[Your Words] Book Review #ReadingAllBooksByMizukiTsujimura33
Although this is a collection of essays written for children, primarily elementary school students, it is a book for all ages that adults can also empathize with.
The story about jogging is exactly the same as mine; I thought I hated exercise, but I realized recently that playing sports as an adult is actually quite fun. That is something I have felt firsthand lately.
I am a 'culture club' guy, so compared to those around me, I wasn't good at sports and therefore hated them. But recently, I played badminton with someone at a similar athletic level and it was so much fun. Since then, I realized that rather than hating exercise, it was painful for me to 'not be able to do things compared to others.'
Snowboarding is the same. When I went with athletic guys, it was difficult and not very fun, but when I went with other beginners, it was enjoyable.
Once you think you are 'bad' at something, you start to avoid it, so you tend to think you 'hate' it. However, I learned as an adult that there are things you can be 'bad at but still love.'
I used to think I was bad at appreciation and avoided writing book reports, but now, writing them like this is not painful at all; it's actually a little fun. Even so, I don't consider myself an expert, and while thinking that there are people in the world who write much better than me, I write because it's fun, even while holding onto that sense of being bad at it.
Things you are bad at but love, increasing your 'amateur enthusiasm'—I thought that was important for adding color to life.
It is a waste to lump everything together and push it away.
What might help you for a long time is, unexpectedly, the time spent on pure enjoyment—the things you 'are bad at but love' or 'might be useless but you love.'
The idea of cherishing the feeling of 'it might be useless but I love it' was mentioned by an astronaut in 'Watching the Stars This Summer,' and the wonderful energy that 'love' possesses is also discussed in 'Haken Anime!'
I think this is a message that Tsujimura-sensei truly cherishes. She talks about it in her stories many times.
Your companions might be outside the classroom. Even if you don't meet them right away, they might be on the other side of a book you are reading, or beyond something you are devoted to. Please, until that time comes, do not let go of what you 'love,' and cherish it.
I want to make sure I don't forget this feeling.
The real days that everyone has spent. From among them, I want you to try writing a 'novel' based on a day that left a deep impression on you, just as adult writers have done. Of course, it is a 'made-up story.' Unlike a 'diary' you usually write, you don't need to be bound by the 'truth,' and you don't need to make yourself the protagonist. However, I think that somewhere in the story you write, your own 'words' that you felt during the days of last year will emerge.
Honestly, it's not that I'm not interested in writing a novel; I think it would be cool if I could write one, so I want to try.
I also want to create works like Mizuki Tsujimura—warm, kind, cool, wonderful, beautiful, and capable of surprising the reader. If I could create something like that, it would be truly exhilarating.
As I grew older, through middle and high school, I felt that being able to complain or notice the bad parts of a work—saying 'It's interesting, but...'—meant I understood the work better than just admitting it was 'interesting.' I felt like I had 'won' compared to the work itself or the people who praised it without reservation.
Actually, there was a significant part of me that was bluffing or competing with friends next to me, thinking 'I have a deeper understanding' precisely because I loved the work in the first place.
Perhaps, if I had only been supported and encouraged without reservation for what I 'loved,' I might not have come to love novels and books this much.
People who have found a path they love so much that they want to pursue it no matter how much it is forbidden are surely happy.
There were so many words I want to make into life guidelines. Mizuki Tsujimura is a life guideline manufacturing machine.
Thank you. I will reread this periodically.