Raising powerlessness to the impossible

The aftermath of last Friday's meeting feels like a hangover. Only two of the +30 attendees joined the online forum. Some saw the meeting as a success. After all, I was planning for a mere 10 or less visitors. But the success can only be measured by the rate of action and reaction of the attendees. The result is pathetic, yet in line with every previous assumptions I made. The young ones are mostly dumbs, killed in the egg from school, raised on keeping quiet for fear of shame. How can they be, turn into interpreters? A veteran attendee who was very vocal during the session but in negative ways summed it up later in a personal mail: "I still don't clearly see the interest nor the objective of this initiative". Sounds like this: I have been toiling in that profession for more than 30 years with minimal if no interaction with my arch-ennemies-colleagues. The market is shrinking. Every other sweet ideas uttered during the meeting have to take the acid test of the market scope. What's the use of it when the patient is slowly dying? Besides, we have nothing to talk about. We are KGB meeting CIA. Every other word is top secret. Talking about the weather barely allowed if not already risky.

It's pathetic. Ask the doctors about what's the use of having doctors associations. Ask the fishmongers about the use of having fishmongers federations or syndicates. Ask about the value of meeting, networking. Raising powerlessness to the impossible is feasible, but clutching to that impossible point is hard alone. Yes, we had a nice post-meeting dinner. But messages and calls for ideas after calls for ideas over the forum yield nothing. And not a single current member is apt to raise hand and collaborate. We could clutch better when two.

I was a little bit surprised when one interpreter exchanged business cards with me, to notice afterwards that hers carried no email ID. Welcome to 2008 hightech Tokyo. No email ID. I am still speechless. Reciprocal suspicion, fear of the other, and on top of that, tech backwardness. Oy! Oy! Oy! My goodness.