It's New Year's Eve. Although I had not set any particular aspirations, with this article I have managed to complete my goal of updating my blog once a month.
Well, this also means that I uploaded a total of 12 articles during the year, so on average this would be once a month. Normally, I would like to update regularly once a month, but this is good enough for this year.
Compared to the blogs I used to do elsewhere, the average amount of text per post is larger, and the all-important quality is (if I do say so myself) better now.
Working in the world to earn a living, making and eating food, and raising children. The accumulation of these daily activities has changed and deepened my perspective on society.
Perhaps since the beginning of the 2000s, the surface of this society has become shiny, polished, and clean. However, in exchange, I feel that something important is being lost.
Of course, "cleaned up" is a comparison with the pre-1990s. There are literally mountains of problems that need to be solved in Japan and around the world, and there are still many areas that need to be cleaned up. However, it is clear that the world (at least the western countries) is gradually making progress, accompanied by an improvement in citizens' rights, especially in their awareness of human rights.
And yet, I find myself thinking about this on a daily basis. I would like to leave my house in the morning and spend the rest of the day until I reach home at night without a single unpleasant thought from others.
In this day and age, that can only be described as a "miracle. Even though the surface has become cleaner, or rather, because of the increasing pressure from society to individuals to "keep clean, everyone," many people have accumulated feelings of resentment within them. That is how I see it.
There are many events this year (and continuing from last year and before) that have left me feeling hopeless. Let me list just a few here.
The pedestrians continue to cross the crosswalk with impunity, even though an ambulance is approaching with sirens blaring, and to top it off, the pedestrians bring the ambulance to a halt. The ambulance and the pedestrians then continue to engage in a blind date, with neither side knowing which of them should start moving first.
Pedestrians, do you not know the rules of the road? There is a human being lying in that car who should be taken to the hospital right now.
When I am walking and almost bump into someone, it is usually only on my side of the street that I say the words "excuse me". It is commonly seen everywhere, whether at work, on a station platform, or in a supermarket. Or, when I get off a crowded train, people try to force their way through by pushing me silently and forcefully.
Um, do you know the Japanese word for "excuse me"?
Well, that's about it. I could go on and on, so I will stop here. It is no use to go to the trouble of remembering unpleasant things at the end of the year, but in a sense, living in today's society has become a practice to increase one's tolerance for such rude people.
Whether I write about it here or not, I am sure that I will be made to feel uncomfortable as soon as tomorrow. I don't really care either way.
Well, at best, I will just have to enjoy my daily meals, enjoy the right amount of alcohol, and make sure I have time to relax myself. This is no different from the past.
Good food, good wine. To this must be added good music, movies, books, or art. In addition, in my case, the output process of "writing," which I intend to continue simultaneously next year.
Well, I'll leave it at that. Happy New Year to all good people.