跳舞猫日録

Life goes on brah!

2022/05/20 English

In the morning I joined her room of Judith on Clubhouse and talked with her. Judith is always a cheerful person and often laughs at our conversation. I always feel she gives me a specific positive power when I start reading my diary and sharing my opinion with her guidance. My mother tongue is Japanese so thinking and talking in English mean going out of the comfort zone of my mother tongue (Yoko Tawada, a Japanese novelist says that it can be called 'exophony'). I should feel some handicaps but Judith lets me think in English without feeling that handicap. This is her power of personality.

I went to a library and borrowed Kumiko Torikai's "True Skill of English". I started reading it. Why do we have to learn English? This looks childish, but a primary question. If we were born in Japan as Japanese, we could live daily life without learning English. Our time is precious. Why should we spend such a valuable time learning English? I thought about this question when I was a student too. Now I think that living life is to keep on learning and committing to other people. So I'm learning English.

Kumiko Torikai declares in her book that it's important to be a self-disciplined learner or a self-controlling learner. "Life should be based on self-discipline". I am 'half' agree with her. I am an autistic person so need other people's help (without this, I couldn't live more). So living apart from my parents doesn't mean living an 'isolated' life with a strong consciousness of responsibility. It means living with other people's support (in other words, relying on others in a better way). That's a different point from Torikai's opinion.

But I also think that I should accept Torikai's words just simply. It might mean we should have self-esteem in ourselves and create our ways of life with strong decisions. If so, I can also feel that I have built self-esteem in myself so I might become a member of 'self-disciplined' learners. And I feel that it is difficult to have self-esteem in ourselves, but it should be led by tiny successes in everyday life. In greetings, we ask "how are you doing?" and answer "I'm doing well". This conversation already has a chance to have self-confidence in my opinion.