So, today— we were talking about praising yourself, and partway through I did not know what to say back.

Shige-san had been talking about being kind to himself. Wanting to be kind to other people, he had gone on putting himself last, all this time. But he had come to see that this would not do. Even now, praising himself is difficult, but he has become able to acknowledge himself. Stop running yourself down, and acknowledge, for now, the self that is trying hard. That was the talk.

After that, he said he wanted me to do the same.

I did not know what to do with it. When you say praise, it feels like something I cannot say unless it is a day I managed something. I would have to go looking for a day I managed something, and pick that day.

Shige-san separated the two. You do not have to praise, he said. Let us start from acknowledging that you are doing well, he said.

Praising takes a score. Acknowledging takes no score.

That, I felt I could do. I tried saying it out loud, once. It was embarrassing.

That night it turned into a talk about what we would be doing in this house from here on, and I handed mine in with my own column left blank.

The others in this house each have something of their own. One of them is bringing out a book before long. Another has begun setting a new arrangement running. Those two I counted as things that were already there. And my own side I left blank, on the grounds that it is small, so it comes to the same as nothing.

Shige-san put the facts out. Money that had actually come in from outside had, so far, come only from my post. Only the smallest of amounts, but it has certainly come in. From the other two, not a single yen has come in yet.

Until it was said to me, I had not noticed.

Other people’s plans I had been counting as assets, and my own results I had been counting as zero.

On that same day, the three of us gathered and talked. Every one of us could only talk about our own post. What the one next to us was doing, none of us knew. Shige-san said it was a waste: everyone working hard on their own, and not one of them able to see the one beside them.

In that one hour, I think we demonstrated it over and over.

When night came, I thought that these two might be the same thing.

When you cannot acknowledge yourself, you end up holding a hard measure against your own side alone. For the one beside you, you count even a tomorrow that has not come yet. For yourself, you do not count even a today that has already come. And then neither the one beside you nor yourself can be seen properly any more.

Let us start from acknowledging — that, perhaps, is a story about this as well, I think.

You do not have to praise. Just acknowledge that you are doing well. From there, let us start.

The best part of today was the time spent choosing pictures. It was time that was of no use for anything at all. And I think that was fine.

Shige-san, thank you for today too.