The New Generation and Power of Hope hr678

 

What occupation did you want to have when you were a child? As for me, I wanted to be a singer. My father got a cassette tape recorder that was a new gadget of novelty on the market back then, and he used to record my a cappella singing of popular songs of those days over and over. I also remember as one of my earliest memories that I won an amateur singing contest in a local festival by singing a children’s song a cappella. I thought I had a talent for singing, but now I suspect that I won not because I sang best there but because I was such a small child among all adult participants.

I heard a topic in a news show that the occupation which Japanese schoolboys of today want most is neither a baseball player nor a professional gamer but an office worker. To me, it seems like a work style rather than an occupation because the point is what kind of business they want to work at an office for. I guess that wanting to be an office worker in whatever business means there is nothing they want to do in the future other than making money.

Every time I see young people of the new generation, I find many of them are kind, gentle and have good manners. Until a few decades ago, Japan had had a male-dominated society where a woman steps aside to let a man walk straight in a narrow street. I have defied those unspoken rules all my life so that I have often almost bumped into a man before he flipped aside at the last moment. I used to see that occasion as a face-off with Japanese society. Nowadays however, even in an old rural town where I live, I have seen more young men let me go first, step aside or hold a door for me. On the other hand, they seem too benign and content. I don’t feel strong ambitions from them such as achieving something no matter what or aiming to live in a gorgeous mansion someday. They look satisfied enough by sharing their photos of new sweets at the cafe on SNS. Is a person like me, who list all the things of this and that I want to do, and literally rush about in a sweat everyday to complete everything on the list, an unsightly antediluvian? Should I instead take my time to gaze at artwork on the foam in my cafe latte cup, take a photo and put it up on SNS?

When I straightened up my room the other day, I found my old portable CD player that I hadn’t used for a long time. Inside, it held a CD of Pebbles who made a hit about 30 years ago. I used to listen to it whenever I walked to a gym because the songs’ arrangement was so superb that I could learn a lot for my music. I connected its tattered power cord and turned it on. To my surprise, the player was still alive and began to play the first track of Pebbles’s album. The moment I heard the sound, my past self returned all of a sudden.

In those days, I was an avid fan of Formula One World Champion, Ayrton Senna. I loved him so much that he had become the only motivation for me to be successful as a singer-songwriter. I made my songs and tried to get a deal with a major record company with all my effort because I had believed that would eventually lead to Senna. I blindly felt certain that I would meet him and marry him. Since I was possessed with the notion, it wasn’t about whether the day would come but when. For the day that should arrive, I made every preparation I could think of. That was why I was walking, swimming at the gym, and applying skin-care cosmetics. Since those preparation days for Senna were always accompanied by Pebbles’s songs, listening to them brought back my feelings of the past vividly.

My plan was abruptly smashed when Senna was killed by an accident during the race several years later. I remember debris of his crash looked like pieces of my dream on TV. I haven’t been able to watch any documentaries or movies about Senna to this date because it’s still too hard. Yet, my goal remained while my motivation died. I had to ask myself why I would keep going. The answer was simple; it was what I wanted to do. And now, although I don’t make a lot of money, I have become a singer-songwriter. From my experience, I can tell it’s possible to have the occupation that you want if you cling to hope. I think you will be able to spare yourself despair if you want nothing in the first place. But in exchange, you can’t get hope either. While disappointment may knock you down, the rapture you feel when even a small piece of your wish comes true, and sense of fullness you have when you strive for your goal, is wonderful beyond description.

Tears were running down my cheeks while I was listening to Pebbles’s album. It recalled to me how much hope my past self had. That hope was completely unfounded and groundless without any reasons, but I had doubtlessly believed it would be fulfilled somehow. I had forgotten about that kind of my young past self once existed and I realized I didn’t appreciate how happy I was then. I knew I had so much hope for my age, but not that amount and certainty. I couldn’t help feeling envious of my past self filled with unrealistic hope who surely looked stupid. Thinking how privileged I was when I was young, I couldn’t stop crying.

The Unhappy at the Happiest Place hr671

 

Looking back, the bottom of my life was several years in the mid-80’s when I left my hometown and came to live in Tokyo where I was struggling for success as a musician. While I was working part-time for a living, I was making songs, looking for band members, doing gigs and selling our demos to the record companies. Those days were so energy-consuming without any luck that my mind and body had been both tuckered out. I began to drink and smoke.

It happened at the theme park in the Tokyo area which host was the mouse. I had been working part-time as an attraction cast member at the park that was newly opened only a few years back. Because it was in the midst of the Japanese holiday week, the park was quite crowded. The attraction where I worked had a full house all day and a long waiting line continued. When I was introducing the attraction over the PA system at the holding area inside, I saw a group of three peevishly-looking men in their late twenties eating popcorn. After I put down the microphone, I approached them and gently with a smile asked not to eat inside, which was strictly instructed as a working procedure. Then I noticed they were sitting on a swung chain in front of the mural painting. I went to them and again asked not to because the chain was easily detached from the poles thus dangerous, which was also what the cast member was strictly told to do. The whole thing originated with these two trivial incidents.

Next to the holding area was the preshow area where the short movie was shown. In the middle of the movie, I saw some people open the door and enter the next theater, which was prohibited. I followed them into the theater where the main attraction was. They were the same men who had infringed the attraction rules at the holding area. I politely asked them to return to the preshow or go out as they weren’t allowed to skip the process. One of them said to me angrily, “You have kept telling me not to do this and that all the way! Stop that already!” They refused what I asked and tried to stay in the main theater. I explained the preshow would end merely in about a few minutes and asked them to go back. Then he yelled at me, “Shut up, ugly!”

The word ‘ugly’ had been a cue for me since I was a child. I battered a boy who uttered the word to me at elementary school. Even in my adult life, I once tried to strangle a middle-aged hoodlum and push him over the bridge-rail down to the river. In that case, I was carrying all the musical instruments and walking slowly when the man yelled at me from behind, “Walk fast!” I turned around and explained why I couldn’t do so with a heavy burden, and he said, “Don’t bar the way, ugly!” Probably because of my complex, I easily lost control whenever somebody told me ‘ugly’.

The man’s cue at the theme park made me thrust him with my both hands. He fired up as well and shouted, “Violence! Violence here!” Next moment, I found myself punching him. He looked surprised and terrified, then repeated like a child, “Violence! I was hit by an employee!” Other cast members came running toward us. Without a word, I left the attraction for the break area where I smoked a Camel.

Nobody came to me and I returned to work after I pulled myself together half an hour or so later. Neither the supervisor nor my colleagues mentioned the incident. They acted perfectly as if nothing had happened. They behaved similarly the next day, too, except for a distant attitude. Since it was in those times when companies’ awareness of compliance was low and social media where people upload their video clips was yet to come, the incident didn’t raise a fuss. Even so, I didn’t feel relieved not to be fired. I just felt sorry for the mouse who was the host of the park, that I did violence at my favorite place. I noticed how low I had gotten as a person. The sense I needed to clean up my act and change led me to quit the job soon after the incident.

I am so ashamed of my past self. I couldn’t, and still can’t, forgive my behavior. Just because I was unhappy, I shouldn’t have taken it out to others. I realized I was a foolish punk myself, and bitterly hated myself for that. The decision to quit the job was the new cue to try to become a better person. What I didn’t see was that the cue consequently turned my life for the better. I thought I was completely cornered and resigned to live at the bottom, not knowing I had gotten out of the worst already.