Nationality & Individuality（part 3）

There is a couple of danger in living abroad

By moving abroad, especially to a place where we're culturally & racially minority

we become novelty, all of a sudden
we become exotic, immediately
we become panda🐼, suddenly

In our home country, we are just "one of the masses"

Nobody pays attention to us

But, just by taking an airplane, we suddenly become "only one", instantly become "special"

Name, look, behaviour, language, accent......all these "normal qualities" in our home country turn to be "special features" in a foreign land

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It feels nice, good, fun,

until we become aware of its superficiality & illusional aspects

We do nothing to receive a special treatment

What we do is just buying an airplane ticket

Nothing changes inside us
Nothing improves inside us

Things that bring us this special treatment.....racial/physical traits, cultures, language & nationality.....all came to us without any relation to our effort or will

It's all "given", not "acquired"

Thus, it's hard to establish something stable on it, such as "pride" or "esteem" or "identity", let alone "an appreciation"

"An appreciation".........yes, an appreciation was the thing that bothered me for ages

How can we have a genuine appreciation for things that we already have from birth & that nobody can never ever steal from us?

But yet, it is exactly what enables us to get "a special treatment" in a foreign country

This laziness
This arrogance
This conceit

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Once reached realisation, foreign lands feel like "a spoiled environment"

It is where we can escape from ourselves forever
It is where we can deceive ourselves forever
It is where we can avoid facing the truth forever

From my observation, men tend to get caught up more than women, but either way, many people, especially young ones, easily get addicted with this ease-come privilege

And very hesitant to return to their home country, return to "one of the masses"

I know it, because I was surely one of them several years ago

I didn't want to go back to Japan

Returning to Japan meant becoming a tired, mundane, faceless, robot-like, average, vanilla, normal, mediocre, ordinary Japanese human being in Tokyo city, and I didn't want that

But at some point, I had to accept this very obvious fact that Japan is the only place where I don't have any unfair advantages & disadvantages

Japan is the only place where I can face my own life, my own fate, my own true-self, as an individual

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Having said, I was escaping for a long time, and so it was not easy to accept

Some notion or realisation opened my eyes

I realised, even if I wish to be, I couldn't be "one of the masses" in Japan anymore

Up until that point, my life became too different from the majority of the Japanese

Up until that point, my life contained too different experiences & too different realisations from theirs

And if the past & the present are different, then the future must be different also

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Self-confidence or self-esteem or self-identity, or "superiority", based on one's nationality is fragile

And unbearably miserable

Possibly I could say,
I couldn't believe in my individuality, so that I relied on my nationality & everything related to it

Possibly I could say,
it was when I accepted the fact that Japan is the one and only place for myself, I was able to believe in my individuality

And probably I can say,
this is how I discovered, appreciated & loved my home country,

Japan