Reading Log | 3km to the Moon | Shin Iyohara

I picked up this book because
it was recommended by someone close to me.

Shin Iyohara's "3km to the Moon."

The one that left the biggest impression on me
is the title story, "3km to the Moon."

A taxi driver and a passenger heading to a certain destination.

The way their pasts overlap
was a miraculous, yet deeply poignant story.

In this story,
there are descriptions of the moon's phases and its rotation.

If the Earth is rotating,
we should be able to see the far side of the moon eventually, but
we can never,
in our entire lives, see the far side of the moon.

This is because
the moon also rotates at the same period as the Earth's revolution.

The author used this metaphor of the "far side that can never be seen" to depict human beings.

In the story,
a father (the taxi driver) who lost his child appears.

There was another side to his child
that he could never see.

The father
struggles to see even just a glimpse of that part
that he was never shown,
even if just for a moment, even if just a profile.

The taxi driver says in the story, "There are sorrows in this world that cannot be overcome."

To be honest,
I could not empathize with this statement.

No matter how great the sorrow,
it exists there as an "unmovable fact,"
and I believe we only have the choice to move forward.

However,
I was strongly drawn to the metaphor of the "far side of the moon" presented in this book.

Just like the moon,
people also have a side they absolutely will not show,
or a side that cannot be seen.

It might be something like "the wings or backstage of a theater."

The glamorous stage visible from the audience seats
only exists because of the preparation and struggles in the darkness that cannot be seen from the front.
We

tend to judge things only by what we can see with our own eyes.
But, just like the far side of the moon or the backstage,

I feel that knowing the premise that unseen parts definitely "exist there"
changes how we see the world.
Instead of trying to understand everything about someone,

or stretching ourselves to respect the hidden parts,
we should simply accept the fact that "people have sides that cannot be seen."
On top of that,

if a part that hadn't been visible until now is suddenly revealed in a fleeting moment,
we should cherish
that "revealed side."
"3km to the Moon" is

a book that made me rethink the distance between people
and the preciousness of the moments when we encounter a new side of someone.