If humans were always happy, they wouldn't be happy. Person

Once upon a time, in a certain village, there was a Fountain of Happiness. It was rumored that if you drank the water from that fountain, all misfortune and sadness would vanish, and you would feel happy forever.
The villagers lined up at the fountain every day, drinking the water and rejoicing. However, there was one girl who did not drink the water. Her name was Sachi.
The villagers asked Sachi, "Why don't you drink it?" Sachi replied, "If humans were always happy, wouldn't they lose the ability to feel true happiness?"
The villagers laughed off Sachi's words and continued to drink from the Fountain of Happiness. However, as time passed, smiles began to disappear from the villagers' faces. Because they were always happy, they could no longer feel happiness at all.
Troubled, the villagers sought help from Sachi. Sachi suggested to the villagers that they "stop drinking the fountain water and find happiness in their daily lives."
The villagers followed Sachi's words and gradually regained their true happiness. They realized that suffering and sadness are also important emotions.
From then on, the villagers began to call the Fountain of Happiness the "Fountain of Life." And so, they lived their lives while valuing the balance between happiness and unhappiness.
And they lived happily ever after.
That is what I thought, and it was the preface for the 865th Namunin Interview, written on August 19, 2024, at 2:31 PM!!!!!!!
【Preface: qbc / Yasuhiro Kuribayashi (Writer / Organizer of Namunin Interview)】

Joining us this time is Shizuka Fukawa!

Age: Early 40s
Gender: ♀
Occupation: Mother of 6 x Ultra-minimalist x Fortune teller

Imagine:
Shizuka-san, what do you do now?

Shizuka Fukawa:
I am a mother of 6,and although my name is "Shizuka" (quiet), I am actually quite noisy. I am an ultra-minimalist and a fortune teller, but I also write on platforms like note, FB, and Ameblo, and I have published three e-books on Amazon.
Right now, I spend my days going here and there with my children, some of whom go to school and some who don't, and I also spent a month traveling with them while living in our car. It was five years ago, but I had a home birth without medical intervention, and the video of that has 200,000 views.My main profession is a fortune teller, but well, I'm elusive,so I do various things, haha.

Imagine:
You mentioned earlier that you are a mother of 6; may I ask what the composition of those 6 children is?

Shizuka Fukawa:
The oldest is 24, the second is 21, the third is 16, the fourth is 11, the fifth is 10, and the youngest is 5 this year.

Imagine:
How old were you when you gave birth to your first child?

Shizuka Fukawa:
I was 20. I got married at 19, but I gave birth at 20.

Imagine:
What is your life like right now with your 6 children?

Shizuka Fukawa:
Since I am a free spirit, my children are also free, haha.
My oldest son makes a living through app streaming. He started living separately this year.
The second is a girl who loved Korea so much that she went to study abroad there and is still living in Korea on a working holiday.
The third chose not to go to middle school since the COVID pandemic and is now a high school student, but it feels like a "post-COVID school" vibe. It's a correspondence course, so they go about three times a week and work part-time, enjoying themselves in their own way.
The fourth and fifth are a year apart, so they are always stuck together, and they go to school sometimes and don't go other times.
In the second year after COVID started, we moved to Hiratsuka in Kanagawa,but since masks don't prevent viruses and it's strange to cover your face all year round when you aren't feeling unwell, when I told them we wouldn't wear them, they told us to come after school instead of attending normally...
Around the time of Omicron, the principal called me directly and said if we couldn't follow the infection control measures, they didn't want us to come. From there, the child chose, "Mom, I'm not going anymore."So I said, "Well, that's boring, let's do something fun," and recklesslywent on a car-camping trip with the three youngest,which was last October, I think. The youngest goes to nursery school occasionally. Because there were no spots available, I had them go when I absolutely couldn't free up my hands, but now they attend a kindergarten focused on sustainable education, where they freely enjoy doing what they want to do.

Imagine:
So, are you currently living with 4 of your children?

Shizuka Fukawa:
That's right. And me.It's a household of 5.

Imagine:
What kind of mother do you think you are, Shizuka-san?

