I was running away because I loved it so much
I love to write. Or rather, since I've always been poor at speaking and not very good at talking, it might be more accurate to say that writing is the only way I can properly convey my feelings.
Looking back at the past, when I was in elementary school, I used to exchange letters with a friend who lived far away whom I met at a class, and I also wrote love letters to boys I liked.
I was also bad at talking on the phone, so the arrival of email with the spread of the internet was something I was incredibly grateful for.
Then, as social media became popular, I started writing a diary (blog), and although the medium I write on has changed, I have been writing for over 15 years.
However, even though I moved from Ameblo, where I had written about 1000 articles, to note three years ago, I wrote a few articles at first and then ended up leaving it as it was.
It was just around the time the world was in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the world had completely changed.
As for me at that time...
When I was told I couldn't go out, I felt restless and wanted to move.
Since I was living in the great outdoors of Hokkaido at the time, I decided to do what I could in nature, so I went to help a farmer for the first time and learned about agriculture.
After that, I tried dancing, which I had wanted to challenge but hadn't been able to, and went mountain climbing with friends; I feel like I was using my body and moving as much as I could despite not being able to go out.
That time certainly had meaning, and I felt very fulfilled, but
I felt like something was missing, or that something was wrong...
I realized that feeling.
When I faced the voice in my heart again, I realized that what my soul was seeking was, after all, to write.
I realized that it was to turn my experiences into writing and sell them (publish).
Actually, I had realized that for a long time, and I had even written on my wish list that someday I wanted to put the writing I had done into the form of a "book" and release it to the world.
But because it was such a precious dream, the fear and anxiety of failing had become enormous.
Does my writing even have any value? Someone like me, who isn't famous and doesn't have any amazing achievements...
It is true that publishing a paper book has a high hurdle, but recently we live in an age where anyone can publish on Kindle, and you can even sell articles on this note for 100 yen each. Even though the hurdle has become so low, for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Precisely because I love it so much, the stronger my feelings are, the greater the disappointment when things don't go well. Just like when you have a broken heart...
I realized that was why I had been afraid to challenge it for so long.
The person who gave me courage was this person's article.
You have had experiences and thoughts that only you in the whole world could have, and you have taken the time and effort to carefully put them into writing.
Is that really free?
I want to say that is not the case.
It is fine, but that doesn't mean you have to actually charge for it; it is fine if you dare to make it free.
The things you write, the words you create, deserve to be paid for.
There is a world of difference between standing on that premise and making it free, versus making it free without thinking deeply, assuming it is natural for it to be free.
As time goes by, that difference will only continue to grow.
I felt a shock as if I had been struck by lightning. Mr. Sueyoshi is truly right.
I had experiences that only I could have, and I took the time and effort to put them into the form of writing, so I was able to think for the first time that it deserves to have value attached to it.
I had just never been able to have confidence in myself for a long, long time. I finally realized that I was just running away because I loved it so much.
But from now on, because I love it so much, I will face it head-on.
"Writing."