ここは、どこなのか？Where Are We?
The civilizational deadlock of our modern era covers our daily lives like an indescribable sense of entrapment. It is a compelling urgency, a desolation with no escape, pressing against the very throat of each and every one of us. Currently, a vast number of people, driven by the extreme anxiety that "there may be nothing ahead," are turning their eyes away from an impossible reality on a collective dimension. Consequently, the password has become an invisible totalitarianism: "If everyone looks away, the reality is not there." Within this circle, days are spent piling sophistry upon sophistry to ensure collective escape, filling the void to merely get by. However, I dare to inform you that this is the primary cause of the current state of Japan—a nation that once achieved prosperity only to reverse course and charge headlong into decline. Even from my perspective, having lived alongside this Japanese situation, it feels as though the world has begun to step into a suspiciously similar future.
On the other hand, the greatest problem is that humanity has reached such an impasse that even collective escapism is becoming difficult. This creaking sound cannot be seen if we limit our thinking to mere individual mental health struggles; it is a structural flaw in the very system we have believed in—or, in other words, the world itself as we believed it to be. Whether one can admit this or not becomes the turning point.
I define this phenomenon as the breaking point of "Linear Thinking," which people have accepted too uncritically and repeated over and over again. Rather, I even harbor the suspicion that linear thinking inevitably leads to the extremity of regression. And the cruel notification is this: we have not merely hit the limit; we are already beyond this limit. That is why we are running about in confusion.
Since the modern era, humanity, programmed to climb the infinite stairs of capitalism and the progressive view of history, has blindly believed that by striving for higher, further, and more, we could reach a rich utopia never before experienced. A "transcendence" was always set at the tip of that vector, and we doubted not that a happy utopia lay therein. However, now that we have actually climbed those stairs to the top, there is neither utopia nor dystopia, but merely a cruel truth. It was a world that extinguishes life. Dystopian theory is ultimately of the same root as utopian theory, so it is meaningless.
Modern people labor under the illusion that if they climb the structural ladder, they will inevitably reach meaning, but they fail to realize the fatal defect that the summit is "Nihility" (Void)—a truth built in from the very beginning. To reach the summit means that the entire process is completed. Particularly in linear thinking, completion is synonymous with ending—that is, death. We have ascended solely with the aim of being filled, and since World War II, we have accelerated that speed. But ironically, the terminus reached by linear thinking was the emptiest place of all, where nothing exists.
The burnout occurring worldwide today, the complete loss of the will to live, should not be thought of in terms of individual mental fragility. It signifies that the entire civilization built on linear thinking, having climbed to the top, has faced the singular fact that it has arrived at a place of nothingness, triggering a state of collective hypoxia. There are countless human-shaped figures there; their hearts may be beating, but they are not alive. The prevalence of such a zombie-like state of survival was the determined conclusion to which the very roots of the civilization we ride upon were destined to lead.
In short, the civilization of linear thinking is already finished. There is simply a time lag, and within the span of a single human life, we cannot experience the entirety of that lag. Therefore, it is impossible to believe it has not ended yet; the next mode of thought begins only with the thorough understanding that it is already over. Unfortunately, because everyone is unable to question the very foundation of linear thinking and posits their next thoughts upon it, all discussions become drivers for a farcical charade rampant on a global scale—where nothing is said, and nothing is done. Intellectuals in a linear world amount to, after all, only that much.
Where, then, in this desperate world, is the path for us to resume the breathing of life? Here, we must temporarily shut down our logical circuits and open the archive of wisdom. What emerges is "Wu" (無) from Taoist thought, "Śūnyata" (空) from Buddhism, and the concept of "Utsuro" (Hollow/Void), which uniquely edited and integrated these two within Japan.
Many intellectuals tend to dismiss these as mere nihilism, but they understand nothing. Long ago, Laozi taught, "The wheel turns because the hub at its center is empty. The vessel is useful because its inside is empty." His "Wu" does not mean nothingness, but "Utility of the Void"—a space for function. It is precisely because it is empty that movement is born, and all things are generated. In other words, "Wu" is an extremely dynamic action.
On the other hand, the "Śūnyata" polished and refined by Buddhism was a radical dismantling of the self. To me, when the dismantling of the self is viewed through the lens of the modern "self," the true meaning of "Śūnyata" is lost. I view Buddhist "Śūnyata" as an attempt to detect the subtle movements of the self trying to degenerate into the modern self, and to continue dismantling that uncontrollable driver.
In Buddhism, it is spoken of with the nuance that "no fixed entity called 'I' exists; all things appear only tentatively within relationships." However, if we grasp the emergence of this "I" as a "Field," we err; unless we discern it as a "Place" (Basho), the tentative form within the relationships mentioned here will vanish.
This can be described as a cognitive technology to dissolve the ego we are desperately trying to protect. But in fact, the ego itself is nothing more than a product of the post-modern era, a fabricated construct. The singularity of Japanese thought lies in the fact that it did not settle for interpreting this "Wu as function (Laozi)" and "Denial of substance (Buddhism)" separately in the head, but integrated them as a physical sensation.
