How Honda Snow Has Navigated the World [Creative Award Impressions]

What is this title?


Around the time I first got to know Snow Honda, I believe this article was pinned to the top of her profile.
It was a time when we hadn't interacted much at all, and I didn't really understand her personality.
I seem to recall it being touted as having taken seven months to conceive (sorry if it wasn't seven months. And sorry if it wasn't pinned to the top).

Wow. That's a major work. Even if the title makes no sense.

That's what I thought as I tapped on it.
Between us, I often read articles while getting ready in the morning, like when using a hair dryer, an iron, or brushing my teeth.
So, I started reading this gorilla piece with that in mind, but...

Oh? Oh, oh?
What is this? Wouldn't it be a waste not to sit down and read this properly?

Thinking that, I decided to properly set aside time to read it after I got home.

This is an autobiography told from the perspective of Snow Honda's own nature.
Her life is told through memories of the silverback gorillas (and occasionally fake-backs) she has recognized as leaders at various times.
For a beginner to Snow Honda like me, it served as a very good textbook.
And I learned that I have an orangutan-like nature.

I can understand the feeling of wanting to be a follower.
At my workplace, I have been classified—without even asking—into the group called the mid-level staff.
Inevitably, management-like tasks arise.
Professionally, educational consultations for children other than those I am in charge of also arise.
I don't think I have the capacity for that. If someone else could do it, I'd be grateful.
That's the extent of my 'wanting to be a follower' sentiment.
In other words, it's a hassle. Taking care of others, or being taken care of.

However, Snow Gorilla's desire to 'be a follower' is quite profound.
She speaks without hiding her desire to 'be cozy under a leader I can respect.'
They say the soul of a three-year-old stays with you until you're a hundred.
If temperament differs by birth order, Snow's youngest-child temperament remains intact even after raising three children solo and becoming a mother who sometimes plays baseball for a month straight.


Perhaps, gorillas that aren't silverbacks think:
'I want a silverback to decide things for me. Even if they don't decide, I want some kind of silverback-like advice.'
But that's not how society works.
Inexplicably, as you get older, you are expected to provide some kind of insight or teaching to those coming up behind you, regardless of your characteristics or nature.
I don't know about that.

No matter where you live, the overwhelming majority are the monkey mountain masses.
Orangutans are fine on their own. They don't care about other people.
But for gorillas, whose concept of hierarchy is fundamentally different from monkeys, it must be a very difficult world to live in.
I think that's probably true not just for the side-by-side gorillas, but for the silverback gorillas as well.
The monkey mountain masses might be whispering behind their backs, 'What's with that silverback? Gathering only similar-looking gorillas and acting all high and mighty.'

This essay concludes with the following passage.

...Actually, isn't it fine if you don't become a monkey?
I don't think people who express themselves by writing, drawing, or creating things are monkeys.
You want to write, don't you?
You want to create something, don't you?
If you were a monkey, you wouldn't want to express yourself, would you?
Because if you assert yourself within the troop, you'll just end up getting beaten down.

Will you quit creating, or will you quit being anything other than a monkey?

That's what I feel like is being said.
So, Snow, if you don't like being a gorilla, I think being an orangutan next is a good idea.

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