DMM (Dale / Cape Town 81歳・元英語教師) -- Harari・宗教・相撲・大谷・南アフリカ

Sorry about this, I got caught out and about, so I am on mobile data and the signal is patchy. Mind if I switch my camera off to save the connection?

Bit of an awkward start, I know. Something came up and I am doing this from the street. If I cut out mid-sentence, just talk over me and I will catch up.

Does my audio at least come through okay on your end?

I do not have a rehearsed intro, to be honest. I just turned 34, yesterday was my birthday, May 29th.

I never prep these intros on purpose, I would rather just wing it and see what comes out. Funny timing too, you have caught me the day after my birthday, so I am freshly 34 and feeling every bit of it. Do you even remember turning 34, or is that a bit of a blur by now?

I am in construction, proper blue-collar work, not a desk job. Honestly, I like being outside, breaking a sweat, working with my hands. It suits me down to the ground.

There is something about manual work that office people just do not get. At the end of the day you can point at something and go, I built that. A spreadsheet never gives you that.

Did thirty years of teaching ever give you that feeling, watching a kid finally get it?

English is my main hobby, that is what brings me here. I am really into listening, so I follow a ton of YouTube channels.

For me it is less about studying and more about just soaking it up. I will have YouTube running while I walk and let my ears do the work. Do you think that kind of passive listening actually moves the needle, or am I just kidding myself?

Take Yuval Noah Harari. English is not his first language, but he gets his point across in plain, clear English. That is the bar I am aiming for, content over delivery.

What gets me about Harari is that he does not even try to sound native, accent and all, and the whole world still hangs on his every word. It is living proof that what you say beats how you say it. As a thirty-year English teacher, would you actually mark him down for the accent, or does that genuinely not bother you?

I am a bit embarrassed to admit I have not actually read any of his books. I have only caught a few of his videos on YouTube.

I will come clean here, I am that guy who quotes the author without having read the book, just the YouTube clips. So I am genuinely curious what I am missing on the page that does not make it into a ten-minute video. What stuck with you most from Sapiens?

So why do we need religion in the first place?

Here is what I keep circling back to. If religion is something we invented, what hole were we trying to fill? You say it is about power and control, but surely it did not start that way.

What do you reckon came first, the comfort or the control?

I work in Ryogoku, which is basically holy ground for sumo. Funny thing is, hardly any young Japanese actually watch it, it has become an older crowd's thing, and honestly more of a tourist draw now.

It is a bit sad, really. I walk past the home of our national sport every single day and I have never once gone in, while tourists fly across the planet for it. Is that not always the way, though, you ignore the gem right on your doorstep?

Is there something like that in Cape Town that the locals take for granted?

I am a baseball guy, a pretty avid MLB follower. You might have heard of Shohei Ohtani, he both pitches and hits, which is incredibly rare these days. People compare him to Babe Ruth.

The thing people outside baseball do not grasp about Ohtani is that doing both is not just rare, it is supposed to be impossible at that level. It would be like a world-class surgeon moonlighting as a concert pianist. You are a cricket man, though, is there anyone in cricket who would be the equivalent of a freak like that?

I did a short stint studying in the US, maybe ten or fifteen years back, nothing serious, a six or seven month exchange in California. I managed to travel to New York, Texas, even Mexico. It really shaped who I am.

That little exchange punched way above its weight in my life, six or seven months and somehow it set the whole course. Is it not strange how the short chapters end up mattering the most? Was there a place that did that for you, somewhere that changed how you saw things?

I am genuinely envious, coast, mountains, nature right on your doorstep. I love that stuff, but I am stuck in the middle of Tokyo with none of it. I am a city guy and an introvert, I do not need anything fancy.

Here is the irony, though, I am an introvert who needs next to nothing, crammed into one of the busiest cities on earth. It is not where I would choose to be, it is just where the work is. Did you always know you wanted that quiet valley, or did it take you a while to work out what you actually needed?

I have let myself go a bit, honestly. I was athletic back in high school, but the weight has been creeping up. These days I just take a long walk, half an hour to an hour.

I used to chase ten thousand steps, now there is no target, I just enjoy it.

I have made my peace with not chasing numbers anymore, ten thousand steps, personal bests, all of that. I am not training for anything, I just walk to clear my head and get some air. Do you find that, further down the road, it is less about pushing hard and more about just keeping the engine running?

Tokyo is just where the work is, ten million people funneled into one place. It is crowded, the trains are packed, and honestly most of us are here because we have to be, not because we chose it.

It is a strange trade-off, the big city, you give up the sky and the quiet for a paycheck and a packed train. Some days I wonder if it is worth it. You did the exact opposite, you have got the valley and the porcupines.

Looking back, do you feel you gave anything up for that, or was it all upside?

Thanks so much, Dale, I will definitely book you again. It was great to meet you.

This absolutely flew by, I came for English practice and somehow we covered Harari, religion, sumo, Ohtani and porcupines. That is exactly the kind of lesson I love. I will book you again for sure, same rambling energy next time, deal?