Shizuka Fukawa:
Until about 6 or 7 years ago, I was pretty much the same as any ordinary mother.I would attend school events properly, keep up with other moms, and I was very concerned about what others thought, trying to do everything perfectly.
But I don't know where it started. There were so many incidents, too many to tell, but I was falsely accused of something for the first time. I was told I did something I didn't do, and it spread through the neighborhood, and my child started being bullied at school. I think it started from there.I felt isolated. I thought, "Oh, I'm all alone, what should I do?"
At first, I worried and became depressed, suffering from hyperventilation and taking psychiatric medication. At that time, the partner I was with supported me. When I said I wanted to repay them, they said, "I want a child with you. I want to marry you." So I decided this was no time to be taking psychiatric meds, and I stopped taking them... It's mysterious, but I got pregnant right away.
For a while, I was still concerned about what others thought, or maybe I just felt I had to be strong.
I started ignoring the other moms.I gradually decided to be a lone wolf, going to class observations by myself.
Until then, I had always thought I couldn't even attend class observations unless I was hanging out with someone.By simply going to see my child without talking to anyone—thinking, "They've grown up," or "Wow, that's amazing"—I started to wonder what it really meant to do the same thing as everyone else.I started to think about that.
Also, my fourth child had a fever quite frequently after being born, and my fifth child stopped being able to poop when they were a baby... no matter how much medicine they took, it didn't get better.
If you keep taking medicine, they start saying you need regular checkups or to take this other thing.
It was a never-ending negative loop.
Medical expenses for children are free, but that wasn't the point.I started to feel like something was wrong.
I had a realization that I should re-examine our food,and from there, I started to become particular about additives and things like that.
Next, like the fortune telling I do now, I learned that illnesses are created by the mind and about psychotherapy, which led me to learn about and think about my own upbringing.
I had always told my children to do this or that, but I finally started to realize my own "toxic parent" tendencies and that it was a bit wrong.
It was right around the time of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. I was living in Saitama, but about 5 years later,my daughter had mysterious nosebleeds day after day, and the doctors said it was nothing. What surprised me was that the result showed she had been exposed to radiation.
I mean, how? We weren't in Fukushima or anything... even though the government said it was safe... so I started researching all the questions I had.
The strangeness of the medical system, the strangeness of the food.
Even nuclear power,is it really true when they say it's safe?
When I researched everything that was happening, everything happening to me, I realized that this world is made of lies, and after that, I moved to Mie Prefecture.
After that, due to COVID and various circumstances, I returned to Saitama...
From there,I realized it's okay for children to be freer. That they don't have to go to school, which is considered the norm.I realized that school is slave education.Why must we be the same as everyone else?I read many books questioning that.
There are people who say you should go to school, but there are also people who say you don't have to. I asked people and read books to understand why they were saying that.And I realized, "Oh, that's what it was."
And I decided that when my children don't want to go, they don't have to, and they can be free.
However, when they reach 10 or 11, they start to leave their parents' side and play with friends, right? It's about forming connections with society, or needing peers.
So I take the stance of letting them go for as long as they like and coming back whenever they like.I was raised by parents who were quite strict, so I'm surprised I turned out this way, and I think my children have helped me grow.
Personally, I'm still a toxic parent, not a good parent, but in that sense,I think it might be a saving grace that I'm not a mother who forces them to do the same things as everyone else.
What I am careful about is first asking why the child thought that way.
And how I can help them achieve those dreams or hopes that they envision for themselves.It's not about the parent raising the child, but the parent growing together with the child, which is called "child-rearing" (co-growing).It feels like I am being allowed to grow together with my children.When I think about it that way, I think I'm different from the parents around me.

Imagine:
If you had to name one thing that you value while facing your children, what would it be?

