Pathway to Japanese Literature

But now I think thereis nounreturn'd love―the pay iscertain, one wayor another; (I loved acertain person ardently, and my love wasnot return'd; Yet out of that, I have written these songs.) -- Walt Whitman -- I existas I am―that is enough; If no other in the world be aware, I sit content, And if each and all be aware, I sit content. One worldis aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself; And whether I come to my own to-day, or in tenthousand or ten million years,

I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

-- Walt Whitman --

I

Whether there was a Path or an Action at The Beginning, I do not know. But who could know it? I desire to know it. And who would not desire to know it? But I have no desire to think about it. Between knowing and thinking lies an unbridgeable chasm. Do people not often ignore this chasm and attempt to attain knowledge through thinking? I will no longer allow myself to be lost in that illusion. I cannot know. But I desire to know. Humans are tormented between "the Impossible" and "Desire" from the moment of birth. I cannot abandon desire simply because it is impossible. What utter selfishness this is on my part! And yet, what pitiable delicacy I possess!

As for The Beginning, I will satisfy myself by binding myself to it through my desire. I have no aim whatsoever, but I will satisfy myself by desiring that the day of knowing may come.

As for my being born into this peculiar world, and as for having sustained life within it until today, I know with clarity. Whether this awareness merits pride or shame, I cannot conceal it. I do not merely contemplate my life. I know with certainty. It may be that I do not know as philosophers know. Nor may I know as those who live profoundly know. But I know. No other thing can eclipse this possession of mine. Furthermore, no other force can wrest it from me. This alone constitutes the singular possession my existence claims.

A dreadful Eternity surrounds me. Eternity is terrifying. At times it approaches me as something icy cold—stagnant and motionless. At other times, it presses upon me as something so dazzling it blinds the eyes—a thing that never ceases to shift and flow even for an instant. I am nothing more than a point dropped in either the corner or center of that entity. A point does not possess width, breadth, or height—geometry teaches me this. I regard myself as equal to a point before Eternity. Standing before Eternity, I will be nothing. And yet, just as a point exists, I too exist within Eternity. I was born as a point. And in the blink of an eye, I will dissolve without a trace into Eternity and cease to be. That too I know. And I find it more terrifying that I was born here as myself in the form of a point than that I will cease to be.

However, I was born. I know this. Since I myself am the subject who knows this fact, my life remains indisputably mine. I can live this life as I choose. O my sole possession! Despite all doubts, can I ultimately refrain from respecting and cherishing it? To the point of tears, I feel myself with piercing clarity.

A lone traveler walked the path of Eternity. There was nowhere that knew him as he himself. When the sun shone, his faithful companion was that shadow. When the sky became completely overcast, and at night, there was not even his shadow that should have been his companion. At that time, he had to find within himself a companion faithful only to his innermost being. Even if clumsy, even if ugly—for him, where could he have sought anything beyond himself? At times like this, I too see myself as a lone traveler.

I am myself in this manner. Yet the people and things surrounding me are clearly not me. When I give voice to a word, who besides myself—what besides myself—could make that word take form? How must I bind myself to the people and things around me to find proper relation? Is no relationship possible at all? If possible, how should I discover it? Who will teach me this?... In the end, is it not myself?

When I think about it, that is a lonely path. Utterly powerless, I have nothing to rely on but myself. To contradict myself, to stumble over myself, to become perplexed by myself—what wonder is there in that? I sometimes become as lenient as God toward myself. That is because at times my figure appears in my eyes like an infant who has lost its mother. The infant crawls about aimlessly. That figure is already pitiable enough. The infant often falls into fire or drowns in water. And when it barely crawls out from there, it continues crawling while on the verge of tears. Can this pitiable figure’s compassion be dismissed as nothing more than self-flattery? Even if morality reviles it as self-indulgence, I cannot bear to lose this compassion for myself. Might not the lonely one be compelled to shed hot tears even when gazing at their own palm?

When I think about it, that is also a steep path. Knowing that my subject is myself renders me intensely solemn. The harsh lashings I cannot bring myself to inflict on others—these I must ultimately direct toward myself. As if succumbing to temptation, I am led there. To see myself rising up, spurred by the whip, and to see myself collapsing, unable to withstand the blows—I know both are indispensable for me to go on living. In those moments, I am valiant. Before me lives a self that exerts all its strength; beyond that self I see nothing. I overcome and overcome, pressed and pressed by my own strength, forging through perilous paths toward unseen boundaries. And I will not be daunted by any threat to life. At that moment, the pain of the wound lets me taste a certain sweetness. However, at the peak of this self-tension, terrifying self-doubt often lies in wait for me. At last, I am on the verge of exhaustion. A moment arrives when my strength seems incapable of moving me any further. The fact that I must watch my sole fortress-like self rapidly take on the appearance of ruins darkens my vision.

