年の瀬に、一年を振り返るLooking Back on the Year at Its Close
Today, a biting chill has descended, and amidst this freezing cold, the city is beginning to settle into the silence of the year’s end. As I reflected on the myriad events of this past year, contemplating what constituted my most significant realizations and pondering my comportment for the years to come, I arrived, quite suddenly, at a singular truth.
It is this: one must never superimpose one’s own life upon "the Other"—be it society, the government, or even one’s own family. No matter where we dwell, we moderns inhabit a world prone to breeding dissatisfaction. Indeed, seeing so many fall into circumstances where even basic livelihood is precarious, we possess a habit of assuming that the only comprehensive solution to such discontent lies in transforming that which is external—the Other, the family, society, the government, the world itself.
However, as I have continued my speculations since the latter half of this year, I realized—around autumn, in fact—that "transforming oneself is the first principle, and the transformation of the Other is, in truth, of little consequence." For several months since then, I have deepened this thought from multiple angles, retracing the paths of our predecessors to see how they historically engaged with this problem and how, upon that basis, they lived their lives. Spending my days in this manner, I began to harbor a peculiar sensation I had rarely felt before.
It is the sensation that, regardless of the condition of society or the world, by gazing firmly at oneself, erecting an internal axis, settling the heart within one’s own dominion, and sharpening a state of unshakeable stability, it becomes possible to fulfill precisely what one must do each day, entirely unswayed by the tremors of the Other. Furthermore, I understood through visceral experience that by creating this state oneself, one can spend days that are quiet yet pierced through with heat, carefully and without the stress or dissatisfaction that is otherwise unavoidable in the modern age. Above all, I feel that creativity exists not merely for making works of art, but rather that one’s sensibility is tested most rigorously in the creation of one’s own life.
What is interesting is that, when considered calmly, this seems a matter of course. Indeed, the superior predecessors of all times and places—East and West—mostly arrived at answers close to this, as can be divined from their words. That is precisely why it seems so crucial to note that while history appears to develop in its outer appearance, when viewed from the aspect of the spirit, it has not developed at all. Even if the human population increases or the technologies of civilization shift, when viewed from the perspective of the individual human spirit, we are not growing; rather, the forces of regression are overwhelmingly dominant. Moreover, surprisingly, this regression possesses a mysterious inverse momentum: it grows larger with the passage of eras. That is to say, as generations pass, the human being drifts further away from being human.
Therefore, those who understand the gravity of history trace it back as far as possible, locating those ideal eras where the human spirit lived with vibrancy. By piercing those eras with insight, they relativize other ages, considering the question of why humans fail to fulfill the life they were given. This is simultaneously an act of discerning the movements of the times, and I find this approach extremely important; indeed, I believe it to be the correct method. Yet, at the same time, this approach brings an interesting fact to the surface. It is that no matter how much the era advances, how much the population swells, or how much technology progresses, the human spirit does not advance in proportion to these currents of the external world.
Rather, while constructing the external world is certainly important, for it to be claimed as important, the understanding that "we are human" must first be set as the foundation. This may sound obvious, perhaps even foolish, but the world system that constitutes our current external reality does not premise itself on this basic condition. As long as humans are humans, if they cannot firmly establish their own spirits and live in accordance with their own hearts, they will end their lives without understanding the meaning of their birth into this world, accomplishing nothing. In fact, as everyone surely senses, people fulfill their social missions throughout their lives but do not fulfill their human missions. To put it another way, they fulfill a mission not to capitalism, but to the capitalist; yet, because the exertion toward that end exhausts mind and body, it becomes difficult for them to possess the opportunity to reflect upon themselves.
This morning, as I boarded the train, there was a young mother holding a small infant. Even though the infant was crying, the mother remained fixated on her smartphone, looking past the child. When the infant would not stop crying, she stood up without shifting her gaze from the screen and merely performed the act of swaying her body. Such people do not understand that the infant cries because the mother is not looking at it, but rather continues to look at the screen beyond. Moreover, I was astonished that her only response to the crying was to stand and sway, as if executing a rote instruction. When such people raise children, it is only natural that the human spirit becomes progressively more wretched with each passing generation. Nay, such people cannot possibly possess the power or the responsibility to raise a child. While I was shocked by such a display of irresponsibility, I could not help but think that self-domestication to the system has entered its terminal stage.
