🌐The Blue Bird is Surprisingly Within the Heart | Agency and Self | Factorization of the Heart

When I was in junior high and high school

　During my student days, I had no idea what my core was.

　I went to a vocational school, but if you ask whether I learned professionally and actively, I did learn to some extent, but from the very beginning, I was far away from my own core.

　As for how I was in high school, I was lost in a fog. I didn't even know what it meant to search for a core.

　What I mistook for my core during my high school days was, in fact, something that was also very far away from me.

　I had an experience and thought, I want to write down my experience and leave it behind. With that thought, I wrote a long, long 'autobiographical novel' for the first time. Two of them. And with that, for the first time, I remembered that I liked writing, was good at it, and that it was 'my core'.

　It took nearly 60 years to notice my core.

　As I mentioned in a previous article, it was like a letter addressed to junior high and high school students. I suspect there aren't many junior high or high school students who know their own core.

　Of course, there are children who notice such talents early on, but those children are fortunate, so I think they should borrow the help of various people and develop those talents.

　But for an ordinary person like me, it took nearly 60 years to find my core.

　Now that I have found my core, I decide on the profession I want to pursue, decide for myself what to learn toward that goal, and study on my own. Is that what it means to have agency?

Is the Blue Bird a story about searching for 'one's own core'?

When I found my core, I thought it was like the 'Blue Bird' of 'Tyltyl and Mytyl'.

　Tyltyl and Mytyl go off to search for the blue bird. But the blue bird was close by. That is the story.

　Thinking about it now, that story might not be about 'happiness is close by'.

　Perhaps it is a story that says you shouldn't 'go far away' to search for 'your own core', but rather remember your 'childhood'.

　I take the liberty of thinking that 'happiness' might be 'finding your own core'.

　Forgive me for using my own poem, but I have a poem with the seemingly playful title 'I Might Be Able to Go Home'.

　'There is a person who is lost. Because that person was lost, they had to go home. To do that, they want to go to the platform of the 'nearest station' from where they are. And they want to head home.'

　That is the kind of poem it is.

Your own core might be in your childhood

When it comes to finding one's center, a story often brought up is 'what were you interested in when you were a child?'

It could be 'I liked drawing pictures with colored pencils,' or 'I liked wetting tissue paper, pressing felt-tip pens against it, and enjoying how the colors bled.'

Or perhaps it was 'collecting beautiful grains of sand while sitting on the ground during gym class.'

These are all about me, by the way (laughs).

For those who have lost sight of that 'center,' it might be good to remember your 'childhood.'

It might be good to remember the time when you were not restricted by anything and simply followed your heart's interests.

Surprisingly, your 'likes' might be hidden in such places.

The 'lottery' of 'trying things out' and the 'Blue Bird'

And, even if you can't find it now, there is no need to rush. I won't say anything irresponsible like 'you will definitely find it.'

I think it is also good to draw many lots.

I don't mean lottery tickets.

I mean the lottery of trying out things that pique your interest. The more lots you draw, the higher your chances.

The lottery of 'come to think of it, I used to like this.'

When I was in elementary school, during gym class, I was bored, so I spent the whole time picking through grains of sand in the schoolyard. Among them, my favorites were the ones that were transparent like glass, and I devoted all my efforts to finding the largest ones (laughs).

When I became a high school student and learned that I could choose science subjects, I took 'Earth Science' and learned that those transparent grains were likely 'quartz.'

It is not a fact that I went down that path to study Earth Science, but I still love stones, and if I see a book about them, I end up buying it.

The top image of this Yumilemontea page is also a stone.

However, I don't think you need to draw every single lot. There is also a great deal of agency in choosing not to draw.

If you want to do it, do it.
If you don't want to do it, don't do it.
If you don't know, put it on hold.

All of these are perfectly fine.

When I was a student, I didn't know that "not doing" was also a choice I could make myself. Now that I am an adult, I am quite selfish. I think, "Isn't it my freedom not to do it, too?"

For me, writing stems from the "one-line journaling" (a name I gave it arbitrarily later) I used to do as a child, and remembering that made me realize, "Ah, I have been a person who organizes my thoughts by writing since long ago."

I think that perhaps the blue bird is surprisingly within the heart.

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