Though these anxieties and disappointments constantly threaten me, for I who do not know what the Beginning is, there remains nothing to rely on but myself. Amidst all contradictions and chaos, I will be myself. I will not overvalue myself beyond my true worth. I will not abuse myself below my true worth. I will strive to remain within my true worth. No matter how low my value may be, that very act of striving to remain within my true worth must be something. Even if that is nothing, is there not an attitude I should adopt beyond it? One who possesses a diamond would wish to hold it according to its true value as a gem. My very self may not be as precious as a gem. However, in terms of feeling, there is not the slightest difference from one who possesses a gem.

I am my own, my one and only. I must begin by loving myself as that which nothing can replace.

If there comes a time when someone reads these meager reflections of mine and cannot accept this starting point, then I will have nothing further to offer that person. For those who know completely—rather than ponder—whether the Beginning is Path or Action, this reflection would likely be a useless thing to be ignored. I am well aware that I stand on an extremely low path of life. However, precisely because my present self holds the firmest position there, I refuse to feel ashamed of standing there. As I have said before, I thank myself for being able to dwell in the known present with my desire for higher, greater things.

II I fear that what I am trying to say may fail to provide readers with sufficient understanding. It should be the easiest thing for a person to express themselves. For that is something the person themselves should know most thoroughly. In reality however this is not the case. The words we use are so to speak like wolf traps. They serve well for capturing prey but when turned toward ourselves they become nothing but obstacles and prove useless. Or they are like magnifying glasses. We can perceive things outside ourselves through them but we cannot see our own faces. Or they might be called precise machines. Even though we can create all things through them we ultimately cannot create ourselves.

Words were devised to express meaning. However, they have gradually degenerated from their original purpose. The heart’s demands created words. Yet now things occupy them. Without stuttering, we cannot speak our own hearts. The words whispered into a lover’s ear are never fluent. To reach from heart to heart—what an imperfect vehicle must we ride? Not only that—words are disobedient servants. We are often betrayed by words. The words we have spoken turn their blades against us the instant we commit even a needle-sized error. Through our own words, we become arrogant before others, servile, cunning, and dull-witted.

Relying on such words, how could I ever hope to express myself without error? I must unavoidably rely more heavily on the suggestions lurking within words. Even if words fail to express me, it is precisely that suggestion—the sole offspring of wisdom hidden modestly behind them—that faithfully conveys me to those who seek.

Suggestion was indeed one of the most excellent daughters among the children granted to humanity. Yet because she remained modest, serene, and reluctant to cast aside that veil from her face, people often sought to forget this noble and beautiful daughter's existence. Modern science in particular showed no mercy, attempting to subject her—who never resisted under any circumstance—even to the misery of confinement. They tried to ignore her by perverting the very virtue of her non-resistance.

I could only marvel at how humans had produced such an excellent daughter. She had never attempted to sell it until those who recognized her virtue appeared. It was she who knew as if by instinct this primordial truth—that virtue ceased to be virtue the moment one attempted to sell it. Moreover, should those who could not handle her properly even momentarily approach her, she would rapidly wither away from that gentle existence. When such a person believed they had captured her, all they would embrace was the corpse that had met a beautiful death. How could humans formed from clay have given birth to such a noble daughter?

To express myself, I shall ask her for gentle assistance. Because I have experienced that my growth was achieved through being cradled within her gentle embrace. But because I know how much humanity's own improvement—despite its constant neglect—has been borne by her.

But I must feel ashamed of myself when entrusting myself to suggestion. Though I think what knows me best is myself, my way of knowing remains too disorderly and haphazard. And I do not even fully grasp the proper use of words. I fear whether the seat of suggestion—which ought to nest securely behind those words—can truly be established.

However, I will go. For the sake of expressing my individuality—an irrepressible demand upon me—and for the sake of that fervent desire to connect my own with all related individualities, I will resolutely set forth from myself and stride forward. Just as I am starving, certain people are starving. To those people, I will give myself. And from those people, I too shall receive. To do so, I shall temporarily cast aside my reclusive tendencies and proceed. I shall be bold to the extent permitted.

