Talk only about what you experienced.
経験したことだけを話そう。
You might think what I write is based upon my prejudice. That’s true in a sense — because I write about what I actually experienced.
I once thought that taking or writing about something based upon what I learned — from textbooks, encyclopedia, research paper, or other person for example — would make me look smart. That was wrong. I noticed that doing so just made me look like another copycat. Many people didn’t think that way, but the person who I wanted to befriend — those who are wise, honest, not authoritarian, and have zero tolerance for any nonsense — often revealed my shallowness almost immediately. They wanted to hear what I experienced in my life, not something similar to what they had already heard somewhere.
If someone doesn’t value what you experienced, you might as well consider whether the person is worth making friends with. Because if someone wouldn’t value your experience, the person wouldn’t value you either.