Recording Some “Nonsense” Here with My Voice

00:03 Last week, I was feeling pretty low-energy.

00:07 During that low-energy stretch,

00:10 outside of work,

00:13 I spent most of the rest of my time

00:15 scrolling through social media,

00:19 or just scrolling through feeds,

00:22 or catching up on

00:24 shows I hadn't finished,

00:27 and watching movies.

00:30 Whenever I was scrolling,

00:33 even when my brain was telling me

00:36 that it was time to sleep,

00:37 I just kept scrolling.

00:42 When I was watching videos,

00:43 I'd think to myself,

00:44 Instead of wasting all this time on videos,

00:48 you could go outside for a walk.

00:51 Go get some ice cream.

00:55 Go have a good meal.

00:58 Or just take a walk by the lake.

01:03 But somehow, my body

01:06 felt stuck right where it was.

01:10 I just kept watching and scrolling.

01:15 Then one day,

01:18 it suddenly occurred to me

01:20 that some posts I'd scrolled past

01:21 and some of the videos I'd watched

01:25 had left a deep impression on me.

01:28 So I tried

01:30 writing some things down.

01:34 Then something surprising happened.

01:37 When I wrote down the things

01:40 that had stayed with me,

01:42 I suddenly realized

01:44 that what I'd written about—

01:45 these seemingly unrelated points—

01:48 could actually be connected into a line.

01:51 And that line was about

01:54 what genuine connection

01:57 between people really looks like.

02:01 I brought together some recent experiences,

02:07 moments from films and shows that stayed with me,

02:11 as well as things

02:13 I'd written down in the past.

02:16 Once I connected all those points,

02:20 they became that piece I shared.

02:24 Before I started writing, all I knew was

02:27 that these points had stayed with me.

02:31 I needed to write them down.

02:33 But as I wrote, I realized

02:35 they all shared the same core.

02:39 Or rather, there was a line

02:41 connecting all these different points.

02:45 Once I realized that,

02:47 I felt incredibly happy—

02:49 even happier than I was

02:51 to have written the piece itself.

02:54 Because the process made me realize

02:59 that when I'm trying to make sense of something,

03:01 it isn't that

03:04 I have to understand it first

03:06 and then write it down.

03:09 It's through the process

03:11 of writing it down that I come to understand it.

03:14 And that means

03:16 when I have an idea,

03:20 I don't need to figure it all out first.

03:22 I can simply start by recording it,

03:25 whether by writing it down

03:28 or saying it out loud.

03:30 Once I try doing that,

03:32 the next step

03:33 follows naturally.

03:36 So now I'm also trying

03:37 to build a space like that—

03:40 even if it's just for rambling.

03:44 You see,

03:45 During that time,

03:47 I watched a Japanese film

03:51 called Seto & Utsumi.

03:54 If you've seen it,

03:57 you'll know

03:59 that it's basically about

04:01 two high school students sitting by a riverbank, talking.

04:06 Apart from that one setting,

04:08 there are few other scenes.

04:10 At first,

04:11 I thought, "Wow, this is so boring."

04:14 It's just two students talking.

04:18 But as I watched, I realized,

04:20 wow, the manga's creator is a real eccentric genius.

04:26 I really love the theme he explores.

04:30 I used to be someone who—

04:35 whenever I wanted to post anything

04:37 on social media—

04:41 would think,

04:43 if these words contain no information,

04:47 if they offer no value,

04:48 then I shouldn't post them.

04:53 So whenever

04:54 I put something out into the world,

04:57 I expected

04:58 it to contain real information.

05:01 Even if it was just a post on WeChat Moments,

05:04 I would think,

05:06 the photo had to look good enough,

05:09 and the caption had to contain enough information.

05:13 Over time,

05:14 I began to feel that my idle thoughts,

05:16 the random things that popped into my head,

05:19 had nowhere to go.

05:21 And so,

05:22 I'd create alt accounts

05:26 and go somewhere no one knew me,

05:30 where no one followed me.

05:32 There,

05:35 I'd just ramble about whatever I wanted.

05:38 I felt quite divided.

05:42 I couldn't bring myself to show people

05:44 the side of me that rambles,

05:47 that isn't offering value

05:51 or sharing useful information.

05:54 But the truth is,

05:57 the real me

06:01 loves to ramble.

06:03 Sometimes, no one even understands what I'm saying.

06:08 Uh...

06:11 I don't know.

06:13 I've lived for over twenty years,

06:15 I still feel like

06:16 I'm finding my way to myself.

06:20 Maybe by this age, a lot of people

06:24 have already figured out

06:26 what kind of person they are

06:29 and what they want to do in the future.

06:32 But I'm still exploring.

06:38 I do know

06:39 what some parts of me are like,

06:41 what she likes,

06:43 and what path she might take.

06:45 But I haven't fully

06:47 unlocked the other parts of me yet:

06:51 what she likes,

06:52 what shape she takes,

06:55 and what her future might look like.

07:01 I think the future is

07:02 something that hasn't been defined yet.

07:06 Only when you walk into it

07:08 and encounter things along the way

07:10 does its outline slowly come into focus.

07:15 Originally,

07:19 when I pressed record,

07:21 I thought I'd talk for three to five minutes.

07:24 But now,

07:28 I've already gone past five.

07:30 I know that if I keep talking,

07:32 I might not be able to stop.

07:36 But

07:38 I'm going to make myself stop here.

07:40 Even though I don't know

07:42 what exactly I've been talking about,

07:44 still,

07:46 I'm going to treat this

07:47 as a place where I can ramble.

07:50 It doesn't matter what the rambling is about.

07:53 I just want to use it to record

07:55 whatever is on my mind in the moment,

07:58 whatever I want to say.

08:00 And if any of this

08:03 happens to reach someone

08:05 and gives them some inspiration,

08:07 I'd be very happy.