When I printed and reread the autobiography on my web site, I felt as if I saw the whole image of my body with a mirror for the first time. I was able to understand myself enough. When I was writing the web site, I was thinking I had had no hobby and recently had been able to find it. But I began to think I may have devoted my life to hobbies by rereading the web site.
I was thinking I had been thinking only about food when I had been a middle school student. But rereading reminded me that I had played the harmonicas of my brother who had gone to a battlefield, and that I had read a radio primer on my father's bookshelf. I realized I had enjoyed playing harmonicas and had gotten interested in the functions of the vacuum tube.
When I became a high school student, I got the harmonica music sheets of new popular songs, and learned their melodies by playing a harmonica earlier than my friends did. It was my proud. When I was a university student, I bought five vacuum tubes and other parts of a radio and put them together. I enjoyed the assembling of the radio first and then enjoyed listening to the classical music using it. I disliked organic chemistry that I had learned at the university. Then I was attracted to chemical reaction engineering after I got a job. I think maybe there was a factor of a hobby.
Before I noticed about my characteristic, the people around me had pointed out my characteristic. A bookstore owner, who came around regularly to take orders from our employees, said, "I can guess most people's specialties by their orders but I cannot guess your specialty because your orders have no trend." A friend of mine said,"The scope of your interest is wide." My wife said, "You buy many kinds of primers."
I think I owe the restful life of today to my characteristic. I operated computers with the same sense of a hobby after my illness. If I had been a workaholic, I could not have been satisfied to operate the computers at that time. I think that enjoying the hobby is the best for the senior citizen. So I am enjoying the learning of English conversation, and building of my site as my hobbies now.
Somebody said, "I cannot recommend to write the autobiography because you will be stuck to the fixed idea about you." Someone said, "Write the autobiography, and enjoy your life twice." I think both thoughts are right. I have stuck to the fixed idea and is enjoying my life twice or more. I think I have to accept affirmatively my past life and enjoy today's life. Of course when I found a bad point in my characteristic, I will be able to improve it if I wanted. From my experience I think that sticking to a fixed idea is not so wrong for the senior citizen.
uploaded
December 3, 2006