The world is a scary place. We are thrown into the world with no prior experience. As we navigate this new and scary existence we seek guidance from others, yet no one else knows what to do, after all, they too are thrown into existence. This philosophy comes from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The philosophy works on an instinctual level. We all kind of know that we are thrown into existence with no guide on “how to do life”.
Navigating the world without any knowledge of what to do is scary. If you compare this concept with Søren Kierkegaard’s idea of angst, in which you have so many choices in life and no real chance of knowing what to choose, well then you are in for an existential nightmare.
To combat this society has set up guardrails to make sure people navigate life in the best possible way. Society outlines a path for all people.
- Go to school – Get a job – Get married – Have kids – Die
This is basically the blueprint of the Western world. If you want to avoid navigating an existential crisis you might as well follow this path. For most people, it works. It takes away a lot of scary factors and gives you an illusion of choice like what job to choose and what partner to pick. As long as you follow the path you are safe and you are free to navigate your brief existence along with the rest of us. But what if you don’t follow the path? What if you are an outsider?
Convenience store woman is about a person who does not fit within the societal model. The book centers on a woman named Keiko Furukura who works in a convenience store. Keiko is in her mid-30s and working a “dead-end” job according to the rest of the world.
The immense pressure to follow the path society has laid out is immense this sense of pressure from the outside world continues throughout. Everybody has an opinion on how Keiko should live her life and everybody is sharing it all the time. This book is set in Japan and is of course about Japanese people and culture. I am not an expert, but it is clear that the Japanese have a very strict social code when it comes to women and when they should marry. In Japan, it is expected for a woman to be married young. It is expected that they follow the societal path even more so than in the West.
While the social pressure is not as big in Europe and the US it still feels like a lot of women are constantly asked the classic annoying questions like “When are you going to find someone?” and “When are you going to have kids?”. It is perfectly acceptable to ask a woman during a job interview if she is expecting to have children soon (if she is young).
Convenience Store Woman is a short book that packs a punch. Keiko might have some sort of undiagnosed “problem”. She is very bad at reading social cues. She is often puzzled by other people’s reactions to what she says. I am not suited to diagnose her at all, but I do feel she suffers from a lot of social awkwardness or something of that nature. Her family is normal and lives within the societal path, they try their best to support her, but at some point, it becomes almost too much.
Keiko’s lack of social awareness makes the whole book even more of an emotional gut punch. Keiko loves to work in a convenience store where there are fixed rules she must follow every day. She has found her little box she belongs in, yet everybody else keeps nagging her with the same questions over and over again. Questions like:
“When are you going to get married?”
“When are you going to find a real job?”
“Why are you still working a dead-end job?”
All these questions are perpetuated throughout the book and it honestly feels a little heartbreaking. Why can Keiko not live her best life? She clearly likes working there and if it brings her happiness then why would you stop it?
People are scared when other people don’t follow the path society provides. In the book Keiko is looked at as an alien, totally foreign and strange. Society tries desperately to make people follow along, but Keiko is not able to follow along. In the end, Keiko takes a stand against all these rules and expectations. She chooses to work at a convenience store despite what other people say. The book is therefore a celebration of authenticity and the importance of staying true to yourself.