What it means to make sense.

Pass on, pass on
What narrow path is this?
(From the nursery rhyme "Toryanse")

"If you put it that way, I feel like I can take it in."

That is what she said.

A scene from today's "Introduction to Miji-kan Review" in Ishikiri, Osaka.

The two of them had been exchanging words for quite a long time.
Since it was an Enza (circle) setting, everyone in the room was listening to their conversation.

The words he spoke were not reaching her, the listener.
I also felt like I couldn't quite grasp what he was saying.

He sincerely kept adding to his words, trying his best to change how he phrased things, sometimes even saying things that seemed contradictory, saying, "This might be poorly phrased, but..." She listened to him and returned the words that arose within her.

They went back and forth many times, yet they still didn't connect, and gradually it became suffocating, and the tension in the room rose.

"If you put it that way, I feel like I can take it in."

The words she let out seemed to appear abruptly.
But certainly, at that moment, the tension that had been between the two of them had dissolved.

"I'm glad I said it," he said.
"I feel like I've found peace," she said.

In Osaka, streets are called "suji." Like Midosuji or Sakaisuji.
At that moment, I was reminded of that kind of suji.

A path had been cleared between him, who was speaking, and her, who was listening.
It was a "suji" (path/logic) that would not have been cleared if not for the placement, order, and intensity of those words.

According to an explanation given later by Kunihiko Hashimoto, there are two types of "making sense" (tsuji wo toosu).

One is to make sense vertically, within oneself.
And the other is to deliver one's words horizontally so that they "make sense" to the other person.

And trying to deliver words along the other person's path is, at the same time, making sense within oneself.

When listening intently and speaking intently, the two are, right at that moment, building a path that only they can understand. When they connect there, the width of the path in their relationship expands. It becomes a path that the other person can also enter.

Hashimoto-san said that this is completely different from "being understood."

This resonated with my own married life.

When I can't get through to my wife no matter what I do, we both get stressed, and it becomes increasingly difficult.

No matter how much I say it, it doesn't get through.
Words pile up on top of words, making things even harder to see.
We both get angry, thinking the other has no intention of understanding.

"Just listen!"

is what both of us are thinking at the same time.

But at some point, there is a feeling that things suddenly "click," and after that, we are suddenly able to communicate.

It's as if we've met each other again for the first time.

This usually happens when one of us gives up on our own argument and starts to "listen" to the other. Perhaps the space created for the other person lets air into the relationship and allows things to make sense.

The way that sense is made is something that can only exist between my wife and me.
Methods that are supposed to work for everyone were completely ineffective in our relationship.

I repeat, there is no path that works easily for everyone.
It is like an undersea tunnel, excavated through the desperate effort of listening and speaking with that specific person, one by one.

Perhaps human relationships are just the act of continuing that constant road construction.

"You see, you can't run away from people. And if you run away from people, you're running away from life, which means you're running away from yourself.
This isn't easy! You should know that because you cried when you were born. Living is supposed to be tough, that's all there is to it."

Mr. Hashimoto said.
I had vaguely realized it, but I thought, "You're right."