深い呼吸と直感は、自分の想像もつかなかったところまで
一気に連れて行ってくれることは学んだのだけれど、
仮説と検証の積み重ねは、振り返った後に、
「確かに登ったという実感」が残るのではないだろうか。
であるならば、「直感による仮説と深い呼吸と検証」が仮にすべて同時に実行できるならば
「本当に行けるんだ」ってところまで行けるのではないのだろうか。
なにかをどうにかしたいとか。ふと考えてしまうけれど、
”こうしたいなんていう作為”は、横隔膜をすこしずつ固くするんだ。
逆に「伸びと呼吸」の継続には”柔らかさ”が生まれるが、
同時に”自分の軸がなくなる危険性”をはらむんだ。
ならば「伸びたいんだ、深く呼吸をしたいんだ」という作為があるなら、
それは”固めない横隔膜と深い呼吸”の連続があるのではないだろうか？
それでは、僕は、どこに行きたいのだろうか。
なにがしたのだろうか。
運動か、ストレッチか。
わからないけど、ただ、「自分の内側にエネルギーはほしいな」って。
活動的にはなりたいかもな。
日常的に歩きはするけど、
だからと言ってどこにたどり着くでもないんだけれど。
歩き続けたあの時代に、「結果そこそこ面白いところに流れ着いた経験はあったなぁ」
なんて、そんなことを思い返してみる。
今はあの頃より、明確な歩みはしていないけれど、
こうやって書き続けている日々がある。
誰かが関わることもなく、
優しい言葉のみを聞きたいわけでもなく、
もちろん対立したい訳も当然なく、
でも「強かになれればいいな」という、そんな気持ちは少しある。
それは対話か飲みの席か。
知り合いか、赤の他人か。
事前情報の認識があるか、ないか、共有の認識があるか、ないか。
けれど、実感として、やっぱり共通認識ってのはないんだよなって。
自分の認識を、自分として掘って掘って掘り下げなければいけないんだよなって。
それは、人との対峙イコール迎合だから。
私がそうプログラムされているから、
「関係値なくして意見を言う」とかしないから。
確信が本当に本当に深くないと一切言わない仕様だから。
もしくは「関係が深くないと軽口たたかない」から。
※それはそれとしてよくないとは思うけどね。
だから僕はここに書くのよ。
だれも見に来ないから、ここに書くのよ。
支えられているから。どこにでも行けるの。将来は、きっと。
誰のどの認識も、引いて見れないから、
ドラマも小説も、映画も苦手。
巻き込まれて振り回されて、心になにも印象が残らないから。
だからこうやってありあわせの言葉を紡ぎ続ける。
話したいことも話せないから、会話って。
転がって行かないじゃん、会話って。
拾われるからさ。話題とか
それに対して一言言われて、「自分の中の言葉と違うな」って気持ちになって。
「違ったな」って気持ちだけが残るんだよね。
一緒のことを見たいのだけど、一緒なことってそんなになくて。
共通の目標掲げて、一緒に目指して、えっちらおっちらやって、
最後の最後に達成出来ても、
「得られている感動って同じじゃないんだろうな」って気持ちになって。
”「一人の時間と芯が違ったな」って気持ち”になるんだ多分。
”向き””合う”ってことが、喜びも、楽しみも、染み入るものも何もないから、
課題にも人にも、場当たり的で反射的なことしかできないのだよ。わたしは。
それは多分無理してきたから。
”誰かと会う時間ちょっぴり、ずっと無理してきた”から。
人とはね、会いはするよ、働いているから。
それでも、こうやって、ひとりで淡々と書いて
考えを即時反射的に記すことだけで
「あぁ、いま居るな」って時間が過ごせる。
本当は”テーマ”とか”話題”とか書きたいのだけど、
構成ある文章のほうが、自分でも読み直したくなるんだろうけど。
こういう書き方は、結局書いている時間がとても心地いいから、
コロコロ次々書き続けるだけ。そんな今の時間が好きではある。
人との対話もありがたかったよ。でもね。違いしか残らないんだよね。
どんなに言葉を交わしても、「私とは同じ経験をしていないんだろうな」って気持ちが拭えない。
どっちが幸せだったとか、私のほうがつらかったとかそんな比較とかでは全くなくて。
相手にも相手の深い悲しみがあったのかもしれないから
どんなに笑って言葉を交わしても、最後には
「やっぱり違うね。でもあなたの根底の悲しさは、
私には完全には理解できないけれど、想像し得ないほどの状況だったのかもしれないな」
って着地になっちゃうよね。
そのくらい「相手の使う言葉の背景に何があった」とか、
「これからどう転がっていくのか」とかって、なにもわからないという。
そんな風に、未来と過去を同時に見ちゃうと、
やっぱり「未来も今も過去もわからなかったな。みんながわかることはわからないな」
ってなる。
それはそうとして、
わかることはわからないなら、逆は何だろうって考えてみたけれど。
”反芻の結果”って、（今の話と逆で）なんでか行えるんだよな。
”出来ている”って結果だけあって。確かさがあるきがする。
「それを本当にわかっているか」と問われたらわかっているとは言えないんだけど。
見て学べじゃないけど、頭の理解の前に反芻って大事だよなってふと思う。
そんなこんなで終わりに近づくけど、
書くのはいいけれど、振り返る癖もないから
「前書いたこれってもう少し深掘ってみようかな」
みたいな思考は生まれにくいのが難点だよな。この書き方。
つながり続けるけど、乱高下もなく広がりもないみたいな感じ。
やっぱり書く前に「今日はなに書こうかな」とか考えるのが大切かもしれないね。
本屋に行くならば、学術書ではなくて、
なにか文章書くきっかけみたいなものを探しに行くとか、が大切なのかも。
でも多分、楽しいからこんな感じで、今後もつらつら書くけれど。
だって本を買っても読んでも、何も印象残らないし。
読まずに残った本は読んでくれと叫び出すし。
話し出さないそんな文章だけをここに残したいね。
Deep breathing and intuition have taught me that they can take me,
all at once, to places I could never have imagined reaching.
But I wonder if, with a gradual accumulation of hypotheses and experiments,
