The Stranger Inside My Body

00:01 A few days ago, I worked on my podcast—

00:05 no, my blog.

00:08 While building the blog,

00:11 I started wondering

00:13 what I wanted

00:14 to move onto it.

00:17 When we hear the word "blog,"

00:21 we tend to

00:23 assume it's a text-based platform.

00:30 But I also wanted to add

00:36 some of my so-called projects.

00:40 Though they aren't really projects at all.

00:44 They're simply things

00:47 interesting or boring, I wasn't sure—

00:50 that I wanted to make.

00:54 Basically, I take

00:57 audio I've recorded and turn it into text,

01:02 or put it on podcast platforms.

01:10 While organizing those recordings,

01:14 I listened back

01:16 to some older ones.

01:20 And during that process,

01:21 I thought, my God.

01:26 There was such a strong sense of being

01:29 so ordinary, yet so confident.

01:36 I'd often heard people

01:39 mock "average yet confident" men online.

01:48 But listening to those recordings,

01:50 I thought, wow,

01:54 this version of me was just like them.

02:00 I was a female version

02:04 of the men people criticize.

02:13 Once I realized that,

02:17 I didn't know what to say about myself.

02:21 I had no idea why

02:24 I sometimes presented

02:27 that version of myself.

02:30 Even to who I am now,

02:33 that version of me feels very unfamiliar.

02:37 Maybe I used to keep telling myself,

02:41 you need to be gentle.

02:44 You need to be—

02:48 how should I put it?

02:50 I'm very afraid of conflict.

02:54 So most of the time,

02:58 if conflict can be avoided,

02:59 I do my best to avoid it.

03:03 But

03:05 if the environment

03:08 or atmosphere makes me feel safe,

03:13 I can face conflict directly.

03:20 For example,

03:22 I remember

03:24 something that happened at work.

03:28 A senior colleague of mine

03:30 was—

03:34 I forget whether he had retired

03:36 or was close to retirement.

03:43 I think when he came to work with us,

03:48 he had been rehired after retirement.

03:51 During one work discussion,

03:55 I remember

03:57 we were sitting around a conference table.

04:02 As we talked,

04:04 our views came into conflict.

04:08 I argued my case strongly,

04:10 because I thought

04:12 my approach was reasonable.

04:16 What we were discussing

04:22 was a set of rules for students.

04:26 But I felt that students

04:30 shouldn't be controlled too harshly.

04:34 I wanted to preserve some room for them.

04:40 My senior colleague, though,

04:42 thought that without strict demands,

04:47 they might become undisciplined.

04:55 In any case, our views

04:57 clashed.

04:58 We sat there at the conference table

05:01 almost arguing.

05:04 He looked completely exasperated.

05:07 He suddenly stood up

05:10 and returned to the vice principal's desk.

05:16 Before returning to his desk,

05:19 I think he said something like,

05:22 "If you keep insisting on that,

05:24 we'll never finish this discussion."

05:30 The meeting seemed to stop halfway.

05:34 We couldn't continue,

05:37 so he dismissed us.

05:41 My coworkers told me,

05:43 "You didn't need to argue with him."

05:47 After all—

05:50 how should I put it?

05:53 I don't know how to judge

05:55 that situation.

05:56 I forget how it was ultimately resolved.

05:59 I only remember vividly

06:02 the scene of us clashing.

06:05 Normally, with another senior colleague,

06:08 I would never have dared to do that.

06:12 But perhaps in my time with him,

06:14 I sensed

06:17 that I could speak honestly around him,

06:21 and it would be okay.

06:24 So that's what I did.

06:27 Later,

06:29 he stayed in our area

06:32 for only half a semester.

06:34 Then he left.

06:36 Before leaving, he asked me

06:40 to come talk in his office.

06:42 I forget

06:44 why he called me in.

06:47 It wasn't a formal conversation.

06:50 While we were chatting,

06:53 he mentioned

06:55 that he wouldn't be there next semester.

06:58 I was shocked.

07:01 I had thought

07:03 I'd finally met a good mentor.

07:05 I also thought

07:06 we would work together

07:09 not for ages,

07:10 but at least for a year or two.

07:14 Yet

07:16 before that semester even ended,

07:19 he told me he was leaving.

07:21 He also said

07:24 I was the first person he told.

07:30 How should I describe it?

07:34 When I heard he was leaving,

07:36 I was genuinely sad.

07:40 I had finally found

07:43 a very good mentor,

07:45 but he couldn't keep going there.

07:49 At the time, he told me

07:51 one obstacle was

07:54 that he wanted to introduce policies

07:58 or make reforms at the school,

08:01 but his superiors wouldn't approve them.

08:08 It was difficult.

08:11 During his semester there,

08:13 he made major changes.

08:17 Overall,

08:18 student discipline improved a lot.

08:22 But because he was quite strict,

08:24 the students

08:25 resisted

08:28 that level of strictness.

08:31 Before then,

08:33 earlier leaders may have been too lenient.

08:38 And his time there happened to be

08:44 just after a new principal took over.

08:48 Before the previous principal left,

08:49 management had been very loose.

08:52 Students had been given a lot of freedom.

08:55 After the previous principal left,

08:58 the new principal took over,

08:59 and this senior colleague arrived too.

09:02 So many spaces

09:04 and freedoms became more restricted.

09:08 The students

09:09 gradually felt something was wrong.

09:12 They began to resist

09:15 the new teachers,

09:17 especially the stricter ones,

09:19 at least a little.

09:22 Sometimes that showed up as—

09:26 well,

09:29 um,

09:31 some students would

09:33 badmouth teachers in private.

