"Meguru Monasashi" is an interview with people connected to Monosus about their own "yardsticks." This time, we have writer Kyoko Sugimoto as our guest.
Sugimoto is currently involved in the operation of the Monosasu website, and has interviewed and written articles for sections such as "Freedom and Responsibility - A Laboratory for Everyone's Systems and Working Styles," "Kintan Lab," and "The People Who Create This Kind of People."
Members of Monosus expressed interest in hearing more about Sugimoto, so they held a relaxed discussion over dinner. We would like to share the details of that discussion with you today.
(Interviewers: Kojima (director), Kuno (planner), Takita (designer), and Kimi-san from the Monosasu site office.)
The relaxed discussion started with a toast.
Profile of Kyoko Sugimoto:
A writer born in Osaka and living in Kyoto. Graduated from the Graduate School of Letters at Doshisha University with a major in journalism. Interested in autonomous spaces, she interviews temples, NPOs, and people involved in urban development in mountainous areas. Her books include "Kyoto University Cultural Encyclopedia - The Ecosystem of Freedom and Chaos" (Film Art Publishing).
Sugimoto-san and the writer's work
Kojima : You've been involved with the company for a long time, and I really wanted to hear your story. I know you're a writer, but I wanted to ask you about what kind of work you do on a daily basis, and why you became a writer.
Sugimoto-san (hereinafter, Sugimoto): I think one thing is that I've loved writing since I was little. But when I was a student, I didn't think that "writing could become a job." There was no internet media like there is today, and there was no model that posting on a blog could become a job.
I'm from Osaka, and spent my university and graduate school in Kyoto. I got a job at a local company for the simple reason that I wanted to stay in Kyoto a little longer. But I wasn't enjoying the work at all.
When a designer there left the company, we had a farewell party for him. We had barely spoken to each other, but he talked to me a lot at the time, and was like, "Mr. Sugimoto, you're different from the others." And he asked me, "What do you want to do?"
Kojima : It's kind of nice.
Sugimoto : For some reason, I honestly told him, "I want to make writing my job, but I have no idea how." He then told me, "Even if you don't do anything, it's okay if you just keep thinking about it. You'll be able to do it someday." I kept those words as a talisman. Little by little, I got closer to writing as a job.
Writing first came into my work when I was working at a company that runs an online community service, creating content for users. I came up with plans and articles for email newsletters and involving users. After that, I moved back to my parents' house for family reasons and changed jobs to a foreign company, where I worked as a pseudo-office lady for a while. But when I quit the company thinking, "Something's not right. Maybe I should reassess my life," someone asked me, "If you have time, give it a go," and I was offered a job at a magazine. So I thought I'd give it a try, and became a writer about 15 years ago.
Kojima : So that means you suddenly became a freelancer. Weren't you nervous about that?
Sugimoto : I was worried about a lot of things. For example, in my previous job, I was able to write articles for users, expressing my feelings, such as "I want you to know that my colleagues are working hard to recover from the system failure" or "I created this new service, so I want everyone to use it." But in the magazine job I was doing at the time, I had to conduct interviews and write based on the hypotheses set by the editor. Even if I thought "Hmm, this is different from the hypothesis" during an interview, I wasn't allowed to write freely. It gradually became difficult for me.
Kuno : When you put something into words, it's important that you feel comfortable with it.
Sugimoto : Yes. Even if I were to write "delicious", I would feel it would be strange for me to write that something is delicious if someone else has decided that it is.
For example, when I was asked to write an article on the topic of "Kyoto seasonings," I interviewed a store selling miso, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame. It was a four-page article, but I wrote it after cooking with miso, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame for a week.
That's the kind of thing I want to do properly. I want to put it into words after I've properly absorbed it. I don't want to just write what I've heard. That feeling has been getting stronger every year, so I'm the kind of writer who doesn't make a lot of money (laughs).
Takita : Was there a particular trigger that led you to go from the time when you were struggling with having to write things you didn't understand to your current style?
Sugimoto : A year after I became a writer, I started thinking about what I wanted to write. I wanted to interview people properly. I wondered who would be interesting to interview, and that's when I started interviewing Buddhist monks.
Kojima : Wow, that's interesting.
Sugimoto : I've been interviewing Buddhist monks for about five years under the title "Bōzu Mekuri." However, when I ask them "Why did you become a monk?", I sometimes hear some very heavy stories.
"Was it really okay for me to be the one to hear such an important story?" I began to feel uneasy. That's when I found Yoshiaki Nishimura's "Interview Classroom" and decided to participate. My relationship with Nishimura continued after that, and he asked me to interview women who had moved to Kamiyama, and I ran a series called "Daughters of Kamiyama" for five years from 2016. It was through "Daughters of Kamiyama" that I met Manabe.
Connection with ruler
Kojima : That being said, you've met a lot of people through your interviews, haven't you? Why did you end up connecting with Monosas?
Sugimoto : Hmm, that's right. I guess it was interesting. The thing that made the biggest impression on me when I had a long talk with Manabe-san for the first time was that he was a very fair person. He never treated us like "outsourced workers" and tried to maintain a good relationship with us as individuals. I felt that he wanted to be that way with everyone as much as possible.
I feel the same way about Hayashi-san and Nagai-san. Also, when I met everyone at Monosus, I thought, "Oh, there are a lot of people here." There are "people here," not "people in the shell of a company employee." My honest impression is that a company can become a community like this, and I find it very interesting.