Shizuka Fukawa:
It relates to why I am working as a fortune teller now.
I was a huge liar. I was in a world where I couldn't survive without telling lies.The fact that my parents abused me was a big part of it, I suppose...
I think it's because I couldn't survive unless I was the kind of child my parents wanted—the kind they could love as much as possible.
If my parents said something was good, it was good, and if they said it wasn't, I had to say it wasn't. Even though it was different in reality, I would smile and lie, or act like a good child. But I think there are many people like that now.
However, even if I am not the person someone wants me to be, I feel very, very happy now, and I believe I am a fulfilled being in every way.
The world I idealize is
to create a world overflowing with people who can live freely as their true, authentic selves without having to lie.
So, for that reason,I believe that each and every person should know themselves well, acknowledge themselves, accept themselves, and love themselves. To know yourself in the true sense and love yourself first.When that happens, there won't be a day where you feel anxious.
That is why I look at a person's individuality from various angles—palmistry, physiognomy, stars, numbers, the subconscious, and so on—and tell them, 'This is your original self, this is who you are meant to be.'
For example, humans lie, but if you think about it in terms of Western astrology (stars), the stars don't go up or down just because they are in a bad mood today. We humans are influenced by the stars, which are a form of nature. Nature is as it is and does not lie.
Palmistry is the same; it is said to be a map of the brain. No matter how much you lie on the outside, if you look at your hands, you can see your true self—whether you are actually suffering, what you are thinking in your heart, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and your inherent characteristics.
It's not quite like My Hero Academia, butliving by utilizing one's own individuality. The wonder of that isIt was a place I finally reached after groping in the dark while attempting suicide several times. I thought, 'Oh, I see.' Many people called me the eye of the storm or a bad person, but I was born under a star that doesn't do the same things as people who are creatively active, but rather one that pioneers new paths before anyone else.Once I understood that this was my role and my purpose—which I call 'Shimei' (written with the characters for 'purpose' and 'life')—I felt incredibly relieved.
Until now, I had been told by the majority that I was a bad person because I couldn't do the same things as everyone else. I lived a life where I asked myself why I was such a useless person, wanting to die but unable to, having neither the worth nor the courage to die. When I encountered this, it gave me a push. And when the world I saw changed, I realized there were so many people just like me.
When you change your perspective, you start to see those things.When I realized that what I wanted was simply to be able to live as I am, I started to see those kinds of people.
For example, when you decide you want a certain car, you suddenly see it everywhere even though it's just driving on the road normally. It involves quantum mechanics, where you inevitably encounter people and events.
When you desire the world you want to see, that world just pops into view. Once I understood that, I became incredibly happy.I realized that I am truly an amazing person and that I am incredibly happy.
Even though I was treated as a villain in the neighborhood during that false accusation incident and my children were treated terribly and I was truly sick, I came to think, 'Because that happened, my children number 4, 5, and 6 were born!'
This is an amazing thing. Bad things happened, but if that hadn't happened, these children wouldn't have been born.I became able to think that way. ThenI thought, 'How wonderful life is. Oh, it's amazing. Oh, it's good.'
I had so many things in my past, but with my characteristics andI realized that there is a meaning to people being born on this Earth.
I feel like a great honor student because I am able to have so many experiences here on Earth, where we have these kinds of experiences and trials, haha.
That kind of thing—ordinary people might call me occult or something.I am now happy to death that I have become able to have that kind of perspective.
So, I want everyone to know this. You say you're unhappy, but it's really not that big of a deal.
Even if I think it's B, I don't have to say the same thing as everyone else, like 'Yes, it's A, isn't it?'
It's okay to say, 'No, I think it's B.'
I want to leave behind a worldview where my children, their grandchildren, and seven generations to come can freely decide and live by their own will.
That's why I call myself a suspicious self-proclaimed fortune teller, but in reality, things like palmistry are also a form of statistics.
And while it might still be treated as occult, things like kinesiology, which uses muscle reflexes to connect with the subconscious, and quantum mechanics are already recognized globally and used in medicine.
It's just that Japan is very behind, or rather, still obsessed with and brainwashed by old things. They rely on substances, saying you won't get better unless you take medicine or undergo chemotherapy...
Originally, illnesses should disappear through one's own spirit, and if you truly desire it,your life will keep getting better. I have come to think that I must convey the fact that it all depends on whether you yourself can give yourself permission.
It's not about being lucky because you overcame something, or only caring about your own family... Let's think together about what happiness is, and that it doesn't cost money.
First,what are your characteristics?andyou have to know yourself first, but you don't.
Yet, there are so many people who want to make others better. They go into nursing care or donate money, but that's not it.
First, you have to be okay yourself.And you and your partner have to be okay. Not just you and your partner, but your children must be okay too. Once the family is okay, then the community becomes okay... Only then should you start moving to make the people around you better.
Unless you start helping others on a larger scale after that part is fulfilled,I realized that trying to make others better when you aren't fulfilled yourself doesn't work, and that's how I started this job.That's how it is.

