How Do I Figure Out What I Actually Want? The Sovereign Without a Compass
How do I figure out what I actually want? Takahiro Mitsui's thesis is that the worst loss of the modern person is the sovereign's capacity: to take full responsibility for your own life and to decide without a compass in an uncertain world. For the person who wants to design their own life, he offers not comfort but a truth like a cold blade: to decide is to cut off, and comfort without autonomy is only anesthesia.
For the person who wants to design their own life
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Will cannot be counted, 2025-11-26): the worst loss is the sovereign's capacity to take full responsibility for your life and to decide without a compass; inwardly, we wait for someone to decide for us.
The loss of the sovereign's capacity is the worst of it: the capacity to take full responsibility for your own life, and to decide without a compass in an uncertain world.
Inwardly, we have turned into a vast and serious herd of dependents, mouths open, waiting for someone to decide for us.
To decide is to cut off
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Will cannot be counted, 2025-11-26): ketsudan (決断), decision, is written with the characters for deciding and cutting off; to choose one road is to kill every other possibility.
The Japanese word for decision, ketsudan (決断), is written with characters meaning "decide" and "cut off." A merciless truth of survival lies here.
To decide and choose something is to kill every other possibility.
Not comfort: a cold blade
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Will cannot be counted, 2025-11-26): comfort without autonomy is only anesthesia.
Comfort without autonomy is only anesthesia.
What I offer is not a warm blanket for the moment but a truth like a cold blade.
Your will cannot be counted
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Will cannot be counted, 2025-11-26): we have grown used to measuring ourselves by numbers, and the will that decides is what no number can hold.
For far too long we have grown used to measuring ourselves and others by countless numbers: annual income, GDP, follower counts, academic pedigree.
The answer is not picked up from somewhere
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Argument without introspection is noise, 2025-12-07): answers picked up from outside are not drawn from one's own thinking.
What matters is that these answers were not drawn from their own thinking but "picked up" from somewhere.
If you hesitate, decide now
No one can shake your decision, and no one has the authority to decide your path for you.
If you hesitate, decide now.
Essays to read
- Will cannot be counted — How do I decide what I actually want? Takahiro Mitsui, born 1991, on the sovereign who decides without a compass, and the fatal defect of the information society: measuring human worth by numbers like follower counts.
- Argument without introspection is noise — Why is everyone so polarized? Takahiro Mitsui on why the answer is not outside: how a world flooded with answers, and the habit of borrowing the words of authority, leaves the heart brittle.
- Why wandering does not cure anxiety — Why are digital nomads lonely? A young philosopher from Japan on loneliness and belonging: Takahiro Mitsui on living rootless in a drifting age, and whether the anxiety you carry is about identity or about origin.
- Escaping the dopamine world — How do I get out of dopamine addiction and social media? Introspection is a long practice, not a pleasure, Takahiro Mitsui argues, and the world is dividing by who escapes the dopamine trap: introspection as one of the essential skills for surviving a harsh age.
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