2023/05/22 English

BGM: Blur - Girls & Boys

Today I worked late. This morning I applied the English conversation class which the city will held from this July. I have attended this class for a long time. In this season, who are the teachers? The teachers are the native speakers who work as English teachers of this city's schools. I can imagine/understand they must be busy because of their works, so I feel thankful for their efforts. I can remember that I have learned a lot through the classes, and also grown up step by step. Besides the knowledge and skill of English, I can have met various people and made many forms of connections. So "my world" has become richer exactly. If I were alone, I couldn't enjoy such a pleasant state of learning, and also couldn't enjoy the wideness of my network. I am never a great person, so I could be "a frog in the well". Yes, now I can see that there must be nice people in this city. I have met a lot of such nice people... And this time, who will attend this class?

I have been using English every day. For example, I post my English articles on Discord's and MeWe's communities or groups of English. Sometimes people ask me as "why do you learn English?". TBH I have no great or serious reason to learn. The basis of my motivation is just "to make friends all over the world". Not "getting bigger in my career" (if I tried to be bigger in my company, I would choose learning "business Japanese"). Yes, it is just for enjoying free time as a hobby. It's so easy. In other words, in that English class I can meet various people who try to learn English by their "serious" and "honest" reasons. It gives me a certain power/affection to learn. Learning together, growing up together... they are wonderful. Yes. I like learning.

Is it so called "midlife crisis"? The news Andy Rourke (The Smiths' bassist) had passed away has shocked me a lot. It still affects me and tell that I will die one day... I will be 48 this year, and this fact remains in me as an important one. What can I have achieved? Maybe it must be "nothing". Ah, what a life! But it is a clear fact that in me a certain English skill and knowledge are staying as actual "tools" to survive my life. Once, when I was a heavy drinker and hurt myself like doing wrist cutting because of "self hate", I couldn't love my activity. I couldn't love everything I had done so I burned my articles I had written. A lot of novels and essays... now I can show what I have written, what I have achieved like this (of course, people might judge them as "so what?"). I can show them... that means my growth, my proceeding toward the future.

When I was a teenager, The Smiths was already a legendary group (at least, for me). The beginning of 1990s (they broke up at 1987). Touching their blue and beautiful tunes, I got eased or cured a lot. For me, enjoying rock music like that means not just a way to kill boredom, but also the way to try to become an adult. Or trying to learn something from the musicians' wisdom. At that period, I always carried a magazine of rock music and tried to soak myself into rock music's rich "pond" (in Japanese, we use "pond" as a rich and vast cultural world). I am an idiot therefore I was possessed by "too large" ideas as "positive life can bring us a certain happiness?" like that. But that trials I made still works as a treasure for me. Yes, I will die one day. Everybody will... but the things we have build in our life can affect other people. Therefore our life is never be a waste. That's a meaning of life. At least, I believe so.