Imajin:
What is your earliest memory from childhood?

Shizuka Fukawa:
Both of my parents were...My grandfather passed away early. My maternal grandfather, who lived with us, passed away when he was around 67 or 68, when I was in middle school.I don't really have memories of my mother, but I clearly remember catching locusts with my grandfather and shaving his head, and I remember thinking those experiences were fun.I'm not sure when it was—maybe before my younger brother was born. I don't really know, but my older brother and I are two years apart, and my younger brother is six years younger. There was one miscarriage between me and my younger brother. Anyway, I was always the one being targeted. Or rather, I was...
I was often physically abused by my mother.My brother didn't have that, and my younger brother was always raised being told how cute he was.My father was in sales and wasn't home, and my mother was doing everything—work and child-rearing—so my memory is just of being targeted all the time.
Anyway, being told I was useless was a given, and I was just physically abused a lot.
Did we go on a family trip...? When I look at photos, I think maybe we did, but...
I have absolutely no memory of ever feeling truly happy or fulfilled.On the contrary, even on days with thunder, I would be told I was a bad kid and kicked out alone... I felt like...
I had nowhere to go.Seeing that, my grandfather would let me in from another room, saying, "Come in, come in," and he would protect me. But he passed away when I was in middle school...
He passed away in the bath. I was the first one to find him. I was shocked, but what scared me the most was that there was no one left to rely on.
Actually, I used to wet the bed.Well, my mother was busy doing everything on her own and had to go to work, so I'm sure it was hard for her to wash the bedsheets during the busy morning, but every time it happened, she would yell at me and hit me with the handle of the vacuum cleaner.
I was also bullied in elementary and middle school, so my memories are just of being in pain, feeling sad, and feeling lonely wherever I was. I don't have any memories of things being fun.
Imagine:
How did you feel when your grandfather passed away?

Shizuka Fukawa:
It was like I couldn't believe it.He passed away in the bath. It happened at dawn.
I'm quite a scaredy-cat, and when I went to the bathroom while it was still dark in the morning, the light was on in the bathroom. The bathroom is right next to it, and the light was on, so I thought, "Oh, lucky, I'm not scared." I finished in the bathroom and wondered who was in there so early in the morning.
I still remember it. He passed away on April 11th of my first year of middle school. It was just after the closing ceremony, or rather, just after I had entered school. When I went to check, he was submerged up to his nose in the bath. I thought, "You can't sleep in there," and tapped him, but he was actually dead.I didn't really grasp that he was dead.
After that, spiritual phenomena often happened in our house. My mother has very strong spiritual senses, so she said my grandfather had come back. But I was terrified and scared. I couldn't take a bath for about three months. I remember taking baths at my grandmother's house in the neighborhood. What was the feeling? It was a sense of loss.Like, "Oh, there's no one left to protect me anymore."I think that's the feeling I had.

Imagine:
How did your life change after your grandfather was gone?

Shizuka Fukawa:
I had just started my first year of middle school, and there were constant invitations to join clubs and pressure to participate. I had to be busy with my new life, and I would come home in the evening. My mother would also come home around 5 PM. I would usually go to my room—I shared it with my brother—so honestly, the only time I had any contact with my mother was when I wet the bed.I just don't have any memories.
I guess I was just glad to be busy. I had to make new friends. I was bullied in elementary school, so I wanted to do it right this time. I had a boy I liked, too. In that sense, I guess it was good that I was in middle school.

Imagine:
Conversely, what is your happiest memory? Do you not have many memories of that either?

Shizuka Fukawa:
I wonder. But I guess it would be...when I had a crush on someone.I liked an upperclassman. It was probably just at the level of, "Oh, we were close on the committee!"When you have a crush, you can fantasize a bit, right? It's like going to a different world, like you went to Disneyland for a moment.That's the kind of image. But I guess I wasn't good at human relationships from the start. I had a strong sense of self.

Imagine:
How did you realize that you weren't very good at human relationships?

Shizuka Fukawa:
Realizing I wasn't good at it was definitely after I became an adult. At an age where I could look back at myself and think, "Oh, that's how it was." I didn't understand at all when I was 20. Maybe after I had children? I don't know.The time I could seriously think, "I should have handled it better," was probably when I was close to 30.

