I couldn't say thank you to you

In an abandoned place so far away

Even though I brought you here, you were still fine

I would say arigato, thank you

I felt sorry to see you laughing

with such a strange look on your face.

I thought

You might not know how grateful I was to you

Your innocence until then saved me

There were nights when I let myself cry to you

Even my invitation that no one seemed to listen to

you had no doubt it.

I didn't know how to pretend to be natural

You smiled so kindly and stayed by my side.

why didn't you want?

Wanted nothing and were content with small things.

You were old-fashioned but merciless when it was wrong.

Softly you make suggestions to my depression

with your good sense of consideration.

It doubled the trust.

I had to give it back.

I thought I would try not to be too pathetic.

I didn't know when

I felt like I was close, but I felt like I was far away

Even though I had no affection

I thought I knew about you

And that I was the only clumsy man.

But after all you had looked like me.

about when I turn 70

After living for 70 years, what I think about now is how happy I am to have survived 70 years. It's not that I want to thank anyone in particular, but I want to be happy that I'm living a normal and comfortable life.

This may be the best time in my life. You can live as you please without receiving instructions from anyone. It's not boring either. However, this does not mean that you will be physically and mentally fulfilled and full of energy.

Because there's no need to force yourself. There's no need to try hard. Having lived for 70 years, I may never have imagined that I would be in the state I am in now. It may be difficult to imagine a normal relaxed state where nothing special happens.

You can imagine a moment of trance while soaking in the open-air bath and looking out at the moonlit night. If that were the case, I might be able to draw a picture, but even if it doesn't turn into a picture, the state I am in now is probably the only way I can find infinite peace.

The other day, 80s a grandmother said Hikaru Genji is as my best lover and now is the happiest she is. Maybe that kind of state will come naturally as she grows older. In my case, it might be a little too early. So, as I get older, will I feel happier than I am now? I'm looking forward to what's to come...

Meet world literature complete collection

After passing the exam, I abandoned my habit of studying stoically and devoted myself to reading complete works of world literature. When I imagine my life after retirement, the first thing that comes to mind is reading. The reason why ``reading'' came into being is because people feel that they can't read books to their heart's content until they reach retirement age.

I felt that I had to leave work to be allowed to indulge in so-called reading. On the other hand, I could say that I've been looking forward to retirement because I want to enjoy the environment of reading books and the sense of mental freedom that comes with it.

There was a time in my life where I enjoyed this ``abundance of reading'' and ``a sense of mental freedom.'' It was my high school days. I hated studying for entrance exams and just read books. For me, that was the period when I began to read extensively, and writers often talk about their experiences of reading extensively when they were young, but I did not read as much as the writer, and my chosen profession had nothing to do with writing.

As you can guess, it's a pretty standard random reading course. In other words, I read the complete collection of world literature from beginning to end. Many of these complete works are relatively long novels, and my preference for long novels depends on my reading experience at the time.

Starting with Goethe's ``The Sorrows of Young Werther'' and ``Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'', Hermann Hesse's ``Under the Wheel'', ``Narcis and Goldmund'', Stendhal's ``Red and Black'', Tolstoy's ``Resurrection'', and Dostoyevsky. ``Crime and Punishment'', ``The Minor'', ``The Idiot'', ``The Evil Spirit'', Romain Rolland's ``Jean-Christophe'' and ``The Enchanted Soul'', Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ``Reverie of the Lonely Walker'', Camille's ``The Stranger'' I'm not sure if the order is as follows: "The Plague" and Somerset Maugham's "The Moon and Sixpence," but for about a year and a half, my high school life revolved around this wildly read novel.

My junior high school age

I realized that my yearning to go abroad stemmed from my immersion in American pop music when I was in junior high school, so I listened to hit songs from that time on YouTube. PPM's songs have touched my heart even now. The world was so small back then.

I almost locked myself in my room because I had nowhere to go. Especially during the winter, when I didn't go skiing, I absorbed the music to the fullest. My room had a low ceiling and was dark, like an attic, but it wasn't small.

I think that because I was alone and comfortably cooped up in my own world, I distanced myself from the movements of the world. At that time, the world was supposed to be undergoing turbulent events such as the Vietnam War, the May Revolution in Paris, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, but the local towns were not affected at all. I was too young to receive these external movements and had no knowledge to understand the information.

