It was 30 years ago today, that a notorious cult group AUM committed terrorism by spreading sarin gas in a subway train in Tokyo. At that time, I was a student at Waseda University. Today, during the lunch break, I saw a piece of online news with my smartphone and learned about it. At that period when I was at that large university, what could I have thought in my mind? I tried to go back to my college days (or my "poor", "painful" youth), beyond these 30 years of distance.
TBH, I can never laugh at the people who rely on several cults too much because I also tried to rely on a sort of cult (not a religious one, but a politically left "sect") at that time. It was when I was only 20 years old (or younger), and I must have been too innocent/ignorant about common sense or this society itself. However, I don't want you to misunderstand as "they" invited me to their group by brainwashing me cleverly. The fact was this: I had a too-clean or too-white idealism so got attracted to them. What a shame.
In other words, if I am still haunted by that kind of "too-white" idealism that makes me divide anything into black or white (yes, too simple and unrealistic), then I can get attracted to any other cults again. Therefore, as my body needs to get vaccinated enough to have flexibility against that kind of danger from outside (or maybe from my inner biases, too), I need to learn several things to learn true diverse ideologies or ideas to get used to that kind of cults' fanatic, extreme idealism. If this is correct, then what should I do next?
I have no idea at all (sorry, but definitely we need to learn those cults' potential danger from several trustworthy specialists). However, at least, if you see I'm sane enough, then that sanity can come from several connections I've been enjoying with other friends (the daily English Zoom meeting, the English conversation class, the English Studying Club, and the "danshu" meeting, etc.).
Also, as Haruki Murakami has pointed out in his "Underground" or any other essays, I've enjoyed several brilliant novels/stories during this life. That can have helped me a lot in getting "vaccinated" within my sensitivity enough.