Kojima : Yes, our company is called “Tomohata”※.
(*An abbreviation for " Working with people who want to live together. " One of the things Monosus values.)
Sugimoto : There is a feeling in the world that things shouldn't be personal, but I think it's better to be involved with someone who thinks, "I want to work with Kojima-san." The fact that such a world exists here gives me hope, and I think it's great.
Kojima : It really touched me.
Sugimoto : Another reason why I'm involved with the Monosasu site may be because I felt like I wasn't fully satisfied with the work I did on owned media in the past. The client left everything to me, saying, "Make a great-looking media!", and I would sometimes wonder, "Who owns this media?"
The Monosas site is something we can create together, thanks to the fact that we are allowed to be part of the company and that everyone is involved. However, each member of Monosas has their own projects, so we can't just focus on the Monosas site. I think the difficulty of finding that fine line together is also interesting.
For me, the Monosasu site also feels like I'm creating a local media for the area called Monosasu. As a local media, I'm involved with the feeling of how I can cultivate this community in a good way. That may be more of an editor's interest than a writer's.
Things I want to do before I die
Kuno : At the end of last year, Sugimoto told me, "There's something I want to do before I die," and I thought it was amazing that she had something she could think about so deeply.
Sugimoto : I wonder what I was thinking about at the time (laughs). I think it was probably a book. I'm trying to turn " The Girls of Kamiyama " into a book, and that's definitely something I want to do before I die.
I don't know how many more books I can write in my lifetime, but writing a book is completely different from writing an article. For example, writing an article for the Monosas site feels like a snapshot of the time I spent with that person. Writing a book manuscript feels like starting from a blank canvas. The manuscript itself is very long, and you can spend a lot of time on it. You can ask questions like "What does this mean?" and explore as much as you like, which is very painful and interesting.
In "Daughters of Kamiyama," I'm entrusted with the important stories that dozens of important people have told me. I think I wanted to find a way to give them back in a tangible form and share them.
Kimi : You started going to Kamiyama because someone asked you to, right? At what point did it become something you wanted to do before you die?
Sugimoto : That's right. At first, it was a job that Nishimura-san asked me to do. I just thought it might be nice to go into the mountains once every three months. I was also happy that Nishimura-san trusted me and left it to me.
When I first started going there, I didn't feel like I wanted to live in this town. But around the third year, I started to feel like I was coming home. Everyone is so kind, they say "welcome back" and "have a nice trip" when I leave.
Now, whenever I go there, I feel very relieved. Isn't that what a relationship is all about? There are people who are willing to treat me equally so that I can feel that way. Did you ever feel the same way while you were in Kamiyama, Kuno-san?
Kuno : In my case, it was only after I'd been living there for three years that I started to have deeper connections with the people of Kamiyama. It was around that time that I started to feel like Kamiyama was my home. I was simply happy.
Sugimoto : I want to write it in a way that makes the people who answered the interviews think, "This is great." As for the town of Kamiyama, I want it to be a book that people will read 100 years from now and think, "100 years ago, there were women living in Kamiyama who thought about these things."
I hope that people who live in the city like me and don't have a place like Kamiyama will start to think, "There's another way to live like this." I have a lot of thoughts swirling inside me. When I talked to Mr. Kuno, I still didn't know how to do it, so I may have been a little worried.
Takita : When you say that what you want to do before you die is to write a book, does that mean that you want to continue writing for the rest of your life?
Sugimoto : Yes.
Takita : I've heard you say that you wanted to make writing your job, but what gave you that idea?
Sugimoto : Hmm. I don't know exactly when, but I never got bored of writing. Not at all.
The foreign company I worked for before going freelance was a very good company. The salary was good, there were lots of holidays, the welfare system was good, and I went on a lot of overseas business trips. I was also blessed with great colleagues. But I felt a sense of urgency for some reason. I felt like my abilities were gradually deteriorating. Even though I was working hard every day.
I worked hard thinking, "I don't know if I can do this," but there were no growing pains. I quit because I felt frustrated and wondered if I should just spend my life doing only what I could.
When I became a freelance writer, my annual income in the first year was less than half of what it was when I was a company employee, but I no longer felt anxious. Rather than earning money or having a stable future, I preferred to work hard while thinking, "Wow, I might not be able to do this!" I want to be able to write better, I still have a lot to learn about interviews, and I want to know more about various things in depth. This is what is happening more and more, so I think that being a writer is a good fit for me.
Isn't it good to always be able to think, "I still have a long way to go!" no matter how much time passes?
This time, we were able to hear some very in-depth stories from Sugimoto, including how he became a writer, his connection with Monosus, and what he wants to do in life.
Sugimoto's smile as she talked about her feelings about writing was so bright and beautiful; it made a strong impression on me.
Mr. Sugimoto carefully answered our questions, recalling each of his experiences as he spoke. We all remained fascinated, and the conversation continued right until the very end of the time.
Another piece of advice from Mr. Sugimoto that I would like to share with you:
During the conversation, Kojima confessed his worries that "I want to write an article, but I just can't get the work done." Sugimoto kindly gave him some advice, which I'll introduce at the end. If you're having trouble, please give it a try.
Sugimoto : If you don't know how to write something, just try writing it. Once you've written a bit, you'll know what you want to write. Opening the file is probably the hardest part. First, launch the app and give the file a name. If you get this far, you're halfway there!
Once you write one line, you can move forward. For example, you can write one line like "I've been making ____." Then, the next line will definitely come.