I worked early today. This morning, I thought about how stressful/tough my job could be (even though, generally every job could be so hard). Or, probably my whole life could be so hard/severe that I even tend to lose any sign of happiness. I remembered that a Japanese cartoonist, Kyoko Okazaki once described this sort of hardship we should face with quoting an American famous author William Gibson. "How we survive in a flat field". For me, the field can mean a sort of "battlefield" or "frontline".
In the 90s when I hadn't been diagnosed as an autistic person yet, also the era I hadn't read Osamu Dazai yet, my mind (my inner world) could have been completely tortured by several events I had experienced. Even after my college period, I could never find any meaning of life... Thinking like this, I remembered the famous (even notorious) article a Japanese writer Tomohiro Akagi had written on a magazine [赤木智弘「『丸山眞男』をひっぱたきたい----31歳、フリーター。希望は、戦争。」]. He told his honest (in a way, too brutal and sensitive) opinions straightly with using the words "War is The Hope (because war can be the final way for him to change anything)" in public. If war happened, he could "slap" any elites/intellectuals who once had stood upon him as a sort of revenge (he would say it could be a sort of "revolution"...).
Yes, simply it must be so stupid for us. You would say "Look at what's happening in Gaza". However, then he would say "Live such a poor, 'isolated' life from any other hope/possibility except war [which could change anything]". As a 49-years-old poor worker, also a person who belongs to the same generation as Akagi, and even now living "in a flat field", during lunch time I read that article by him once again and thought for a while.
After returning to my group home, I read Kouichi Iwabuchi's paperback "Transnational Japan [岩渕功一『トランスナショナル・ジャパン』]", which taught us how Japanese culture has developed in foreign countries, especially in Asian ones. It was quite an interesting book, and I thought about my life again. Now, my life seems to have plenty of items from several places (some have been exported from here to anywhere). I am just a poor worker who loves reading and listening to music. However, I still believe that at least for me "The Hope for us is Communication". In other words, to exchange our opinions as decent as possible.
