[Parenting Essay] #12 An essay like a scrapbook

Before I knew it, my smartphone's memo app and photo album

have been filling up with screenshots that feel like scraps of someone else's words or bits of information that caught my eye.

Even though there are very few of my own words there, if any,
I still feel like, "This is my world."

I suspect there are quite a few people
who feel that way.

I sometimes think of people in that state
as "scrapbook-like people."

They are, if anything,

better at starting their creationby picking up "fragments" of the world

rather than creating something from scratch.

I think that's a fair way to put it.

A passage from a book, a piece of music I happened to hear.

Or perhaps a casual remark a child made, or a nut picked up in the park.

Moments in daily life when my heart was moved,

I keep them within myself, as if gently pasting them into a notebook.

Even if you flip through the pages, you might find
almost none of my own words.

With only quotes and photos lined up,
at first glance, it looks like a collection of other people's sensibilities.

However, when you gaze intently at that scrapbook,

Strangely, a "world that only that person can create"
emerges.

Why did they choose those words,

why did they arrange them that way?

The accumulation of those countless choices

speaks to the creator's values and aesthetic sense.

For example, in my case,

the strange steps my child takes when they are excited,

or the shoes left lying in the entryway,

might become a scrap for that day.

For them, they might just be
surrendering themselves to that moment,

but for me, they are like
a "mark of having lived in today's world."

As I paste and layer those "fragments" together,

the time spent as a family and memories of the children's growth
are quietly woven together.

This way of being might be called
"active passivity."

While being passive might sound negative,

it is actually an attitude of opening one's heart to the world,
stretching out the antennae of one's sensibilities,

and actively receiving
the moments when the heart is stirred.

I rearrange the "fragments" I have received into my own context,

and give them new meaning.

I believe that process is undeniably creative.

And another major point
that comes into play is

whether or not you are the type to "temporarily place"
the collected "fragments" in a scrapbook.

I think I am the type who spends
a quite long time on this "temporary placement."

What I am likely doing naturally is

collecting as many different "fragments" as possible,

without processing them, and without classifying them much, keeping them temporarily placed in a miscellaneous way.

Of course, I also almost never decide on the words to accompany them.

Then, at some point, triggered by something,

I naturally feel like wanting to finish several "fragments" into a single
page, or I end up having to finish them out of necessity.

I think it feels like waiting until the timing is just right.

That is why,

for a "person like a scrapbook,"

the act of writing an "essay"becomes one of the most meaningful triggers.

Because an essay is a style where "your own words take center stage,"

it becomes a "device" to finalize those "fragments" you had temporarily set aside

while adding your own words to them.

By writing, the thoughts and scenery that had been drifting for a long time,finally find a place where they truly belong.

Sometimes, even while changing that place a few more times.

This is also such a wonderful time.

Paying respect to the beautiful "fragments" scattered throughout the world,

cherishing them as I pick them up,

and connecting them together as if drawing my own unique constellation.

I think it feels like waiting until the timing is just right.

And so, the resulting
essay, which is like a scrapbook,

that creating something from almost nothing
is not the only form of creativity,

teaches us a modest, yet important, 'way of being'.

I feel it is teaching us that.

I wrote an article packed with tips for 'scrapbook-like people' to keep writing on note happily↓↓

This is a magazine that collects articles I've written about my note posts since August 2025, in the form of monthly reports, reflecting on the past and looking toward the future while touching on actual access data↓

↓This is the most read 'learning-based/parenting essay' among my recent essays. It also includes introductions to books on parenting and articles by other note users.