Anonymous Interview: A Person Who Left the Unification Church

Once again, I used a clickbait title and ended up including something that isn't the main topic... Well, I will talk about the Unification Church! But I'm not saying anything about whether a specific religion is good or bad!!
So, this is the Amane Sakaki episode. She apparently learned about this interview through the newsletter of Noriko Andersen, whose interview I published recently.
She herself has selective mutism, and her family struggled with alcoholism. In her 20s, she joined the Unification Church, got married, and moved to Korea, but eventually, she questioned that married life and returned to Japan with her child. I listened to her story thinking, 'Wow, there really are lives like this.'
If you enjoy it, that is my good fortune.

The person who participated this time is Minoru Kawahara!

The interview is here!

The book mentioned during the interview is here.

Afterword

I sometimes think I should create a 'Misfortunate Person Interview' as a variation of the Anonymous Interview. Occasionally, I hear stories of flawless misfortune.
Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother worked herself to the bone covering for him. She herself had selective mutism, joined a cult in her 20s, and got married as she was told. But she realized that life was wrong, and that brings us to the present.
Regarding that past, I think it's meaningless to say, 'It would have been better if it were like this,' or 'Maybe things would have changed if there had been a good relative.' I've thought this after hearing several hyper-unfortunate stories. There is no meaning in evaluating them. Perhaps evaluation is just the gluttony of modern rationality.

But Sakaki-san seems happy now. Well, I'm sure there were happy moments in the past too, and I think humans live in the moment, whatever that moment may be.

After the interview, I asked her how it went, and she replied that it was easy to talk.
When I asked what she meant by 'easy to talk,' she said it was because I listened to her while keeping the distinction that people are people and I am myself.

When I hear about someone's misfortune, I actually don't feel much of anything. I don't sympathize or empathize. I just think that such things happen. I am surprised, and I do feel curiosity.
But those are minor details; I think what is truly important is to simply listen to that person as they are, existing as they are. No, nothing else is needed. It's not even active listening. Acknowledging the other person is just listening to their story with an open mind.
The phrase Fujio Akatsuka captured: 'This is fine.' That is enough.

In an email sent after the interview, she wrote,

'I feel that a "way of life that leaves hope" is for me to live while laughing.'

There are ways of living like that, and there are ways of living that are not.
Whether you can hold onto something you believe in within yourself. If that is not a doctrine given by others, but something you have acquired yourself, perhaps you can laugh from the heart.

You can also read past interviews in the magazine!

Recruiting interview participants!