even though there is a way to get the correct assumption, an assumption is still an assumption. So take it with a grain of salt. And the other flaw is what I mention at the start of this part, Oreki is a lazy kid. He’s blessed with a detective’s brain but not blessed with a soul of a kid — to be curious. In order to become an incredible human being, an amazing brain is not enough, you need curiosity.
Chitanda Eru: Curiosity
“私気になります!”
Chitanda is a definition of Oreki^(-1). She’s an energetic-airhead girl. However, she has a high level of curiosity. Even though what she wants to know is somewhat unimportant, that high-level curiosity is still an interesting thing and important in our life.
All things that Oreki did that I mentioned can’t be possible without curiosity. In other words, Oreki can’t actually use his amazing skills without the presence of Chitanda. What that means is that, in order to hone your thinking skills, you need curiosity first. All of the great thinkers, philosophers, and scientists are all curious people.
Developing curiosity is hard in today’s world. We already developed a habit of “What’s the point?” Because of that, every time we have this urgent feel to know something, most of us will drop it because most of us think “There’s no point, it’s just a useless fact, etc” But, why stop there? Is it a problem if what you want to know is just a useless fact? Does it matter if it just trivial stuff? In fact, does it matter even if it has no point at all? The important thing is you get what you want. You satisfied your need. It might not come in handy in the future but who cares? It’s fun and satisfying and that’s what matters.
On a more important note, curiosity can make your mind sharper. If you read a textbook in school, most of us will just accept the content of the book, and later down the line when it’s time to enter the “real world” people blame school and textbooks for not being helpful. Actually, you’re the one to blame. Why you just accept the content of the textbook? Are you satisfied by just reading it? Are you even understand it? Why not question the content of the book? The book not there for you to agree with. It’s there to give you insight and you’re the one to decide what to do with it — whether you satisfied enough or want to know more.
If you not easily satisfied by what you are being told — in other words, curious by what you’re being told — your mind will become sharper and sharper. And if it did, it can open up to many possibilities. You don’t see the world “normally”. There are always new things to explore, new projects, new business opportunities, and much more. Your life will become more exciting with just one thing: curiosity.
Conclusion
“Act more and think less.” I won’t deny that this phrase is correct to a certain degree. However, the way we glorified people that “do more”, is just silly. What we need is actually curiosity and thinking. We have too many people that “do more”. We need more people that are willing to ask and are willing to answer it.
It hurt me to see that most teenagers are approaching the “act more and think less” lifestyle. The world is gaining more and more problems, yet we gaining people that are willing to just put a band-aid instead of properly diagnose it. However, now that some of my friends are thinking the other way, maybe we have some hope. Hopefully, we have more Oreki and Chitanda, or even better, we have the combination of the two in one person more often. Imagine the brain of Oreki and the curiosity of Chitanda are combining in one person. I’m definitely don’t want to argue with that person.
Reference
https://andersonuniversity.edu/sites/default/files/student-success/importance-of-being-curious.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqa9g4ZtNd4&ab_channel=Kei-chan%E3%80%8CAnimeEdits%E3%80%8D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgR6uaVqWsQ
https://animetropolisblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/06/my-thematic-journey-through-hyouka/
