Wavering Journey: A Museum of Heterogeneous Nature and People

A Mysterious Museum

Just the other day, I visited the "Museum of Heterogeneous Nature and People" in Oita Prefecture.
It stands alone at a campsite along the coast,
yet it has a mysterious presence. The interior is a sophisticated space consisting of three rooms.
(It seems there is one more room for a limited time)
Among them, the "Sun and Moon Room" moved me the most.
It is a strange room with many small windows installed in the upper part of the walls.
When I stepped inside, the small windows opened and closed in time with the piano music.
It was so magical that I couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow."

There is no such thing as a perfect shape in this world, not even in nature.

After that, I stared at the opening and closing of the small windows for a long time. I think I was drawn in.
Every time the windows moved, the shape of the light entering the room changed, and that became a time for me to reflect.
As I observed the light pouring into the room, sometimes it looked like polka dots,
and other times it had shapes like seagulls or thin boomerangs.
If you stepped on them, the shapes would naturally change, and the circles were not like a perfect "geometric circle."
They were not as neat as pancakes or the "circles" drawn in the dirt with a stick.

That was when I realized that there is no such thing as "something neat or beautiful" in this world.
Whether made by machines, carefully crafted by human hands, or created by nature.
I believe humans are drawn to "beautiful, perfect things."
But I felt in that magical room where the light shone in, a place where nature and people held hands, that such things do not exist.
Since suffering from mental illness, I have been obsessed with things like "full recovery" or "returning to how I was." When I was a student, I wanted to be a "smart, perfect version of myself."
In my 24 years of life, I have always hated my "distorted self."
I am not beautiful, I am clumsy, and I am bad at both academics and sports.
On top of that, my relationships never go well. I hated that version of myself.
I spent all my time glaring at myself in the mirror.
However, I feel like there has been a slight change in my heart.

There is no equality in this world, and there are no neat, beautiful things.
Everything that looked perfect until now was just me making it look that way.
Because even the "circles" made by natural light are not "geometric circles."
So, it is okay to remain distorted. It is okay to be just as I am. I was able to think that way.

And I have come to like, a little bit, the sensibility in me that can love the light shining through those small windows.

Conclusion (Nature and Thought)

I believe that being in touch with nature is suitable for deep reflection.
When you are in touch with nature, the amount of information you receive is extremely limited.
Therefore, the time you spend surrendering yourself only to your own sensibilities increases.
I think that time is actually very important for humans—what we call "healing the heart" or
"having a dialogue with oneself."

That day, the feeling of being drawn in that I felt in the "Sun and Moon Room."
The feeling of being unable to take my eyes off the dazzling light, where my thoughts wouldn't stop.
I am starting to think that perhaps that was what it means to "have a dialogue with oneself."

I felt that people and nature are distorted, and that there is a need for us to coexist, at least for me.
A record of one such day at the "Museum of Heterogeneous Nature and People."