During the summer vacation of my third year of junior high school, I was in a local city and grew up in a family of craftsmen, so I had no choice but to stoically study and not accept the invitations of delinquent boys.

My father worked hard without Sundays, so I was left with a laissez-faire policy. I think I bought a thick study guide for the five major subjects during summer vacation and studied every day. Perhaps as a result of my efforts, my grades continued to improve, and my choice of high school was revised upward. Then, I took the entrance exam for the school of my choice, which allows students to be in the top three of their class, and was accepted.

when I was in middle school

It had been reminding me of myself when I was in middle school. The reason why it seemed that self-awareness develops almost coincided with junior high school was probably  because the environment changes in elementary school and coming into junior high school In which contact with classmates who were completely different from those in elementary school. 

Although classmates in elementary school were similar to each other, in junior high school students were made aware of the differences on a daily basis, and in some cases were overwhelmed.

In my junior high school, there was a so-called brat general. He was strong in fights and had a large build, and although he had an average physique, he was boney and sturdy.

In elementary school, I was a kind boy who naturally blended in with girls and played with them, but for some reason I felt a kinship with delinquent boys like them. He was putting on a bit of bravado, and now that I think about it, he may have been clinging to something strong.

I didn't get to the point where I was forced to steal by an older delinquent like in "Demian," but my classmates told me that my family was connected to the yakuza, and that I was called out because there was a fight, so I left. There was also a boy who looked just yakuza’s apprentice.

There was also a wild boy who came from a so-called facility, and I don't know why, but I remember him going there to play.

Not only did I try to be incorporated strong boys, but I think I also had a tendency to be attracted to students who were extremely unusual. However, although I did get close to some slightly dangerous classmates and alumni, I never became friends with them.

They must have felt uncomfortable with a ``straightforward'' boy like me. However, I became friends with one of the delinquents whose parents were school teachers. Although he goes out for fights, he also has a playful side that tries to get people's attention, which probably gave him a sense of security. We had a short relationship with him until I got married her who will be my wife.

hold on memories of A

Miss A lived in a world different from the world I had lived in until then. At first she looked like a very well-bred young lady, but she wasn't from a very wealthy family. Being an only child, she must have been taken care of. As a toddler, she was sent to classes to learn to play the violin, but it didn't seem to last long.

In the beginning, there was little conversation. We used to go home together after school because we were going in the same direction, but I can't remember what I was talking about.

Perhaps she wanted to make sure I was human being, since I never said anything vulgar.I remember being surprised when she suddenly retorted that she couldn't imagine you peeing.

No girl had ever said that before. Miss A was a girl who uttered words from her own delusion. I wondered if the delusion in Miss A and my mind at that time had the same part somewhere.It would have been interesting if I could have asked the question whether we had same kind of illusion.

I just realized that Miss A may have been trying her best to make fun of me. She must have been trying to get me into the mundane. It was. No matter how lofty things I kept thinking about, when I was hungry, I had to eat something, and it seemed like a hassle for me.

But if it were true, Miss A would had already acquired a technique to hide her true intentions, which was the exact opposite of what she looks like. Because her face seemed to follow me with obedient, longing eyes.

But I want to say that I was a pure youth. It is only through recollection that one can go back to that time and discover various possibilities that can change the past. Although it is sound like a waste, but it will be thrilling to think that it affects the meaning of my life.

Is marriage a compromise?

I think we need literature to live. This is because the relationships in the real capitalist society have inhuman coercive power. We desperately need stories with warm hearts and dreams.

It's okay to live in a dark world and suffer from material poverty, but you can't live without love, so I want there to be at least some love even in the world of novels (art in general).

My friend and I once watched a movie about Egon Schiele, a 20th century European painter. Picasso seems to have done the same thing, but I couldn't accept the moral idea that he could change his female models one after another, and that even if the female models suffered from jealousy and were ruined, he could remain calm and think that it was inevitable for his own art.

 I was of the opinion that real life was more important than art, but my friend was of the opinion that women who become models should be prepared for this to happen before accepting a modeling job.

My friend says that's what it means to love an artist, and that your partner should also be devoted to art. Literature is also an art, so does marriage with a specific person necessarily have to be at the top of the priority list?

Haruki Murakami believed that in order to keep the family from falling apart, there was a need to compromise (in other words, marriage was a compromise).