Imagine:
Until then, how did you perceive the existence of friends?

Shizuka Fukawa:
Did I have anyone I could call a friend? (laughs) I was quite disliked. (laughs)
I wondered why everyone was rejecting me.But I had a very strong sense of justice. My mother was the same—we were exactly alike.
I wanted to have my own way,and I think I was constantly forcing my own sense of correctness onto others until I was nearly 40.I think it was in my 20s that I held onto that sense of being "right" so strongly. The era when I would flatly say, "That person is wrong," was probably from 20 to my mid-30s.

Imagine:
What triggered that change?

Shizuka Fukawa:
I myself...have been divorced three times.Each time, strangely enough, men would come my way.
Well, I would get married, but the first one was violent, and the second one was violent. And the third one, I got pregnant without getting married and he ran away. And although we weren't married, there was violence from the third person I was with.
People would say things like, "You always attract bad men, don't you?" or "You have no eye for men." I always thought, "No, that's not true." But I solved that mystery about four or five years ago.It was when I realized, "I was the one choosing them."
I had lived a life of fear, afraid of illness and afraid of being treated a certain way by society.
Actually,it wasn't that those things were suddenly coming to me, but that I was the one making it happen—that I was intentionally wishing for and attracting them. I realized thatwhen I was 41 or so.
Well, that's when I met a mentor.Until then, I really thought of myself as a pitiful person. I always thought that way.
I was beaten by my parents. I was a victim of false accusations. Every man I met was abusive.I thought I was a victim.Imagine:

Could I hear a little bit about the mentor who gave you that trigger?

Shizuka Fukawa:
I wonder how many years ago it was. Maybe when my child was around the fifth one. They got sick and something felt a bit off. When I was told that taking the medicine I mentioned earlier would lead to needing another medicine, I saw a strange, unusual doctor on Facebook.
It wasn't just about food, additives, or medicine, but they were saying that, in reality, it's not just that—to put it more broadly, Japan and the world are in a strange state right now.
I was like, 'Huh?' (laughs)
Well, for the time being, I kept watching their posts.
I thought, I won't know why this person is saying such things unless I ask them directly, so I participated in a 'Fundamental Treatment Camp' that the doctor was running.
I learned various things over three days and two nights, but you know how humans tend to feel like they understand something once they study it? So, I ended it with a 'this feels okay' kind of attitude.
That doctor is Satoshi Utsumi.
He runs the Drug-Induced Injury Research Clinic in Okachimachi. As the name suggests, he sees patients with drug-induced injuries, cancer, intractable diseases, and others who have been told they cannot be cured elsewhere. He helps them stop their medication, guides them through psychoanalysis so they can have their own realizations, helps them face themselves, and works to solve problems from the root.
The foundation is indigenous philosophy.
He doesn't deny Western medicine, but he believes hospitals are originally for emergencies. He is the only doctor I think who preaches that medicine is just symptomatic treatment and naturally cannot cure things from the root, and that while food is important, the most important thing is spirituality.
The doctor starts by having you deny not just the medicine, but yourself entirely.
People who find that painful and unbearable cannot continue.
I was taught to let go of being a victim toward others and to live my own life,butwanting to study more properly,at 42,I decided to become a therapist and took the plunge into the course.
Mr. Utsumi is someone who even ran for Governor of Tokyo, and although he calls himself the most hated doctor in the world, he is truly a man of love.
The course also included fortune-telling, which I learned from, but beyond that, I was taught that illness doesn't just come suddenly—you are the one who desired that illness and became ill, so then, why is that?
Illness and misfortune arenot things that come suddenly, but rather, they happen inevitably to give something to yourself or to teach you something,which is my own interpretation, but I learned the fundamentals.
I want to create my own life myself. It's not about saying things are no good because politics won't change, or that I'm pitiful because my parents won't change. It's about ditching the victim mentality andbecoming the protagonist.
Anyway, he is someone I can truly respect.

Imagine:
Shizuka-san, you are currently a mother of six, a fortune teller, a writer, and also a therapist. I think you are doing many things and have many thoughts. What kind of image do you have for your future, looking ahead five or ten years, and even up to the point where you eventually pass away?

