BGM: Jesus Jones - Right Here Right Now
Today I had to face the fact how old I am. This morning everyone talked about their ages so I confessed mine as "this year I will be 48", then they got surprised. It seems that there must be many younger people who try to use this kind of chat tools to learn English and Japanese. Or primarily, there must be many younger people who enjoy using Discord to entertain themselves with games and movies. Anyway, according to such young users, I am truly a veteran or old dude. It shocked me a lot although we have to experience that process of getting old actually. I guess that people who are 50 years old might work at their important position at any workplace. They can also have built their families firmly and think about their ending lives. At least, they would never be like me who enjoy everyday loosely with reading and learning English. Oh my, what a wonderful life.
Today a person praised my English. But...I don't think that it is OK about my English. I am, instead of that, beaten by the fact that I can never complete my learning. However I do my effort not to make mistakes, I finally make them a lot... Ah, I started learning English from my 13, and I even learned English literature at a university because I had an interest in becoming a translator. But, even though I have lived through that 30 years process (of course, I have to see that there is a long blank in that process), I can't proud of the progress of my English. A person I respect said to me "Your English gets more polished every day". But I can't judge if it is true or not by myself. I just try to learn English by using it in my daily life as "back to the basic". I believe that steady efforts enable me go forward. If I can use Japanese expressions, then it would be described as "muddy" or "earth" efforts, really uncool ones to bring myself up.
I am not so wise that I can never write great opinions like any commentators or critics. But I guess that my poor English through this "tough" career might come from the reason why I don't have any chances to use it. English is not to do a solo study. It won't be completed by oneself alone. It will be improved by communicating with other people because that is the meaning of a "communication tool"... this might sound difficult, but if I write this simply then it would be like this. I had to use English by writing and speaking more actually at schools or my real life. It wouldn't end that the education system in Japan must be terrible I guess. Even if it is right, I have to accept that I had a certain shyness that stopped me to try to use English as "although being fluent in English is cool, I don't want to make mistakes because I don't want to be embarrassed". I must need a courage to "crush" the shell of my mind to "grasp" the chances to use English. Even now, I need that courage.
And now... next July I will become 48. But, following the great Ango Sakaguchi, a Japanese novelist, who wrote as "recently, I started thinking that everyone can become older than any adults at a period of their life", I think that people can become "younger than children" even they are at their midlife. As this current me. Once, when I was a student, I had the 48 years old person as "completed adults". Being mature people, and living with calm minds steadily and quietly. But, now I find that I am really far from that kind of "completing". Everyday I am running between masterpieces of books and music, and following charming female users on Discord greedily. But as I wrote yesterday, that must be the meaning of the expression "C'est La Vie". I want to become a person like Charles Bukowski. Like him, I want to become a "troublesome" old person. To be an eternal rolling stone, a neo "yankee" (in Japanese, this word has a meaning of "outsider").
