I worked early today. This morning, as usual, I joined the daily Zoom meeting. Today's theme was the special Japanese lunchboxes we usually eat on a train, which are called "Ekiben [駅弁]". As I've written, I rarely travel anywhere. So, I couldn't join in and enjoy the discussion at first. However, one participant guided me to talk more. The topic went to several Japanese sake, and I talked about how I've quit alcohol for about 10 years, then the other participants seemed to be impressed by my story. I've gotten really thankful for them.
After that, from 10 a.m., I started today's work. Before that, I saw the timeline of a LINE group, in which I always discuss philosophical topics with my friends. Then, a member posted about an interesting TV program about hikikomori. They said that it was about how a local town had tried to salvage hikikomori from their hell-like solitude to commit to society again. It even said that now there are no hikikomori in the town. It sounded to be a really brilliant one, so I decided to check it out.
I have never lived as hikikomori, so I need to imagine how they struggle with their terrible loneliness. Once, after graduating from a university, I spent half a year doing nothing special. Neither any job nor on any trial process of educating myself (I can't remember whether we already had the concept of "NEET"). In that LINE group, I posted about these things.
After today's work, I watched the NHK program. It said that someone had started caring so many hikikomori in the town, because at that period (in the beginning of 2000s) they had existed in the town certainly. So, she tried to create a workplace for them to let they commit to society again and also help them with their job hunting. Before I enjoyed this program, I wouldn't have believed that this kind of magical trial could exist. However, I have learned that, in that local town, they (yes, all of the residents) have achieved this brilliant work.
After that, I read the book I had read a halfway (Kazumi Saeki's "Norge"), and thought that eventually I have been attracted to this sort of novels which try to enlighten our life's bright side, even though basically life can bite our mentality so terribly (so-called "slice of life"). Oh, it sounds like "Monty Python".
