Ep. 35 All About the Dawn
Written by Cordelia.
Listen to the full episode :
How are you doing, dear listeners? The summer is ending, and fall is at our doorstep. Can you believe that the holidays are approaching again? I feel like I haven't done much this year, and now it's already coming to an end.
“Did you know?
The darkest time of night is just before the dawn. Despite how depressed we might feel, we humans are remarkable in our ability to find hope even in our darkest moments. This is who we are: adaptable, strong, and flexible.”
In this episode, we're going to discuss the novel All About the Dawn (夜明けのすべて) by the writer Maiko Seo.
Trigger alert: This episode contains discussions about mental health, PMS, panic attacks, depression, and suicide.
Story:
"I thought there was nothing I could do, but there is one thing I can do."
Misa struggles to control her irritability due to monthly PMS (premenstrual syndrome) despite the understanding and support of her coworkers. She ends up taking out her frustrations on Yamazoe-kun, a recent transfer who seems unmotivated. Yamazoe-kun, on the other hand, has developed a panic disorder and lost both his motivation and purpose in life.
Though neither feels friendship or romance towards the other, these two individuals start to believe that even if they can't cure their own ailments, they might be able to help each other. Life is harsher than expected, but solutions are all around us. This novel tells a gentle story that makes life a little easier to bear and is one of the few novels that touches on mental health.
About the Author:
Maiko Seo was born in 1974 in Osaka Prefecture and now lives in Nara. She graduated from Otani Women's University with a degree in Japanese literature. In 2001, she won the Botchan Literary Award Grand Prize for The Cord of Eggs, debuting as a writer the following year with the book of the same name. Seo has won many awards, and most of her works focus on families—not just those related by blood but also chosen families. She has an interest in the interactions between people beyond family and enjoys writing about those connections. For example, her novel そして、バトンは渡された (And So the Baton is Passed).
This book, All About the Dawn, is also about the supportive relationship between Misa and Yamazoe, without any romantic feelings but more like a chosen family, supporting each other to overcome daily challenges with mental health. As a reader, I love that the story shows that romantic love is not the solution to every problem in life—a platonic relationship between opposite genders is real.
Is There a Ranking of Hardship?
There is an interesting part of the book where Yamazoe questions Misa about how she can compare her PMS with his panic attacks. This suggests that one shouldn't use their hardships to measure others'—they're not the same.
Oh, really?
Well, projecting our own experiences onto others is not ideal. However, if we look into the layers of emotions, sometimes experiences resonate with each other. For example, someone who has never been in love but has lost a good friend might not fully understand the end of a romantic relationship but knows the feeling of grief when a vital person leaves their life.
There is no measurement of pain. There's no ranking to say whose life is harder, allowing someone to use it as an excuse to mistreat others or claim, "My life is harder, so I deserve better treatment, and I'm allowed to be an asshole."
Is this hard to understand? It’s not anyone’s fault for having depression, but it’s our responsibility to manage it and not let it rule us. In the story, Yamazoe starts reading books and researching PMS to better understand what Misa is dealing with, even volunteering to help her at work. He apologizes for his statement and moves on to learn more.
On one side, yes, ideally, we should help ourselves. On the other, sometimes we are too injured to do so, and if we genuinely care about someone, or our fellow humans, we can give each other a lift.
Just like Yamazoe and Misa do for each other. They joke about how they could just use their mental health issues to be rude to others or avoid things they don’t want to do, which I think is the funniest part of the book. They laugh about it, but neither uses their mental health as an excuse to be an asshole. They make their best effort to deal with it, just like so many people around us do.
The Good Outcomes of Poor Mental Health:
In the story, Misa asks Yamazoe if there are any good outcomes from dealing with panic attacks. Yamazoe doesn't reply immediately. Misa says her body became more flexible because of the yoga she does to reduce cramps during her period. I can relate.
What are the good outcomes of dealing with poor mental health? I guess it's the urge to see the dawn and daylight, or to know ourselves better.
For Yamazoe, he says that no matter how many times the panic attacks happen, they still scare him; his body and brain never get used to them. They bring fear, distance between himself and his ex-girlfriend, coworkers, his previous lifestyle, the city, and the beautiful apartment he had. But he learned about himself more deeply, connected with his own body more, and gained a new life.
Ending:
“Did you know?
The darkest time of night is just before the dawn. Despite how depressed we might feel, we humans are remarkable in our ability to find hope even in our darkest moments. This is who we are: adaptable, strong, and flexible."
If there were no daylight, many creatures would not continue. But if there were no nighttime, we would never pay attention to the world beyond Earth. Thanks to the dark nights, we can extend our imagination beyond the horizon. Sometimes, we even hope the night would last longer so we could gaze at the sky forever. The dark and silence help us connect with the world and ourselves; daytime is too noisy.
The Earth keeps spinning and moving, no matter how we perceive the world. It will never stop for us and will never create equal amounts of day and night, so there is no way to measure others’ lives, who has it lighter, and who has it harder.
All our experiences will never be the same. However, the dawn, that moment, is the same and unchangeable. Whether it's a happy day or a sad day, all will end, and then the dark night, then the dawn, the hope, and the wish for things to get better.
PMS, panic attacks, depression, and all the rest won't magically disappear suddenly, like the night won't. But they do get shorter, then longer, then shorter, and longer again…
Again, there is no single solution or definitive ending for both Misa and Yamazoe, which is so different from the Western ideology that everything must have an ending. Life has no ending, and ambiguity is the truth of life. Their lives simply go on, facing the sunlight after the dark night.
Thank you for listening to this episode. This episode was written by me, Cordelia. I'll speak to you soon in our next episode.
Reference:
Work: 夜明けのすべて (All About the Dawn ) by 瀬尾 まいこ Book in Japanese: https://amzn.asia/d/09cRQGf Movie website in Japanese: https://yoakenosubete-movie.asmik-ace.co.jp/
Background music:
フリーBGM「Road to Dawn」by すもち
https://dova-s.jp/bgm/play19602.html
フリーBGM「夜明けはすぐそこに」by のる
https://dova-s.jp/bgm/play20306.html
