BGM: The Charlatans - One To Another
Today was a day off, and it was raining. I sent to my mother a thanksgiving message on LINE. I remember the past days I had blamed my existence, and gotten ashamed. WHY was I born in this world? If I weren't born (or if I weren't autistic like this), everybody could live happy lives. I felt the state as Nirvana's song "All Apologies". How much did it cost to bring me up to an adult? (the university, Waseda, was a really huge one so it "took" really much money). And I am autistic therefore very strange. For my parents, it must be an enigmatic/impossible trial to bring this "troublesome" and "difficult" child to this adult. Indeed, I shouldn't feel that has been my fault. But I once exactly thought that I was to blame for not enjoying the peaceful mood/atmosphere of classmates because I was a creep or "geek". That continued certainly even if I became an adult.
It was 20 years old for me when I, who had lived in such difficult/tough days, met the internet. Since then, I wondered to seek for the "place" which was difficult from schools and my family, and tried to find any sacrifice from literature and music. I dug Haruki Murakami's books, and listened to great and cool city pop to imagine the outside world from this narrow Shiso city. I dreamed the outer world as a sweet place. At there, a lot of pleasant things must be waiting for me. And I can meet the people who are so tender to understand this weird person... that enabled me to survive those miserable school days. After that, I started going to Waseda. The internet era also started and everything changed. But the trauma I had had remained and it suffered me. I was possessed by crazy and terrible doubt to anyone. Everybody must hate me, is dissing me a lot... I believed so. I made many, so many struggle with my friends. A Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa wrote as "I am a devil". At that time, I was a faceless android. Or I was just a "pretty hate machine" (Nine Inch Nails).
At the library I borrowed Keiichiro Hirano's book "What is myself". After reading it, I felt that this book made my confused or chaotic mind neat and clear. Hirano tries to make a new concept "dividual". This is a kind of "various essences of personality" which can be divided within one person. For example, I can have these kind of "dividuals" as "an English user", "a music freak", "a bookworm". And within those "dividuals", it doesn't have any "true" or "central" one. "Dividuals" are on a certain mild gradation. On that gradation, I can change freely. When I am in a bedroom, I listen to The Charlatans like this. At this time, I am really idiotic. But if/when I meet my friends, I can become a square person "naturally" or "automatically". But that doesn't mean that I become "true myself". Both of my personalities are "true myself". I am such a marvelous person because I can be changeable freely by this kind of affection from outside. I am such a free existence... I accept this from Hirano's that book as an understanding/recognizing.
This evening, I read Matthew Williams's "The Science of Hate". A really wonderful masterpiece. He tries to survey many hate crimes in various countries besides Japan, and also describes the emotion/passion "hate" from a lot of date from several experiments. I remember myself... As I wrote above, I had lived a kind of "hater" or "enemy" through my youthful days. I was soaked into a fishy ultraleft idea. That idea worked as a really sharp knife for me, and enabled to express every paradox in this world (at least, for me at that period). I even thought that everyone was just an idiot by being possessed by that fishy thought (I thought I was just a "chosen" one by a higher existence). This book recalled that past shameful memory (but that "hate" might still remain in me even now), therefore is a precious one. Now, I am touching to strangers by reading books and learning English every day. I hope it would separate me from the emotion "hate". But I also don't want to think like "I am so smart that I am never being haunted by any 'hate'!" because it is just a too huge selflove. Oh, it must be a tough duty to survive this world.