2024/03/22 English

BGM: Janet Jackson - Got 'Till It's Gone

I worked late today. This morning, I started reading Viorica Marian's book "The Power of Language" once again. When I read this book for the first time, I felt so impressed with its optimistic, positive opinions. Learning other languages can broaden our thoughts more - I accept this is one of the opinions of this book, and I agree with it. But, we have to be careful not to reach this kind of impression so rapidly as "So polyglots must be greater than monolinguals basically, and completely as human beings!"

How about my case? I try to think about it... According to my experiences, and also my honest feelings, I accept that I can feel that my ideas start having really clear "shapes" when I use English, an absolutely "foreign" language. But I can't see the reason why I feel like that - About this, I have to feel like I have been within an invisible, virtual jail of the Japanese language, therefore I finally can't stand out from that.

I won't say that Japanese is an illogical/irrational language, because I have many novelists and philosophers who have kept on doing their crisp and logical writings. At least, I love Haruki's works because of the clear essences... Or you can find certain "ambiguous" essences within my thoughts even in this kind of English writing. So, about this point, I need to think more deeply with this book in my hand. Although I might be one of the "snob polyglots", I want to appreciate every language because it must have its precious, awesome dignity.

Now, I have a concern in the news of the interpreter who has worked with Shohei Ohtani, a brilliant Japanese baseball player. Although I have just learned about this by reading some pieces of news partially, I can find that he has been suffering from a gambling addiction. TBH, I am also an addicted person - addicted to alcohol. Therefore, I have been learning how I can recover from that illness (and now, I have been able to quit alcohol for about 9 years.)

We have to understand that this kind of addicted people must need a certain help - therefore severe punishments without listening to them can work worse. I hope everything goes well - and of course, I have to learn about this more with a careful, sensitive attitude.