I shall attempt to fully present all possibilities within my grasp. I pray that suggestion does not conceal itself within these impoverished words.

III

I, who thought I had known God, came to know that I had thought I had known God. My turmoil began to germinate from there. Someone suspected that I might be a hypocrite. How could there be any room for doubt? I am clearly a hypocrite. Clearly, I am a hypocrite. I am not unaware that declaring this will naturally invite criticism of how profoundly hypocritical an act it is. Nevertheless, I must declare clearly that I am a hypocrite. It is because I consider the external world more than I consider myself. The sorrowful truth is that I am weak. I am intimately familiar with every desperate measure of the weak. I know too the pain of having to pile up falsehoods—two, three, four, five—all because of one small lie fallen into over a trifling cause. Because I am weak, I know too the anxiety of constantly forcing myself to appear strong—that which must ever make my breast tremble. From desperate measures, I know too the self-debasement of recklessly laying bare my weaknesses before others, trying to exploit the moment to extract either a form of respect or, failing that, a form of pity. Weakness is truly ugliness. That I know well.

However, weakness alone does not constitute the essence of a hypocrite. Those who are truly weak, remaining unaware of both the ugliness and misery arising from their weakness, can find contentment in that very state. The hypocrite, unfortunately, is not merely weak but also possesses a measure of strength on the other hand. He indeed possesses the strength to be conscious of the ugliness and misery brought forth by his own weakness. And he attempts to mend that weakness through strength.

While the strong remain unaware of their own strengths and weaknesses**,** the hypocrite keenly knows both his strengths and weaknesses. People will say: *“The essence of the hypocrite lies not only in mending weakness with strength but in daring to find shameless complacency within that mending.”* Therefore**,** it is said that hypocrites cannot be saved. When told this**,** I could not help but feel compelled to defend the hypocrite. It was not merely because I myself am a hypocrite that I attempted to defend myself. Taking the place of hypocrites themselves**,** I**,** being one of those hypocrites**,** could not help but wish to address the righteous.

There are exceptions in all things. If you would refrain from deliberately accentuating such exceptions and observe carefully, might you not agree that to claim hypocrites find shameless complacency in mending weakness with strength constitutes an overly cynical view? I wish righteous people to believe hypocrites on this one matter. It is simply this—that hypocrites too suffer secretly in their hearts. Consider: How could those harboring both strength and weakness fail to feel this contradiction between forces? How could they sense this discord yet serenely persist in such shameless complacency?

Hypocrites, you have truly been subjected to a terrible plight. That is only natural. Because you are truly unpleasant people. Because you can never decisively say yes or no. Because at every hour, sinister distinctions cling to you. You deserve to be hated. You deserve to be humiliated. You deserve to be demonized. But is there no one to quietly behold the unknown pain in the corner of your heart? Is there no one to warmly touch, even slightly, that unknown pain you scheme to hide even from yourself in your desire to appear ordinary among others? Hypocrites, I know that well—for I myself am a hypocrite. Sinners (those who know their sins and grieve them), who are thought to dwell right beside the righteous, are fortunate people able to loudly proclaim the contradiction between their own strengths and weaknesses. What sinners possess and hypocrites possess are ultimately one and the same. However, sinners cry out. God hears that. Hypocrites lack the strength commensurate with their attempts to cry out. Therefore, God does not listen. That much of a difference is how it seems to me. Could it not be that the good Samaritan and the wicked Sadducee dwell side by side? As a hypocrite, I often called others hypocrites.

Now, I find that deeply sorrowful. Why did I try to make the distance between people so vast?

Even having said this, I am not imploring the righteous people of the world to ease their strictness in judging hypocrites. Hypocrites possess, above all else, the moral laxity that invites severe judgment from the righteous. I only want them to know that hypocrites too harbor in some corner of their hearts a pain they dare not reveal to others. That is my defense. I too had that pain. I had more than enough of that delusional heart that tried to make me appear nobler than I truly was before others, yet I had not entirely lost the unfillable void within it. And at times, like a crow imitating a cormorant, I displayed my sins shallowly before people and God as if I were a sinner. I sought God in my own way. To what extent did I perform that in the guise of a perfect sinner? Undoubtedly, I must have appeared as an exemplary sinner in everyone’s eyes. I fasted, suffered sleepless nights, and grew emaciated. I did not violate the flesh of a single woman. At times, even in seeking God, I did not intend to willingly end my own life.

