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I Have Become a Complainer

I always try to think about the "purpose" of whatever I do. What is it for? Who is it for? If that remains vague, I immediately stop feeling any meaning in it.


A few days ago, I filed a complaint at a convenience store I had stopped by for the first time while out. Or rather than saying I filed it, I feel like I ended up filing it.
Perhaps it is because I work in a position where I could potentially be on the receiving end of complaints, but I was a little bewildered myself afterward that I had ended up on the side of filing one instead.

The origin of the complaint wasn't even that big of an issue. It was just that the clerk's attitude wasn't very good.
I have a certain range of tolerance, or rather, things I don't really care about, but the clerk went beyond just seeming "bothered" and for some reason appeared to be angry at me, a first-time customer. I suppose there was an impulse within me strong enough to turn my emotions into action.
When my change was tossed at me as if half-thrown, that impulse within me turned into action.

That said, I couldn't find anyone who looked like the store manager, so I opened my smartphone and decided to send an email to the head office.


As I typed the complaint into the inquiry form, I wondered: what is the purpose of this act I am performing right now?

People who are called persistent, malicious complainers seem to have a sense that their actions are "justice."
They cover their anger and selfishness with the belief that "what I am doing is right," and it seems they find it difficult to notice their own malice.

Are my fingers, as I try to send this email, moving for the purpose of calming an impulse I cannot suppress, or are they moving with the belief that it is the right thing to do for the sake of improving society?
At the very least, the source generating the calories for my fingers to move is my uncontrollable emotions.
I had a vague suspicion of that while writing, so I stopped my hands many times.
Every time I stopped, the face of that clerk with the insolent attitude would come to mind.
So, in the end, I wrote about 400 characters—roughly one sheet of manuscript paper—worth of complaint and sent it.

Perhaps because I was outside, a mosquito was hovering around my arm. I have a constitution that makes me prone to mosquito bites.
"This mosquito is targeting my blood for the purpose of survival."
I don't know if it knows the risk of being swatted, but the mosquito is piercing me with its needle for the purpose of survival, and I am piercing someone with a complaint for the purpose of 70% calming my emotions and 30% improving society.


I feel like I have become a monster called a complainer, and even now, I feel a sense of unease.
This might be because the purpose was for my own emotions. I have become someone who can complain to others for the sake of my emotions.

Would it have been better to swallow all my emotions and impulses and just walk away without doing anything?
But I feel that by worrying about it afterward like this, I might be able to return to this world before I start finding pleasure in complaining.

I wrote the word "complaint" so many times that halfway through, the characters started looking like "cream."
If this were a story about cream, how gentle, sweet, and melt-in-your-mouth it would be.
I would rather be a creamer than a complainer.


いいなと思ったら応援しよう!

コリ|メガネ屋エッセイスト 路上にチップもらう用のシルクハットを置いてパントマイムするの、実はやってみたかったんです

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