This is because the child bears no responsibility, and furthermore, the child cannot choose its parents. Unless the parent stands firm, the possibility of the child understanding the meaning of life, or reaching the state they should attain through their own life, or arriving at the mission they should fulfill, is virtually zero. Indeed, recently in Japan, the term "Parent Gacha” has spread. This term, derived from the "gacha-gacha" capsule toy dispensers where items emerge randomly, clearly expresses the mindset of the younger generation: "A child cannot choose their parents. Not knowing what kind of parent one will get is akin to a gamble."
In truth, in a certain sense, this is correct. Especially in an era like the present, where parents can no longer even look at the child itself, the question of whose care one is born into becomes, more than ever, the first and last wager that determines the child's entire life. Parents who look at smartphones instead of their children have deteriorated to the point where they believe the answer to what the child desires is written entirely within the screen, and by executing it like a manual, they declare, "I am fulfilling my responsibility to my child."
However, at the same time, the source of this lies with their own parents, and it is also the accumulation of the fact that they themselves have never, throughout their lives, resolved to "live by their own will." In fact, what I feel when observing this is that, as a major premise, those who cannot see their children inevitably cannot see their spouses—that is, their partners. Therefore, it is natural that they cannot see their children, but the reason this occurs is that they cannot see themselves. In short, people who have easily advanced their lives while abandoning the confrontation with themselves meet people in similar circumstances, marry, and continue the flow of birthing children, thereby causing a spiritual degradation that deepens with every generation. They do not know the pain of being alive, yet they know only the pain of living socially.
Moreover, technological and civilizational progress occurs acceleratively in each era. Naturally, people who do not possess their own axis, who have not engaged in that manner of confrontation, assimilate these external currents as their own identity. Thus, if the external world moves, they move; their lives and daily routines are completely tossed about by the movements of the outside. What occurs here is self-domestication to the system, but the greatest risk is that if the system they have assimilated as their identity collapses or disintegrates, they too will end.
What is happening is that they have completely delegated the destiny of their own lives to "the Other." If it were merely outsourcing, there might still be a residue of will, but delegation is the total abandonment of one’s own responsibility; this is the one thing a human being must never do in living. Yet, gazing at the reality that this is occurring on a global level, I feel a sensation beyond mere unease—we have reached a point where it is no longer touchable.
Particularly, what I have felt in Japan over the last ten years is that eyes no longer meet. Before that, simply walking through the city meant meeting the gaze of others, but in this last decade, it has fallen to a level where I have no memory of meeting anyone’s eyes in the street. There is a micro-fever in the intersection of human gazes. That micro-fever is the primordial source from which human relationships emanate, and I believe that a vibrant city exists because this crossing of micro-fevers is born countlessly. That is to say, in a vibrant city, people’s eyes meet, and the friction of micro-heat born from that intersection occurs simultaneously and ubiquitously in every corner. Conversely, if this intersection of gazes cools, the city loses its vitality and becomes a corpse. The current Japanese cities of Tokyo and Osaka are typical examples of this.
In fact, recently speaking with my father, we discussed, "What did people do on the train when father was my age?" Currently, nine times out of ten, everyone is looking at a smartphone screen, almost without exception devoted to games or social media; there is no one gazing at the train car, and it is virtually non-existent to see someone reading a book. But according to my father’s memory, since there were no smartphones or mobile game consoles back then, people were reading paperbacks, reading newspapers, or simply talking.