Since ancient times, the Japanese called the place where gods and spirituality descend "Utsuro." It was a highly sophisticated form of reception: emptying the ego in a Buddhist sense (discarding attachment) and maintaining that space in a Taoist sense (allowing it to function), thereby inviting "something" from the outside. I consider the core technology of this to be "Nullification" (Muka). In my personal interpretation, Laozi's "Wu " was an act of shifting the very ground of thought in ancient China, which possessed sharp, blade-like logical thinking. Buddhist "Śūnyata" was a response to humanity opening the primordial Pandora's box of the birth of the "Self/Ego/Subject" (and even the grammatical Subject) on the continent. Sensing that the emergence (and inevitable rampage) of the "Self" would lead humanity to ruin, it was designed to continuously block the manifestation of this "Self" through instantaneously layered negations.
Both were perfected by continental thinking and concepts, yet as they entered the island nation of Japan and years passed, the internal struggle these concepts possessed was, by the non-continental character of the Japanese, resolved quite simply. That brings us to the dimension of "Utsuro"—the technology of Nullification. This suggests the existence of a different world (an Otherworld) capable of instantly nullifying the crisis of continental history, which was destined to carry a runaway self. Of course, modern Japanese people possess no "Utsuro" whatsoever...
The pandemic of simultaneous mental illnesses is occurring because modern people fear this "Utsuro" and continue the ancient cycle of trying to fill it with something. This is the great mistake. Caught in the loop of social media notifications, excessive information, and the obsessive compulsion for self-help growth, modern people are possessed by the ideology of Constant Filling. They run right and left in the dimension of affirming or denying the vessel called self, knowing nothing of nullification. Therefore, they try to pack it tight with knowledge, possessions, and identity. But as they fill it, they are inevitably sorted by algorithms that are essentially bubbling, manifesting as extreme polarization of opinion on a collective dimension. This is the present.
However, regardless of where they stand, they have already lost the power to doubt their own righteousness. Why? Because not a single drop of new water can enter a vessel that is full. If you fill the hub of a wheel with concrete, the wheel will not turn. The suffering of modern people is suffocation caused by completely losing the "functional space for living," ironically as a result of desperately stuffing the contents to realize the self. Since suffocating people are fighting fiercely within the same boundary, it is natural that there is no brake on the polarized, categorized ideologies, and it is reasonable that they cannot accept the opinions of others. For if they make space for even one drop, it is regarded as "compromise" by their brethren (brethren mobilized by algorithms), and they are suppressed as traitors.
That is precisely why we must not "fill," but "Dredge." Do not view the Japanese character for "Utsuro" (虚) as a negative lack. Because "Utsuro" is a "Plenum"—a body filled with possibility. Imagine the hollow of a tree. From the outside, it may look like a defect or a wound. But because that hollow exists, it becomes a nest for small animals, a sanctuary to shelter from wind and rain, and sometimes a Yorishiro (vessel) where a god dwells.
"Utsuro" is the path to connect with the world. The sense of void we fear is merely a sign that pure capacity, containing nothing yet, exists there. Problems arise because we fill it with garbage-like information and shallow meanings. The key is to intensely maintain that empty space, exactly as it is, empty. That is the true identity of the strength reached by Japanese intellect. For that "nothing" is not of the modern sense, but speaks of a state of overflow.
Finally, let me offer one image. We are now standing on a single bridge spanning a deep valley. This bridge is named Linear Thinking. Modern people, believing there is a goal on the opposite shore, push and shove to move forward. However, as stated earlier, the opposite shore does not exist. It is a delusion that the bridge continues forever; in fact, they do not realize they have already passed the goal. That is why everyone is stalled on the bridge, unable to advance or return, exhausted and dragging each other down.
The survival strategy here is not to cross the bridge. My proposal is to collapse the bridge yourself and fall to the bottom of the valley. Philosophically speaking, this means the total negation of "transcendence" of all concepts, and to "Dive" into the abyssal bottom. When you remove the scaffolding of the linear obsession with transcendence—"I must grow more," "I must go higher"—you inevitably understand that linear thinking was an illusion, and realize that truth lies in "Diving."
It is not even a dimension of consciousness and unconsciousness, but the bottom of deep "Utsuro" before they separate. When you collapse the ground of the illusion called self and dive into that abyss, you will be able to re-experience the historical internal struggle of "Wu" and "Śūnyata" retroactively. From the perspective of existing values, this may look like a "fall," but it is the exact opposite. In that abyssal bottom, within the "Utsuro" you continue to think is empty, lies the reality of true life. It is not an alienated reality, but the realm of the real.
Thinking this way, I despair at the pathetic thought of how long humanity has been stagnant (or regressing), but precisely for that reason, I strongly feel that we must not turn the problem toward the collective and bury ourselves within it. Only those with the resolve to live alone can advance forward. That is the only truth the sages of history have passed down.