Little Insecurities
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Well, here we are again. Sorry about the lapse in posting. It’s unusual for me to just halt while I’m not on a trip or otherwise indisposed, but sometimes it just happens. I dunno if I just ran dry, just couldn’t be bothered, or just needed that much sleep…but the end result is that I posted once last week. Ha ha.
So, today’s post will be related to Japan, but only tangentially - in the same way that talking about grocery prices will inevitably involve math. I don’t know about you, but I have mini existential breakdowns from time to time. It’s not like I’m left in a heap on the floor, sobbing over the desolate ruin that is my future. Far from it. I just start questioning everything I’ve done up till now and wondering what exactly I’m aiming at down the road. If I am aiming at anything, I guess.
I was talking to James yesterday, and I think I said it more clearly than I have before. I won’t really be able to perfectly recreate it here, but I’ll give it a shot. For me, born and raised in the great state of South Carolina in the good ol’ USA, studying Japan is…uncommon. Suffice it to say that I chose something that I enjoyed studying, but which, by its very foreign nature, alienates me from nearly everyone I know. The thing is, I steep in what I study. I moved to Japan. And the more I steep, the bigger a part of my identity and being it becomes. This means that with every foothold I gain I lose some common ground with the old cadre of friends. It’s a sick sort of inversely proportional trading game.
So once in a while I sit back and look at where I am and how far I have to go before I’m literate in Japanese, or before it is useful to me in any real capacity. Obviously, I have a very long, uphill road ahead of me. And it’s raining. And there are archers at the top shooting clouds of arrows at me. And oil slicks. And the occasional perpendicular freight train track without a signal light. It’s frustrating. Then I look at my Bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies…what doors does that open, exactly, anyway? Ha ha. I’ve wanted to pursue higher education for a long time. Maybe the next step is to work on that instead of the Japanese for a bit? (Seems that I should really finish one before the other, though, doesn’t it?) If I did continue studying, would I rather go the more academic path - aiming at a possible future professorship? Or would I go with the more for-profit model, getting a degree in international business, or commerce, or something? Or would I split the difference and work governmentally for some kind of Japan-US thing? Am I capable of any of the above? Woe is me!
I’ve been living on a tiny fishing island in rural Japan for almost 2 years, soon to be 3. I get paid well, but it also feels as though my life is on hold. Sometimes I get some royally itchy cabin fever. I’m basically away from the world. I wonder if it has re-socialized me somewhat. When I went home for Christmas, I saw that I was more reticent to join in some conversations, or found myself craving alone time once in a while. And I’d waited a year and a half to see the people I got to see! I hope I’m not changing too much by being alone all the time. And I hope life isn’t totally passing me by. Am I the me I am now because of where I am and where I’m not, or am I me regardless and the world around me matters not? I guess it’s a bit metaphysical, but this job makes me wonder if I am a variable or if I am a constant. Sigh.
But fear not, folks. These little moments of dread don’t dominate my thinking. They are few and far between. But it doesn’t make it any easier to wrestle with them when they spring out of the bushes and claw into you. Anyone else go through these things? What a bummer, huh?