After hundreds of days of living what should have appeared to others as proper ascetic devotion, I fancied—with visceral conviction—that through some resolution I had leapt into God’s embrace. O ugliness of weakness! I had executed this grand endeavor masterfully in fantasy. And had I been revived, whether completely or incompletely? Had I been resurrected? Had I been granted the promise of being severed from sin’s root by God? From the moment I fancied myself leaping into God’s embrace, it remains certain that I entered a life with markedly fewer blemishes. That I was treated by my neighbors as a model youth can be stated not as my pride, but as my wretched confession.

But in truth, I had not known God. Having declared that I knew God and relied on Him, I had merely been forcing my words and deeds to conform to that declaration. How vividly those things were colored by fantasies born of weakness could be discerned from how masterfully I had blinded people’s eyes.

At that time, if I had possessed the strength to commit sin before others' eyes—that is, if an event had occurred to sever me from the external world that was the object of my consideration—I might have leapt from being a hypocrite to becoming a sinner in the truest sense. I might have earnestly cried out my own sins. And that would likely have been heard by God. But I was too weak to become that. People might have tried to say it was because I had been too strong in this situation. If there were such people, I could clearly assert from my own experience that this was an error. To truly become a sinner—to offer up everything of oneself—required a strength beyond anything I could imagine. This proposal—which might indeed appear paradoxical—was by no means illusory. Within that gentle resignation of sinners, I could clearly discern the strength that proudly refused to yield to anything. Faith in God remains a noble banquet attainable only by the strong. I enviously gazed upon it. Yet I had not been given that admission ticket. I was merely outside the pale, aping the nobles.

Within the Christian church, I came to see that I clearly belonged among hypocrites. Only pebbles know pebbles. Only gold knows gold. This was a sad fact. Through my hypocrite's eyes, the church's hypocritical elements lay transparent. To continue writing this nearly overwhelmed me. I stripped myself too bare. Yet if I did not write through it, my clumsy pen of reflections would have to be discarded. In truth, I too wanted to become strong. I longed to reverently gather the true lives forged by strength within that church. I recently read a venerable old scholar's reflections stating forcefully that those who abandon religious vows merely prove their noble character's deficiency. Because I deeply respected that scholar—because I knew his innate nobility—I felt his words held weight and could only lament my own baseness. That he stood rock-firm within Catholicism's falsehoods and decay, blending his nobility with its latent worthy elements—this filled me with awed envy. I realized I had done precisely the opposite. My own baseness made me see baseness everywhere. This I had to grieve.

However, though I discovered base things around me stemming from my own baseness, I could not in the end remain blind to those who existed as people of noble character. While discovering base things, I could not feign ignorance by pretending not to see them and put on a magnanimous front. To become a hypocrite of that degree—perhaps my strengths were too abundant compared to my weaknesses. And I, fearing my hypocrisy would defile the group to which I belonged, and loathing how its corrupt elements tormented my heart, fled from that group. My baseness compelled me to commit a base deed there as well. To borrow the words of the group I had belonged to—it could be said that presumptuous pride lay at the root of my deeds.

But I want to whisper softly, only to myself. In my heart's depths, I cannot say there was no desire to somehow avoid the temptation that sought to lead me from hypocrite to greater hypocrite. Lacking the strength to break through it, I resolved at least to avoid it. As I had said before—being so easily swayed by the external world—the more harshly that world surrounded me, the more I noticed myself accumulating hypocrisies beyond imagination, until I came to fear this from my very core. Thus I withdrew from the group I had belonged to, and began distancing myself from direct contact with the seniors who had guided me.

I want to cease being a hypocrite. This may be deemed an excessive demand for one such as myself, yet all hypocrites secretly harbor within some corner of their hearts the wish that they might not be hypocrites. I too had possessed but a small portion of this.

Righteous people, hypocrites, sinners—that I withdrew from a society where such labels were clearly distinguished and rigorously applied to people is something I still consider ultimately not to have been a bad thing.

I who had thought I knew God came to realize that I had thought I knew God. My turmoil began to sprout from there. Through that turmoil, I slowly made my way back to myself. The homeland I sought had unknowingly grown distant, and though I stumbled repeatedly, still I slowly made my way back toward it, heaping turmoil upon turmoil.

IV

A long detour.

