An attempt at autobiography: from childhood to adolescence（２）

 I just wrote that "novels were my high school life," but I didn't write this simply as rhetoric. Looking back now at my age, I feel like that was the way I lived, so I wrote that it was true. In other words, I still recall fragments of memories of a time when I was never at peace: when I took reality more seriously than necessary, when I became obsessed with romance and suffered heartbreak as a result of my unrequited love that worshipped women, or when my indecisiveness caused pain to the girl who dated me, and when I thought there were periods of innocence, I would be extremely depressed with self-blame. I was somewhat like Raskolnikov, I fancied women like Lotte, spent my summers pretending to be Meursault, became as confident as Julien Sorel and wrote love letters only to embarrass myself, spent a long, dark winter passionately with Jean-Christophe, fell in love with a slightly cross-eyed woman like Katyusha and got her to go on a date with me just once, became obsessed with Tolstoy and, like the Shirakaba school, wrote in my circulation journal that humanism is the greatest value, earning me teasing from my homeroom teacher, Mr. Shirai, and, like the political activists in "The Devils," internalized the student movement, causing a mild neurosis and leading to me skipping school for about 10 days. I spent my high school years as if constantly possessed by something.

Looking back, it's strange how my real life was so influenced by the novels I'd read. Part of it may have been because I was a student studying for entrance exams, an unrealistic life, but even so, I'm impressed by my ignorance at the time and how bold I was. I hadn't yet experienced a stable life, and I think my heart was probably troubled. At that moment, I lost the innocent self that had naturally developed with me. My boyish shell broke, I left the city I was born in, and I was drawn deeper and deeper into an unfamiliar world. At the time, the world of world literature encyclopedias consisted of Germany, Italy, France, England, and Russia. Asia, America, and Africa were not included.

By the second semester of my second year of high school, my indiscriminate reading had finally taken its toll and I was no longer able to keep up with my classes. By this time, I had become a little "political" boy, reading Dostoevsky's "Demons," and even participating in demonstrations. However, it seemed like I was doing it as if possessed. I was never acting with conviction. My heart was empty and unfulfilled. I refused to go to school for about 10 days. This was the first crisis I had experienced. At the time, I wasn't aware of the crisis; I was just trying to escape reality. I just wanted to take a break and not think about anything. My homeroom teacher, Mr. Nishino, sympathized with me and worried me, causing me concern. I think we talked in an empty classroom somewhere. The teacher treated me as an individual. There was something of a sense of him as a senior or a comrade, and his gaze was kind but powerful. He said, "If you don't want to think about it, I have nothing to say." Looking back in later years, I sometimes think that maybe he really wanted to discuss it with me. I was now reminiscing about how I had lived my life, why I could only live that way, and I discovered something that made sense to me. It all made sense to me now, and even though it was in the past, isn't it progress?