Canon's Diary

Tuesday, June 10. I woke up around 5:30 a.m. When I opened the curtains, I saw that it was raining. It seems that the Kinki region officially entered the rainy season yesterday. In Kyushu, there has been heavy rain, and warnings have been issued for potential landslides.
“Why do I keep waking up so early?”
I washed my face and brushed my teeth. For breakfast, I had a bowl of rice with raw egg and a cup of tomato soup. When I turned on the TV, the news was still showing the clash between authorities and demonstrators over illegal immigration detentions in Los Angeles. President Trump apparently intends to deploy the Marine Corps.
“He’s always so forceful.”
Since I live in a condo, I keep the TV volume low. That means I sometimes miss parts of the broadcast, but I don’t mind too much. Turning on the TV in the morning has become part of my daily routine, though I only half-listen to what’s being said.

I left home earlier than usual. It was a burnable garbage day, so I took out the trash bag and dropped it off at the collection point. Leaving just fifteen minutes earlier made the streets noticeably less crowded. The shopping arcade was quiet this morning. I could hear the sound of raindrops hitting my umbrella. Though it was raining, the temperature was relatively warm, and the air felt humid.

At the office, I carried out tasks like distributing the technical documents I had prepared. While I was getting ready to contact a parts supplier about some specifications, my phone notified me of a news alert from Yahoo—apparently, the Kanto-Koshin and Hokuriku regions also entered the rainy season today.
“So, it’s basically the whole country now.”
The sky outside was overcast, and the office lit by fluorescent lights still felt a bit dim. During the lunch break, when the lights were turned off, the floor grew even darker, shifting into rest mode. After finishing lunch, I sat in the dim room and reflected a bit on the past.

Before I encountered Adlerian psychology, I used to interpret everything through the lens of causality.
“I ended up with a mental illness because my parents forced religion on me.”
“I was scared of interacting with people because my uncle hit me and my drunk grandfather shouted at me when I was a kid.”
“Prayer doesn’t help. It doesn’t solve anything.”
I often said such things and caused my parents a lot of grief.
But when I began to think in terms of teleology—the idea of purpose rather than cause—I realized that all those things stemmed from my own sense of helplessness. The suffocating emotions, the memories of crying alone in a dark room, came from a self-centered desire to blame something or someone. In essence, I wanted my parents’ attention by voicing these grievances. I thought, “There must be a reason why my heart hurts this much.”

But now I believe the most accurate explanation is that schizophrenia is largely genetic, a predisposition I was simply born with. I’ve come to know that there are many second-generation religious individuals who have suffered emotionally because of it.
Someone with a more severe disability than mine once gave me this advice:
“Religion simply didn’t heal my illness, so I let it go. But I don’t hold any hostility toward religion itself. Mental illness and religion should be considered separately.”
It meant a great deal to me to receive such wisdom from someone who has endured even harsher circumstances than my own.

The afternoon passed by in a bit of a rush. Over the next two weeks, I’ll likely need to prepare another batch of documents. When the workday ended, I left the office and stopped by the store to buy pork, cabbage, and carrots. The supermarket near my office is much cheaper than the one near my home. It seems more efficient to do most of my shopping on the way back from work.

Tonight’s dinner was cabbage soup, fried rice, and some frozen mini hamburg steaks. The cabbage soup this time was Japanese-style, seasoned with noodle broth and bonito stock. Adding grated ginger gave it a wonderfully tasty finish.
That said, cooking for myself tends to lead to high-calorie meals. Maybe I’ll reserve real cooking for the weekends and keep weekday dinners simple—just some cabbage soup I’ve made in advance might be enough.