I might be left with something different when I look back.
A sense that, yes, I really did climb that far.
And if I could somehow put all three into practice at once — hypotheses born from intuition,
deep breathing, and verification — perhaps I could reach a place where I could finally say,
“So I really can get there.”
Sometimes I find myself thinking that I want to do something about something.
To change something, somehow.
But this deliberate intention of wanting things to be a certain way gradually stiffens my diaphragm.
On the other hand, continuing to stretch and breathe seems to bring about a certain softness.
Though at the same time, it carries the risk of losing my own axis.
So if I have this intention of wanting to grow,
wanting to breathe deeply,
perhaps what I need is a continuous sequence of deep breaths,
with a diaphragm that never quite hardens.
I wonder if that’s how it works.
So then, where is it that I want to go?
What is it that I want to do?
Exercise? Stretching?
I don’t really know. I just feel like I’d like to have a little more energy inside me.
Maybe I’d like to become a little more active.
I walk as part of my everyday life,
but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m heading anywhere in particular.
Still, I sometimes look back on that period when I kept walking and think,
Well, I did end up somewhere reasonably interesting, didn’t I?
I haven’t been moving forward as deliberately as I was back then.
But I do have these days when I keep writing, like this.
Without anyone else getting involved.
Not that I only want to hear kind words.
And of course, I have no particular desire to be at odds with anyone, either.
Still, there’s a small part of me that thinks it would be nice to become a little more resilient.
A little more formidable, perhaps.
Would that come through conversation, or over drinks?
With someone I know, or a complete stranger?
With some prior knowledge of each other, or none?
With a shared understanding, or without one?
But from what I’ve actually experienced, I keep coming back to the same thought.
There really is no such thing as a shared understanding. Not quite.
I have to dig and dig and dig into my own perceptions, as myself, until I reach something deeper.
Because, for me, facing another person somehow becomes synonymous with accommodating them.
That’s how I’m programmed.
I don’t just voice my opinions without some kind of relationship already in place.
Unless my conviction runs really, really deep,
I don’t say anything at all.
Or perhaps it’s simply that I don’t make casual remarks unless I have a close relationship with someone.
Though I do think that’s something I could stand to change.
