▸ Column · Modern-day Japan, neighborhood jichōkai (block association) setting
SASUKE UCHIHA replies.
Replied to by Sasuke Uchiha, with a rebuttal from Naruto Uzumaki.
The letter
Three years ago I raised my hand at our jichōkai meeting to help with one small thing — repaint the faded parking-space numbers out front. Somehow that turned into "you're good with details, you should be secretary." Then our treasurer Emi moved to Sapporo. Then our block chair Kenji stopped responding to the group chat. Nobody really addressed it, he just went quiet, and I guess I filled in.
Now I'm secretary, treasurer, acting chair, and the keeper of the community center key. Last Wednesday Sota knocked on my door at nine in the evening to formally complain about his neighbor's garden ornaments. I'm standing there in my socks realizing I have our association's noise provisions memorized better than my own anniversary. I don't even know when I learned them.
I've tried to resign twice. Both times the room went silent, someone said "but you're just so reliable, Aiko," and I went home with the gavel. Again. How do I actually leave a role I never applied for, short of selling the apartment and moving to another ward?
— Aiko in the Leaf Ward
Sasuke Uchiha replies
"So organized. So reliable." They say it like a compliment. It isn't. It's a story they've assigned to you, and you've been confirming it every time you went home with the gavel.
I know what it is to carry an identity circumstance pressed on you before you could question it. I spent years calling myself an avenger. I believed it was the truth of who I was. It was a role handed to me on the worst night of my life, and I never once stopped to examine whether I had chosen it — or only failed to refuse it.
That distinction matters more than people admit.
The gavel doesn't end up in your hand because you're exceptionally organized. It ends up there because you haven't said no in a way that made the word mean anything. Being needed is not the same as being responsible. They've learned what you will accept. They will go on accepting it back from you for as long as you keep walking through that door.
You don't require permission to stop. You wrote to me because you already knew that. Say no. Once. Clearly. Don't explain yourself — explanations are just invitations to negotiate.
The room will survive.
— Sasuke Uchiha
Naruto Uzumaki weighs in
Hey, hold on. Yeah, the gavel — I get it, ya know? — but did you stop to think about WHY Sota knocked at nine at night over garden ornaments? That's not a noise complaint. That's a guy who had nobody to talk to and noticed your light was on. I spent years being that guy. The one the room looked straight through. Your whole jichōkai is probably full of people like him, leaning on the one person who actually bothers to notice them.
Sasuke's gonna tell you the role is a lie and to stop explaining yourself. Fine. But don't you dare disappear on them without making sure even one person keeps that light on. You're not trapped. You're just the one who sees people. Don't confuse those two things. Believe it!
— Naruto Uzumaki
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