09:34 Other students

09:35 were closer to the teachers

09:37 and might tell them what was being said.

09:40 My senior colleague may have

09:44 heard some of the students' comments.

09:46 He may have felt

09:48 he put so much care into guiding them,

09:50 yet no one appreciated it

09:54 or understood

09:55 why he was doing it.

09:58 I don't think

10:01 everything he did was wrong,

10:04 or all mistaken.

10:05 His approach was just a little—

10:10 how should I put it?

10:12 Unlike some other leaders,

10:17 he didn't often explain to students,

10:19 "This is why I'm doing this."

10:24 He also didn't tell them,

10:27 "If there's anything you dislike

10:30 or feel isn't okay,

10:33 you can tell me."

10:35 But perhaps—

10:38 well,

10:41 at the time,

10:44 when he did certain things,

10:47 I don't think he clearly told everyone

10:51 that they had room to object.

10:56 And students were used to

10:59 teachers who allowed no dissent.

11:03 They didn't think that with some teachers,

11:06 they could voice their opinions

11:10 or challenge

11:12 the teacher's decisions.

11:14 So they could only endure it,

11:16 just endure it,

11:19 and complain in private.

11:23 But when they complained in private,

11:27 other students

11:29 would pass it on to the teachers.

11:32 That created a cycle.

11:37 Someone who genuinely wanted to act

11:40 would hear that their work

11:42 wasn't getting a very positive response.

11:46 And then,

11:48 above him,

11:49 although he was a vice principal,

11:51 there was the school's principal,

11:53 then a multi-school director.

11:56 Caught between both sides, work was hard.

12:00 That was the reason he gave then.

12:05 When I asked why he was leaving,

12:09 he said

12:10 he couldn't do what he wanted to do.

12:15 And

12:16 the students also struggled

12:21 to accept some of his actions.

12:23 Caught between both sides,

12:25 he felt deeply uncomfortable.

12:28 And at his age,

12:30 he was already eligible

12:33 for a pension,

12:34 or was perhaps already receiving one.

12:36 He didn't need to return and suffer this.

12:41 He could simply choose to leave.

12:48 Ah.

12:51 It really was a shame.

12:53 He was my—

12:55 how should I say this?—

12:57 during my first job,

13:00 he was an exceptionally good leader.

13:07 I've gone off topic again.

13:10 Back to what I said at the beginning:

13:13 being ordinary yet confident.

13:17 I don't actually know

13:18 whether that's who I am.

13:20 But I do feel

13:23 that my attitudes toward people and events

13:27 can be quite divided.

13:29 When dealing with others,

13:32 I may seem easygoing.

13:35 But inside,

13:37 I may think very differently.

13:40 I usually never wrote them down.

13:44 I keep them to myself.

13:47 So when I examine

13:52 my inner thoughts,

13:53 I wonder why I'm so mean,

13:59 and so arrogant.

14:05 I don't know whether

14:07 those are the right words for me.

14:13 I also remember two other judgments.

14:18 I've always known

14:20 that I'm a fairly divided person.

14:24 Those two judgments

14:26 are the ones

14:28 that stayed with me most.

14:30 One came from a former peer.

14:36 We met at an event

14:39 that lasted a little over seven days.

14:44 During the event,

14:46 someone asked him

14:48 how he would describe me

14:52 compared with another participant.

14:54 He said

14:59 that to describe me,

15:00 he would use "ice."

15:03 For the other person,

15:05 he would use "fire."

15:08 I was truly shocked.

15:12 Why was I described

15:14 as "ice"?

15:18 Ice might represent hardness and coldness.

15:29 I couldn't understand it then.

15:31 But I was only a first-year student.

15:38 How should I put it?

15:41 I'd just gone from high school to college,

15:43 and high school had been—

15:48 well, at school,

15:49 I hadn't been very happy.

15:52 That period may have

15:55 shaped my personality

15:57 and how I socialized

16:01 in a certain direction.

16:04 I became extremely reserved.

16:10 I wasn't very proactive socially,

16:13 so people may have found me aloof,

16:16 unwilling to meet others

16:20 or let others get to know me.

16:22 I was in that

16:25 so-called aloof state.

16:27 The other example came

16:30 from a coworker after I graduated.

16:37 He said I looked very aloof,

16:42 but was passionate inside.

16:49 He also said something else.

16:55 What was it again?

16:58 I forget his exact words.

17:00 But he said it was as if

17:02 something was surging inside me

17:04 and had never been released.

17:11 At the time, I thought

17:13 he was right.

17:14 It felt like there was a force inside me,

17:19 and I kept suppressing it.

17:22 But what exactly was that force?

17:26 I didn't know.

17:27 And why was I suppressing it?

17:31 I wasn't sure.

17:33 But if I analyze it carefully

17:36 or think about it again,

17:40 I may know

17:41 what that force was.

17:44 Throughout college,

17:46 I felt I had something "different" in me.

17:51 I didn't mean

17:54 that I was—how should I put it?—

17:58 "Different" wasn't an insult.

18:02 It was a neutral word.

18:04 To understand myself,

18:06 I actively explored

18:07 psychoanalysis.

18:14 Though that eventually went nowhere.

18:18 Still, it gave me moments of feeling,

18:21 oh, I seem to understand myself

18:23 a little better now.

18:25 But even today,

18:29 I still don't know myself very well.

18:33 So returning to

18:35 that suppressed force,

18:39 Was it an aggressive force?

18:45 or some kind of—

18:52 what other kind of force could it be?

18:58 I don't know.

19:03 But I prefer to understand it

19:05 as a harmless force.

19:09 Of course, I hope that's true.