To shorten that long detour, there was no way but to truly feel dissatisfaction with my own life. The sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death; flaws in character; all failures—if I fully savor these, that will suffice. That, however, is a matter how easy to articulate yet how difficult to realize! Was I not led astray time and again by such illusions of reason? And was not that which appeared to be such reason actually something measured against predetermined concepts as a standard? I occasionally struggled like Polo did. But he did not struggle in the way that I did. He attained enlightenment like Shinran. But he did not attain enlightenment in the way that I did. What would that even achieve? Could there exist elsewhere a state of mind that combines such a splendid facade with a substance so empty of content? It was only after enduring a protracted wandering that I came to realize I must avoid this maze that masqueraded as a shortcut. Even after realizing this, I all too often found myself colliding with this detestable dead end and having to sullenly retreat.

In my desire to know what my individuality was, I tried to touch upon the individuality of others. I endeavored to find it in history; I attempted to find it in art; I sought to find it among my neighbors. I undoubtedly gained some knowledge. The outline of my individuality seemed to dimly take shape before my eyes. But that was ultimately not me.

To see things—to capture them precisely within their own vitality—was not as simple as I had imagined. The person who has achieved this stands uniquely blessed in our world. I did want to see. But could it truly be said I understood seeing's essential meaning? How bitter to discover that what I thought grasped would soon prove mere shadow. At times I imagine myself like an ostrich burying only its eyes in desert sand, convinced it hides completely from hunters. Where that bird believes concealing one part hides its whole, I often fancy that exercising one faculty engages my entire being. Thus observed, my individuality shows me a flawless form without contradiction—yet gazing deeper reveals utter lifelessness within. It resembles a poem composed without passion. Like brocade exquisitely tailored yet unworn. Beautiful it may be, highly valued though made—existing without purpose for existence—it remains worthless dust.

My attempt to return to myself and construct my true being by using the external world as a catalyst ended in vain failure. Wise and refined people often found satisfaction in illusions. Rather than finding satisfaction, they coolly observed that what are called human phenomena and what are deemed human realities are, after all, nothing but ephemeral games of consciousness—itself being an illusion. To attach some fixation there and impose conflict was ultimately nothing but delusion—governed by crude, superficial judgments of inferior discernment. They quietly transcended those boundaries and, like an old man watching an infant at play, attempted to cast a lonely smile over all efforts and stumbles. There drifted a cool, yet profound elegance. Or perhaps they embraced and accepted all things, surrendering themselves completely to the tumult of the external world. There were those who indulged in revelry by day and amusement by night, keeping themselves beyond worldly censure, never altering their indulgent ways until death. There, an ironic yet fervent discernment was not entirely absent. How could I possibly impeach those people? If one considered it the fate of those destined to wander in endless delusion, those people declared: "What else remains but to live each moment in mere enjoyment?" Could I cast a scornful eye upon that attitude? I could not. People might perhaps scorn such individuals as those who live in drunken dreams and perish. Yet within those people, I felt something that drew me in. For within them I perceived a refinement and discernment that I was not born to possess.

What a rich tapestry of life’s manifold aspects! Is that not precious just as it is? Does it not reveal itself in a perfectly natural form just as it is? If nature possesses that resplendent diversity while the human world alone lacks it, one might well say that the beauty and truth of the cosmos would crumble in that moment. In this regard, I find the hearts of those called ideologues desolately wanting. Is he not one who, bearing only the innate talent bestowed upon him, seeks to paint all humanity in a single hue? The nobility of that spirit goes without saying. But within the shadow of that nobility lurks a loneliness so profound it could freeze even nobility itself.

I simply want to keep protecting myself in a way that suits me. I think that alone is permitted to me. And from this position, I cannot be one who sympathizes with those wise and refined people. I still harbor base attachments and cannot find peace in viewing everything as mere illusory play. I myself am well aware that there remains much vulgarity within me, far removed from what might be called refinement or wisdom. I am nothing more than one of those mortal beings driven by base attachments and mired in petty struggles. Yet I still cannot fully abandon that boundary. And I do not even think it a bad thing that I cannot fully abandon it. Were I to casually shift myself to another boundary—that is, were I to cast aside this demand to truly know my individuality—I would undoubtedly be tormented by even more anxieties than those I currently bear. Therefore, I still cannot depart from the impulse to be myself.

Having failed in my attempt to construct myself through external catalysts, I rose once more and sought to position myself and the external world as equal counterparts facing one another.

