The Day After the Philosophy Night Cafe
(I left my random thoughts on a podcastyesterday, but I think I'll put them into writing as well. It's not quite like curry that matures overnight, but still, haha.)
Apparently, there is such a thing as a philosophy cafe in this world.
I'm interested in philosophy,
I love the venue, TOKUBOOKS (in Shimotsuma City, Ibaraki Prefecture),
the facilitator is a neighbor and a fellow shelf owner there,
and I managed to get off work on time!
It sounded absolutely fascinating, so I went.
First, I'd like you to take a look at the wonderful note from TOKUBOOKS.
Because of that,
it turned into a wonderful time
thinking about "normal," but
The problem is today.
The words I use when speaking to customers at work,
"Well, just do this normally..."
"After that, just do it normally."
I only realized it today, but man, I say "normal" way too much!!
"Normal"
As soon as I say it, a mental retort immediately follows:
"What do you even mean by 'normal'?!"
The retort comes, but I can't hit it back.
Even though I claimed to be "explaining," in reality, I was just borrowing the customer's version of "normal" and pretending I had explained it, while actually blurring the specific details with the word "normal" and letting the customer fill in the gaps with their own version of "normal."
Of course, for today, I couldn't just stop there and give up on explaining, so I just went ahead as usual,
Using "normal" unconsciously invites the gap between everyone's individual "normal" to grow little by little somewhere along the line.
And eventually, it will collapse.
Or, perhaps even worse, without noticing the "gap" and without realizing we are misunderstanding each other, we might feel like we've shared our "normals." Even if nothing appears wrong on the surface, the energy accumulated unknowingly might one day cause a massive earthquake.
Normal
Relying on "normal",
Rather than assuming we are "the same" and being disappointed when we are different,
Without relying on what is "normal",
I want to cherish the "overlaps?" we occasionally find,
based on the premise that we are "different" from each other.
To that end, I realized I must be careful about
"normalcy",
which blurs our differences for better or worse.
We must ensure that our feelings do not become "disconnected" (futsu).
And that's a wrap!
Added on the morning of 5/24
The organizer has put together a wonderful recap of the day!
Please check this out as well!