And that’s why I write here.
Because nobody comes here to read it, I write here.
Because I’m supported by people, I can go anywhere.
Someday, I’m sure I will.
I can’t seem to step back and see things from anyone else’s perspective.
That’s why I’m not very good with dramas, novels, or films.
I get caught up in them, tossed around by them, and somehow nothing really stays with me.
So I keep weaving together whatever words happen to be lying around.
There are things I want to talk about, but I can’t quite talk about them.
Conversation doesn’t really roll anywhere, does it?
You put something out there, and it gets picked up.
A topic, perhaps.
Someone says a word or two in response, and I find myself thinking,
That’s not quite what I meant. Those aren’t the words I had inside me.
And in the end, all that’s left is this feeling that something was off.
I want to look at the same thing together with someone.
But there aren’t all that many things we actually see in the same way.
We set a common goal, work towards it together, plod along, step by step.
And even if we finally achieve it, right at the very end, I find myself thinking,
I suppose the feeling of accomplishment we get from this won’t really be the same.
Perhaps what remains is this feeling that the core of it was different from what I experience when I’m alone.
There’s no joy, no pleasure, nothing that really sinks in, in this whole business of facing one another and trying to align.
And so, when it comes to both tasks and people, all I seem capable of doing is reacting to whatever happens to be in front of me, on the spot.
That’s just how I am.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve been forcing myself for so long.
For just a little while with someone else, and yet somehow, all this time, I’ve been forcing myself.
I do meet people, of course. I have a job, after all.
Even so, when I sit alone and quietly write like this, recording my thoughts as they come, almost as an immediate reflex, I can spend time feeling,
Ah, I’m here now.
I would like to write about themes, or particular topics, really.
And I suppose I’d be more inclined to reread my own writing if it had some kind of structure to it.
But the way I write now is simply so comfortable while I’m doing it.
One thought rolls into the next, and then another, and I just keep going.
I think I like being in this kind of time, as I am now.
Conversations with other people have been valuable, too. I’m grateful for them.
But, you know, all that seems to remain is the difference.
No matter how many words we exchange, I can’t quite shake the feeling that we haven’t lived through the same things.
It’s not about who was happier, or whose life was harder.
It’s not a comparison like that at all.
The other person might have their own profound sadness, too.
And no matter how much we laugh and talk together, I think I inevitably end up somewhere like this:
We’re different, after all. I can’t fully understand the sadness at the root of who you are.
But perhaps you’ve been through something so far beyond anything I could imagine that I can’t even begin to comprehend it.
That’s where I end up.
That’s how little I know about what lies behind the words someone uses, or where things might roll from here.
When I look at the past and the future at the same time, I inevitably come back to this:
I never really understood the future, the present, or the past. The things everyone seems to know are things I don’t know.
Anyway.
If the things I understand are things I can’t really understand, I wondered what the opposite might be.
And yet, somehow, things that come from repetition and reflection seem to be things I can actually do.
For some reason, they work the other way around.
There’s simply the result: I can do it.
And with that result comes a certain sense of certainty.
Though if someone asked me whether I truly understood what I was doing, I couldn’t honestly say that I did.
It’s not quite the same as saying, Watch and learn.
But I found myself thinking that perhaps repetition, letting something pass through you again and again, matters even before you understand it in your head.
I suppose I’m getting close to the end now.
Writing is good, but I don’t really have the habit of looking back over what I’ve written.
So a thought like,
Maybe I should dig a little deeper into that thing I wrote before.
doesn’t come very easily.
That’s probably the downside of writing this way.
Everything keeps connecting to everything else, but there’s no real rise or fall, and nothing seems to expand very far.
Maybe it really is important to think, before I start writing,
What shall I write about today?
If I go to a bookstore,
maybe what matters is not looking for academic books,
but looking for something that might give me a reason to start writing.
Still, I’ll probably keep writing like this, just letting the words wander on and on,
because, honestly, it’s fun.
After all, even when I buy a book and read it,
nothing much seems to stay with me.
And the books I leave unread start calling out to me,
as if they’re saying, Please, read me.
So maybe what I want to leave here
are simply words like these—
words that don’t start talking on their own.
