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 Positive Generated by the Negative hr625

When I was in kindergarten, I was always pushed away and ignored by my fellow kindergartners.
I played the bells wearing a headpiece of a dove on stage alongside other kindergartners at an annual presentation before the parents. I was told to stand at the edge of the stage close to the wings. As we were playing, the kids next to me continued to thrust me into the wings. I tried to fight the way back onto the stage as it had looked more and more that I didn’t participate the performance. No matter how hard I tried, they kept pushing me aside and the best I could do was to poke half of my face out of the wings.
It was the time of an Apollo-frenzy and the kindergarten held an exhibit of miniature rockets made by the children for the parents. The rockets were to be made out of empty soft drink bottles. Since the plan of the exhibit was introduced, I had diligently collected empty bottles. By the time the miniature rocket began to be built, I collected and brought the highest number of bottles to the class. But once we started making, the kids wouldn’t use my bottles. Although all of us brought similar bottles in the same shape and size, they were carefully excluding the ones I brought as their materials. Every time I glued one of mine to the rocket, some kid removed it. I glued, they removed. The rocket had gotten bigger only with other kids’ bottles as we repeated the glue-remove maneuver persistently. Finally other kids’ patience to keep removing my bottle ran out and they started throwing it away out of the window. I went outside to pick it up and as soon as I came back, another bottle of mine was thrown out. Now a new routine had been established. They threw out, I picked in. The rocket completed without one single bottle of mine. I brought home all the bottles intact and told my parents that those were surplus. My mother came to the exhibit and saw the rocket that I didn’t participate to make, but with my name among the builder’s list.
Come to think of it, those kindergarten days precisely represent my whole life. As a singer-songwriter, I have been pushed away and ignored in music circles. Nobody has noticed nor recognized me as if I were an invisible person. I had dreamed that my songs would be in the charts and I would become a celebrity. I would be on ‘Tonight Show’ as a guest and talk with the host. I would be loved by people and be on the top of the world. I had prepared for that day for a long time. I had been dieting and exercising. I had been nice to people and talking to them to improve social skills. I had fervently craved fame. Meanwhile though, the songs that I completed with all my effort and strength by sacrificing everything else had never been appreciated. I think it’s time to accept the reality. It’s about time to abandon confidence and expectation for this world and to admit that I had overestimated the world.
Since the end of the last year, strange things have happened to me as if some messages had been being sent. I had vaguely received and interpreted them. Then I came across one movie that defined the message and made me wide awake. I hadn’t been able to shake off the idea that I had been locked up in a prison or an institution since I was little. And I was right. I realized this world’s true self. Now I have, at long last, found the way to get out of it.
I can’t wake up in the morning. I can’t get along with others. I can’t do what I don’t like. I can’t notice transparent glass so that I bang into it. I can’t get a driver’s license. I can’t perceive people’s feelings. But everything is all right from now on. I am happy to be pushed away from the world because I am no longer part of it. By willingly stopping being part of it, I got out of this world and attained freedom. It’s so funny I had desperately tried all my life to belong to this society that I had known is crazy since my childhood. I will live as myself without conforming to the craziness. I will not care about this society’s value now that I’m out of it. Instead, I evaluate solely by my own value. I judge what is good. I decide what is successful. I’ve never felt free this much in my entire life. All of a sudden, everything reversed and people look locked up while I was released. Outside, my life itself is art because it exists to create music. My songs are supreme pieces and that means I’m totally successful. I’ve become a true artist standing center stage in a spotlight.