Now that the connection between person and person has been severed—rapidly, or rather, instantly—I feel that the cause lies not in pushing all responsibility onto smartphones or social media, but fundamentally in the fact that we have lost sight of the most critical requirement for living as humans: "to face oneself." Even if we were to exclude the social media and smartphones currently targeted as the primary culprits, the situation would not change. History proves this. If these were the sole cause, when looking back at the history of the last few hundred years, one would be at a loss to answer the questions, "Why is no one able to fulfill their own life?" and "Why can they not face themselves, fulfill their mission, and live while truly seeing others?" For even without smartphones or social media, such things have never occurred on a human scale. The true problem is not in the external world.
That is to say, even if one changes everything in the external world, the interior remains, in truth, unchanged. As long as not a single person who advocates for external reform understands this, the destination is collective suicide. This is because one's own internal world has no relationship to the external world. Or rather, it is not something that can be tethered to it. To live one's own life is an act that remains unchanged regardless of how the world is. That alone is the essence that does not change, no matter the era or the place in which one lives.
For example, when I fulfill what I must do in this life, it remains unchanged whether it is the end of the Edo period 160 years ago when the Shogunate fell and the Meiji era began, or if it is the Edo period, the Warring States period, or even the Jomon or Yayoi periods. Of course, the specific things I must do will change from the perspective of the external world, but when viewed as the internal world, what I fulfill within myself does not change. This is true for everyone.
Therefore, looking at the 21st century broadly, I believe various currents will arise, but those currents are almost entirely external. Rather, in that process, vast numbers of people will lose the meaning of life and fall into the abyss of despair or desolation; thus, religion and philosophy will inevitably be sought after. This is because religion and philosophy can be offered to such people as tools to find the meaning of living, or the meaning of life. The era in which this truly begins will likely be after the world has undergone a bit more chaos, so I suspect it will start in earnest around the 2040s in a form that everyone can understand. However, as the 2030s—a world likely unexperienced in human history—arrive, if we continue to identify our lives with the external world as we do now, or if we possess any intensity of self-domestication to the system, the risk of falling together in this turbulent era is high.
And what this "falling together" in the next era signifies is that one cannot proceed beyond it. Naturally, one can neither fulfill one’s own mission nor live one’s own life. If we grasp this as the greatest risk, then rather than merely thinking about one’s life, it is necessary to first master the essence of humanity that our predecessors confronted, and to prepare to actually continue doing so within one’s daily conduct.
Personally, while the important preparations for the modern age certainly require the global diversification of income sources and held currencies, the diversification of work and residence, or, in the case of Japan, preparing for a massive earthquake at any moment, the most critical preparation of all is to find one's own answer to the question, "How shall I live?" By finding this answer, one will not waver, no matter how the external world shakes. Therefore, whether or not one possesses one's own answer is, in fact, far more important than possessing money for surviving the era we must live through.
With such a perspective, one must sharpen oneself daily and fulfill what one must do by exhausting oneself in the doing. This act of "exhausting oneself in the doing" does not require one to do something grandiose as is generally claimed. This is often misunderstood, but people have their respective natures. Currently, there is a tendency to want to deny this, but we must acknowledge the fact that aptitude exists. Or, if there is a social position one currently accepts—whether it be a bureaucrat running the state, a religious leader, belonging to some tech company, a university professor, or moving about as a digital nomad—there is absolutely no change regarding the act of exhausting oneself in the doing.
Regarding the fulfillment of what must be done by exhausting oneself, no one is different. And this is not something that can be affirmed or denied by the profession—saying "this is good, that is bad"—because that itself is merely the value system of "the Other." Instead, it is solely a question of whether one can exhaust oneself to fulfill the mission one is currently given or has accepted. If thought about with the head, it may seem a confusing problem, but it is not so difficult. It is simply that people today have become skilled only at making excuses, and thus have become unable to "exhaust themselves to fulfill their current duty."
But how can a human who cannot do this firmly claim to fulfill a life? Whatever the current situation may be, one must fulfill what one does daily by exhausting oneself. By thoroughly enforcing this first, the path beyond it opens for the first time.
No matter how much the external world trembles, there is neither reason nor ground for you to waver. Facing the new year, bathed in the wind that has begun to chill, I cannot help but feel that I have discovered the fruit of my future life.