Mr. Kuramoto in Rural and I in Urban
I rejected Mr. So Kuramoto’s idea of “poverty-happiness” (hinkō), and I also brushed aside Ms. Chizuko Ueno’s notion of “being equally poor.” Sometimes I feel a twinge of guilt about that. Even so, it’s also true that I couldn’t go along with the idea that: “Poverty itself is ‘good’ and ‘beautiful.’” To begin with, as for me: ・I was born right in the middle of the bubble era. ・My father is an investor who’s good at paired trading/hedging with stocks, and I’m a petty-bourgeois type whose living standards are a bit higher than others. ・I grew up in cities—Chiba and Sendai—my whole life. ・And because I have a developmental disorder, I probably can’t control myself as much as I’m “supposed” to. Well, maybe it’s simply the difference between someone who’s lived in the countryside and nature, and someone who’s lived in the city and civilization. Come to think of it, something suddenly came back to me. According to a “behind-the-scenes” setting for Castle in the Sky (Laputa): “Back in the era...