I had a day off. This morning, I joined the daily English Zoom meeting. Today's theme was about this news: "fake" Banana Yoshimoto's book had been sold on Amazon. After that, at AEON I started reading a dialogue book with Haruki Murakami and a popular Japanese psychologist Hayao Kawai, for a while [『村上春樹、河合隼雄に会いに行く』].
Recently, I've been writing about a notorious Japanese cult, AUM. It could be so easy if I had been able to criticize them just so simply as crazy people. However, I can't do so because I have to admit that there must be an emptiness or a weakness in me that can lead me to them. In other words, I have a huge hole in my mind, waiting to be filled by something. Maybe that's why I've read so many books such as Haruki and Paul Auster.
On WhatsApp and Discord, I enjoyed just reading several friends' messages about God and their religious ideas. TBH, I have not believed in God, instead, I even had tried to believe that kind of religious ideas as crap. Now I can tell the reason why I had thought such a blasphemous idea, because basically I had tended to think of myself as evil, therefore I had no value to be saved by any religion. Yes, this must be so silly, too extreme an idea. But I'm not kidding. Even now, I guess in me there must be a huge, enigmatic, even chaotic "magma".
This afternoon, I read the book I Can't Stop Interpreting [袖川裕美『同時通訳はやめられない』] by Japanese interpreter Hiromi Sodekawa. Although I had not heard of this author before, this book is quite interesting. Sodekawa explains in this book that her job is sort of "artisan-like", one that requires continuing training and maintenance to improve one's skills permanently.
I can tell what she explains in this book because (even though, my English skills must be very poorer than her) I've noticed that everyday steady efforts must work for us to improve our English skills. She must be a very skilled interpreter, but even now she works so hard as preparing for her works before she starts them. Yes, I must follow her diligent, eager attitude.
TBH, next Thursday I will attend the weekly Zoom meeting with my friends. There, we are going to enjoy a "bibliobattle". If I can prepare for it with using my free time more, I want to introduce this Sodekawa's book.
