Never enough!

Recently, I've really got intimate with the downsides of learning something. Maybe for the first time in my life I really understand what it means when they say that "the more you learn the more you see how much you don't know yet".

I brushed the subject with the comment on how conversational japanese is actually the worst kind. If you can handle a normal everyday conversation in japanese you're labeled as "fluent", even though at that point you start noticing how bad your japanese really is. What's the use of speaking japanese if you can't speak of anything interesting? And then when your frustration hits the roof, along comes someone who starts underlining your supposed "fluency" in the language and brands you a perfectionist for not being happy at what you can do. Let's make it clear - fluent is when you're able to express yourself in the way you want. I'm not.

Another one is this buddhism thing. I admit I know enough stuff to be branded knowledgeable but a bit weird, by both my foreign and japanese friends (apparently my hannya shingyô -fan has also something to do with the "weird" part), but from where I'm standing it seems more and more to be like background information - something I need to know to able to get to the really interesting stuff. And even the background information isn't yet enough, but I need to read more and more, and the more I read the more I find out about books I should read... It's a vicious circle, I tell you.

And then there's iai, and things that go along with that. I feel stupid being told by my japanese women kôhai (who both are older than me) that wearing a kimono at enbu isn't a problem for me because "my posture is always so good" - after trying to get the damn collar in place for 10minutes, and being again and again told by sensei in practise that my posture sucks big time (not to mention watching the video my friend took about me and noticing the all-too-familiar leaning forward -posture, which is exactly the thing I'm being scolded about over and over again). Or being told my iai looks sooooo good, while the thing I was thinking all the time while performing was not to drop my sandal in the middle of the demonstration.

I admit I'm reasonably good in all the things mentioned, given how much time and interest I put into them. But I'm also uncomfortably aware of how much ground to cover there still lies ahead, and compliments just make me think about it even more. How much time still until I can really say I'm fluent? How much time until my posture is good enough not to warrant a comment every time I practise? How much time until... I know I ask a lot from myself, and I wouldn't want it otherwise. I don't feel the things I expect are unreasonable - they keep me going.

Sometimes it's just so disheartening to listen to the comments about your supposed fluency while all you can think about is how last wednesday you understood just enough of the conversations in the zazenkai to somehow keep up about what people were talking about, but still being unable to take part because the listening part took all your energy. Or the fact that even though you might know things about Shinran, Shinshû and buddhism, you don't feel like you'd have anything interesting to say about them - they're just facts in your head (and once again, to stand even less a chance to say it in japanese, which kind of is your reason for continuing the language studies in the first place).

Yes, I'm bad at receiving compliments. Yes, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. But this isn't all about false modesty. I mean what I say when I say that my japanese isn't good enough. It isn't, at least for what I want to use it. And I claim the right of feeling that way.