Shizuka Fukawa:
This is something that is already starting to move, but I think I mentioned that I traveled while sleeping in my car. I traveled for a month sleeping in the car when the children were 9, 8, and 3 years old. In a light car, like an idiot... I didn't have that much money, but before I knew it, I had left (laughs).
When we were told by the school during COVID that if we weren't going to wear masks, we shouldn't come, I said if you're going to go that far, we won't go. But then, when we were playing outside, the community called the police on us. They said I was neglecting them because I wasn't sending them to school. Apparently, they checked on the children's bodies without permission while I was at work.
I felt incredibly humiliated. I don't know, I was just so frustrated.
When the children went to play, they were told by friends' houses, 'You don't go to school, so you can't play,' and they had no one to play with. So they would just wander around on their bicycles. Then, the child consultation center would get involved again, saying I was neglecting them.
The children said, 'We have no friends to play with, every day is boring. What should we do?' I worried about what to do, but I'm a single mother and don't have money. When that happened, since I was doing things like fortune-telling, I put it out on social media. Like, 'I'll do fortune-telling.' I'm also originally an intestinal therapist, so I can do intestinal massages, and I taught the children, so they could do that too, andI asked if there was anything we could do to sustain a trip by bartering with that. It doesn't have to be money, even just a meal or a place to stay would be fine, could I please ask for that?I posted that on social media. Then quite a few people raised their hands. Saying things like, 'If you come to our place, we'll do this.' It cost money for gas and such, but at that time, we went back and forth from Kanagawa to Kagoshima. It was about 3,000 kilometers, I think.
We were taken care of by many people. They took us to the zoo, gave us pocket money, let us stay over, and gave us the next day's meals in Tupperware, which we ate while traveling.
We were doing things like that.I really understood that it's not something you can only do if you have hundreds of thousands of yen.
Naturally, since it was a light car, the children would curl up to sleep. Of course, they would get tired of that, sothey'd say, 'It's so happy to sleep on a futon! It's happy to be able to stretch my legs! Futons are the best!'
Usually, they hated baths and were lazy about them, but there were four days when we couldn't take a bath... because we had no money. When those children finally borrowed a bath and got in, they were smiling and saying, 'It's warm, this is the best!'Through that trip,the 'impossible' turned into 'gratitude'.
We didn't have much money, so I asked, 'I want to save some money, what do you think?' I'm originally the type who doesn't eat breakfast, but of course, the children do.
But they said, 'Mom, it's okay, let's wait until lunch.' The children really felt what it meant to eat a meal. Most of the people were complete strangers, starting with a 'nice to meet you,' but we played together, played tag, went to the zoo, and they would act spoiled. They slept with people they had just met.It was a very happy three weeks. Thinking about it now, I really did something amazing (laughs).
From that experience,'Island Family Plan'is what I'm planning and working on.
If you ask what that is, in the end, everyone has a desire to do something good, right? But everyone thinks they can't do it without money.
But it's not like that.For example, if a child says, 'I want to do this,' and puts it out there, someone somewhere in Japan who is good at it or wants to help them achieve it might raise their hand.
If you have nowhere to go during summer vacation, come to our place. If you get to such-and-such station, I'll come pick you up.
Or I can drive them until they get there.
It's about various adults helping each other while children visit various families. In our trip this time, almost everyone told us to come back next year. 'Come back again,' 'Let's eat something delicious.'
Let's eat the delicious food of the island, or I'll do this for you. Let's go fishing. It's not just my children who are satisfied by this,I think it would be wonderful if children in the world could come and go freely.
Part of it is because I didn't have a place to belong.
But your own parents aren't everything. If your parents are no good, there are places to rely on everywhere in Japan. So it's okay.Come on over. If you don't have money, I'll send train fare via PayPay. If you say, 'I'll send it to such-and-such place, come,' and there's someone who says they'll pick you up at that station, children can go anywhere, right?
It's not about having a place only in Tokyo or only in such-and-such prefecture.
If that existed all over Japan, you wouldn't have to go all the way to Tokyo.
If there are people who say, 'Come to the station and I'll pick you up,' children can go anytime without hesitation.I want to create such a place to belong.
We are planning to start filming videos, and we intend to go and report on the people who say it's okay to become family, and ask each person what they can do.
For example, if a grandmother says, 'If you weed the garden, that's fine, I'll give you lunch, I'll give you dinner, you can sleep here too,' then we'll do that.
While doing that, even children without money can meet families all over Japan through that route.
Not just their own parents, but people who say, 'Welcome, I'm happy you're here,' 'You came again this year.'There are people all over Japan who sincerely rejoice in your own existence.
Isn't it wonderful that there are people everywhere in Japan who happily accept my existence?
I'm planning to interview people who will work with us, or who say they'll provide at least a meal or anything, together with the children, and collect those in videos.

