This morning, during my working time, as usual, I thought about several issues. One of them was the title of my ongoing short novel. As a tentative one, I named it "Visitors", which has come from a favorite Japanese musician, Motoharu Sano's album. Thinking about that novel's plot, I eventually started thinking about the concept of "solitude". From this concept, I remember American writer Paul Auster's works such as "The Invention of Solitude", "City of Glass" and "Moon Palace", both of which tell me about how one has to feel their solitude even though they're actually in a crowded city.
Once, when I was young, I had felt that I must have been very, "terribly" weak, therefore I thought I should become an ultra-tough guy who could perfectly endure anything, besides the solitude itself, and I tried to do so actually (Oh my!). In that era, I used to drink a lot of beer to literally "erase", "wipe out" my worries or sorrows anywhere to forget them completely, in a room of my parents' house alone. In my workplace, there was only one male worker (me) around female workers, therefore there was no "mate" who showed me their empathy enough (that time was "before" I met my job coaches).
Even now, when other co-workers start their small talking without me, even though in my head (as a logical thinking) I understand they don't show me their harmful attitude by that, I can't stop feeling I have been disrespected by that scene. Maybe, that scene has been naturally connected to my memories in this mind: In my youthful days, especially in my teenage ones, I had to stay "isolated" in a classroom and try to run into several books (at that era, I read Haruki and Banana Yoshimoto). I was a sad, uncool alien in there...
This evening, after returning to my room, I had dinner. After that, I joined the weekly Zoom meeting with my friends. We shared how we have spent this New Year's Day period and each member's recent impressive events. Next Week, I am going to have a new presentation of mine... However, I have not prepared for that at all, even though I once thought I could do one about my personal memory about Souseki Natsume, or a different small topic. Like this, a new autistic year of mine has started eventually.
