INDEX
Age Constrictions and Norms: Products of Singular Values
-You wrote a letter to your old self under the theme of “Words I want to deliver to the people of those days.” In the letter, you wrote, “If I was not in my ideal situation at 25, I would have thought about quitting singing. Why did you make the decision to turn 25, and what kind of situation did you consider ideal?
Not all of it was enjoyable; there were plenty of tough moments too. I came close to abandoning the idea of pursuing singing as a career multiple times. Now, in hindsight, I realize age is irrelevant. But back then, I often thought, “If I haven’t achieved my ideal by 25, maybe it’s time to switch paths.” During those uncertain times, such thoughts weighed heavily on my mind.
Excerpt from SIRUP’s letter (“#WordsIWantToReachMyselfBackThen” presented by FRISK)
SIRUP: When I was around 20 years old, I had the image of 25 years old as a “super adult. I wanted to repay my mother as soon as possible, and I wanted to be as close to my ideal situation as everyone else was at 25, three years after graduating from college. At that time, my ideal was to become a musician “known by everyone on TV,” which is the opposite of what I am doing now. The only thing we had in common was that we wanted to be able to make a living just from music.
-When I was 20 years old, I thought of myself as a 25 year old, and I might have had the image of being a “super adult. How did you feel when you actually reached the age of 25 in the ideal situation you had in mind?
SIRUP: I was a “super kid” at all. I was often scolded by my peers, and I was still very selfish [laughs]. However, in my mind, turning 25 or 30 was a kind of turning point for me. I made a CD and released it digitally, which was still a novelty at the time, and people were able to listen to it online, and I was invited to perform in Tokyo. I did not reach my ideal situation, but I could feel progress, and that made me want to work a little harder.
-In a way, you set a milestone for yourself at the age of 25, so perhaps it was a sense of trying something new at that point in your life.
SIRUP： When I think back on it now, I wonder if that was the case. I was still in a hurry, and it was hard to make a living on music alone, and I had to work a lot of part-time jobs. Also, around that time, there was an extreme suppression of clubs in Osaka due to the Entertainment Establishment Law, and the clubs that were filling up every week were all shut down*. Witnessing such senseless oppression by society, I felt a sense of urgency to leave something behind and to continue. This was just before I reached my target age of 25, so I wanted to try something tangible, to do something I had not done before thinking about the future.
*An example is the well-known crackdown on Osaka Club NOON in April 2012. In 2016, the Supreme Court confirmed their innocence. That same year, considering “changes in public awareness regarding dancing” (Cabinet Office), the Entertainment Businesses Control Law underwent significant revisions.
-How did you face the curse of age?
SIRUP: Until I was 25 years old, I felt the curse of age. But from that time, I gradually started to stop focusing on what people around me thought of me. If I change my priorities in terms of what I want to do in accordance with what someone else says I should do socially/age-wise, I will not be able to make the effort to do what I want to do, and it will be difficult to achieve the results I want to achieve. At the time I began to realize this, I stopped choosing choices that were considered “the right thing to do,” which I did not want to do, although I was anxious about it.
-As you get older, society and those around you may put pressure on you to “get married” or “make a yearly income,” despite what you want or what your choices are. However, the reason I was able to choose what I wanted to do and continue to search for my own form of happiness was due to the fact that I have seen many people make various choices since I was a child.
SIRUP: No matter how I look back, I feel that I have gained a lot from communicating with people. That time leads to my happiness, and it is also a stress reliever. The curse of age and many norms are made up of a single set of values, so by communicating with many different people, I can gain a variety of values. By doing so, I think I am learning more and more that I can decide my own values.