Imagine:
Are you going to create that platform through videos?

Shizuka Fukawa:
That's right.

Imagine:
Do you have an idea of how many people you want to gather?

Shizuka Fukawa:
I want a host within a distance a child can walk, about 1 kilometer away.A distance they can walk while crying and thinking of that person's face. I want to gather people at a distance where, if they walk a little further, someone is there. Of course, I know it will take time.

Imagine:
I think your experience of traveling while sleeping in your car is very connected to what you're saying now, Shizuka-san. If you hadn't had that, what kind of life do you think you would have had?

Shizuka Fukawa:
I think I would have remained a person who couldn't see any potential in themselves and couldn't take on challenges.
And I don't think I would have been able to build such gratitude and trust with my children either.
Are you aware that the number of youth deaths is staggering right now? It's the highest in the world. Japan is becoming No. 1, overtaking South Korea. I'm not sure if it's becoming or has already become, but regardless, it's the highest in the world. We have such a well-developed infrastructure, and everything is in place, isn't it? There aren't many countries where you can drink tap water. Even in an era where everyone can have their own mobile phone, people still choose to end their lives, perhaps feeling that something is wrong or wanting to reset, heading toward a future that is unknown.
Ultimately, they aren't happy. I was the same.
But I am truly glad now that I didn't die. In fact, I think I'm the happiest person in the world.
I have many children, I am healthy, and as a human, I can have various experiences.Both the painful times and the sad times, and the times when you get the joy of shouting 'Wow!' and jumping for joy.
I think we must not forget that we were born here to have those experiences.
Painful things are painful. But don't you think we can understand gratitude because there is the contrast of pain?
And when things are really tough, there are people waiting for you all over Japan, so why not go and visit them? You will definitely find something. Even if your own family doesn't accept you, there are definitely people who will, so I don't want you to give up.That's the kind of feeling, I suppose.
If you die, all experiences and encounters will be gone and that's the end...

Imagine:
Lastly, please share any message you have for the readers of this article, whether it's something you want to leave behind or a promotion.

Shizuka Fukawa:
Are you happy right now?

Imagine:
Well, there are times when I feel happy and times when I don't.

Shizuka Fukawa:
I think, perhaps, if humans were happy all the time, they wouldn't be happy. That happiness exists in contrast to something that is not happy.
There are days when it rains constantly and it's a nuisance, and then when it clears up, you think, 'Wow, the laundry dries so well!'
Conversely, because there are times when it's only sunny and crops don't grow, we are grateful for the rain.
Which perspective do you take? Depending on the angle, it can be a nuisance or a blessing; they are one, like yin and yang.
I feel like everyone focuses too much on what they don't have.
Painful things are only felt because they are in contrast to happiness. I want people to feel that the existence of both is what happiness is.
This is Earth, the planet of experience. If there were no experiences, we would be the same as AI.I believe that being human means having things you feel through experience.
Happiness, sadness, and having your heart stirred. Being able to taste those things is what it means to be human.
I want you not to fear that.
And I want you to take pride in being different from others.Because you have a role that is yours alone.
Because you were born with those characteristics.
Your true self, or rather,I want you to live while outputting what you feel just as it is, without being ashamed.

Afterword

Last year, I lived away from Japan for a short while.
People say many things about going abroad, like that you'll learn a language or your values will change 180 degrees. But when I returned home, that wasn't what I thought. Ah, I can probably keep living. That's what I thought.
If I get tired of the place I'm in now, I can just leave and go to that place again. Knowing that there is somewhere else besides here, or that there might be, is something that heals you tremendously.
It could be a place, a person, a thing, words, or even music.
What is your sanctuary?

[Interview, Editing, Afterword: Imagine]

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