Tuesday 20 August 2019

The struggle

Most of this year has already gone. It's a year that started with me returning from a short stay in Manila. I love the Philippines, and one current inhabitants of the islands in particular, so it's not unusual for me to return to the UK carrying a strange mixture of gratitude for the time I spent on the other side of the world, and some sadness that it can't continue.

This time, I heard that some of the people with whom I'd spent time had experienced me as quiet, and had wondered if something had been wrong. My knowledge of the Tagalog language is unfortunately still limited, and they were concerned that I had felt excluded where they didn't speak in English. My thoughts on this were that I was a guest, and it would be wrong to expect anyone to make unreasonable adjustments due to my presence.

On the last full day of my visit, I met with a friend I'd known for a number of years. The woman I love pretty much carried the conversation, however. There hadn't been time to fully process it, but the description of me as quiet and withdrawn had shaken me. Unfortunately, the way this interaction with a friend went reinforced a feeling that was gaining strength.

Within days of my return to the UK, there was a dance event I would usually attend each month. I drove there, walked in, looked at the people who were present, and decided to make the journey back home instead.

Through an interest in Japanese pop music that I'm not going to explain here, I came to watch an episode of a related show that featured a young woman called Kaoru Goto (後藤郁). The show was focused on her, and her relationship with the other members of a band in which she was a member. As the show opened, the host worked his way to finding humour, in various ways, in the difficulties the other members in the band were having in their interactions with Kaorun (her nickname, which I'll use for the sake of brevity).

The focus of the show shifted to a segment where members would talk to Kaorun, and the conversation would be timed. At the point where the host felt the conversation had become awkward, Kaorun would automatically be judged to be the cause, and he would push a button which fired a cold jet of carbon dioxide at her face. In those interactions, I saw that her personality was eerily similar to my own. There was a point where the show became difficult to watch because, to some extent, it was like someone had held up a mirror to how I relate to others, and how they see me.

Something I heard many years ago, but which has strangely been said a few times this year, is that conversations with me tend to become philosophical in nature. Maybe it isn't intended as criticism, or maybe it is. Here, it's easy to see an internal conflict. If a fundamental part of our nature makes it difficult for others to identify with, and communicate with us, is it something we should change?

This inner conflict is common to us all, to a greater or lesser extent. Do we present an edited version of ourselves, even to those closest to us? Do we learn to accept our inherent nature, and hope to find others who are able to accept it too? Maybe there has to be a balance between the two, but where is the balance to be struck? All I can really say is that, right now, this feels like a lonely place to be.

Interestingly, in the show I was watching, and in other episodes of the same show, there was a suggestion that Kaorun often said things which others found difficult to understand. Actually, her willingness to talk was a surprise for me. This gap in understanding is one of the main reasons I don't talk so much. That's a learned behaviour. Where I do interact with others, I can appear slow to respond, as internal thought processes are translated into the kind of language I hear around me, or withheld. I suppose I admire her for not changing.

As an aside, the makers of another show, centred on another girl group, made an episode centred around Tsumugi Hayasaka (早坂つむぎ). Tsucchan appears to be the INTJ type, rather than an INFJ as Kaorun seems to be. Both have now "graduated" from their respective groups to pursue other interests. Knowing what I know about these personality types, if my life had been different and I had somehow become a TV producer in Japan, a series of programmes featuring these two would be something I'd try to make happen. If you were to set them a challenge or series of challenges where they'd have to work together, the results would be interesting.

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