I exist. And as long as I exist, there must be an external world opposing me. The external world clearly casts its shadow within me. Therefore, the workings of my mind must move between two poles. And why should that be bad? I still do not know what words could properly name these two poles. Yet these two poles have been called by various names since ancient times. In Greek mythology they are Dionysus and Apollo; in European thought currents, Hebraism and Hellenism; in Buddhist scriptures, form and emptiness; or materialism and idealism, individual and society, principles and tastes... One might say there is no noun in existence that does not form such a pair. I too stand beneath this antithesis. Should I resolutely take one side, there inevitably remains the other that must be rejected. Like the faces of Janus, these two poles stand opposed, permitting no blending. Yet I cannot bring myself to cleanly discard either. My vital desires prove unexpectedly fierce and deep—striving to reach the grave without losing anything, having savored everything. Even were I to achieve a pure and flawless life, if doing so required discarding some element of this existence, that would leave me unbearably lonely. Though I must dwell in contradictions, I will taste every last flavor of life. Though wandering between these seemingly opposed poles brings inevitable inner turmoil, I must endure it and grasp both without fear. If grasping them proves impossible, I shall become an impartial observer-admirer and die while faintly perceiving both poles' essential qualities.

As a human being, there exists no greater privilege than this. Were we to cast aside this privilege, what would remain thereafter but desiccated dregs unworthy even of being discarded—is that not so?

V

Yet even there, I could find no satisfaction. I had to make an unexpectedly unsatisfying discovery. When I tried to become an observer of both poles, my strength rapidly fled from me. When I discovered myself only experimenting and not experiencing, I began to feel an inexpressible emptiness. None of the poles I believed I could reach became sustenance for my life, and the force that sought to advance anywhere vanished. I remained standing in one place indefinitely.

This was something I found utterly unbearable as myself. The emptiness and helplessness that Hamlet must have felt now permeated me completely too, and for the first time I came to understand the mentality of ideological adherents. Those people continued exerting their utmost strength toward a single pole—even encroaching upon others' freedoms—in their desperation to be saved from life's void. Even if this might prove troublesome to others in some instances, for those individuals it remained something vitally necessary. I understood well this mindset that would discard life itself for an ideology yet still strive to preserve life's essential tension.

However, I have no ideology for which I should stake my life to assert. Even if there exists what might be called an ideology, I cannot immerse myself in it to the point of losing myself for its sake.

After all, I returned to myself after that long detour. But what a pitiful, wretched figure I presented. Must I abandon everything and rely on this self? In my past lay a history spanning many distant decades. Moreover, around me there existed all manner of social activities and outstanding individuals. A mighty nature surrounded me in layers upon layers. The immense pressure of all these things was more than sufficient to terrify this pitiable self of mine. The reason I had been unable to return to myself until now, hesitating to the fullest extent possible, was that—upon reflection—I had felt my own inaction before the might of this external world. And I had even attempted to harmonize or compromise with this overwhelming power by employing some means. Moreover, in my case, all of it ended in failure. Even if such attempts temporarily soothed my anxiety to some extent, they ultimately became nothing more than a medium leading to even deeper anxiety. From the very beginning of making such attempts, I harbored a premonition that I could never find satisfaction in those circumstances, and this always manifested as reality. I simply could not feel at home with myself before those things.

It was not because I was bold and sincere. It might be said that even in me, a hypocrite, there was a small measure of sincerity. But at least I was not bold. I was weak. Anyone knew the mental state of weak people. The inability to trust in anything was the characteristic of weak people. Moreover, the compulsion to trust in something—anything—was yet another of their characteristics. The rabbit was a weak animal. Their ears trembled ceaselessly with suspicion. He could neither entrust himself to sturdy rock caves nor establish his dwelling in deep, secluded forests. He dug a hole befitting him within a small thicket. And even when thunder roared, when rain came, when winds blew, when chased by dogs, when pursued by hunters—after running about in flight—he sought his final refuge in that miserable, easily crumbled earthen hole. My heart too was like a rabbit. Great power existed inexhaustibly all around. However, my frightened heart could not place unconditional trust in any of them; after wandering filled with apprehension and hesitation, I ultimately returned to a self that even I found pitiable.

However, I call this the strength of the weak. The reason lies in how my life’s path gradually grew from this extreme weakness itself. Having come this far, I had no choice but to part ways with those who presume themselves strong. The time had arrived when those people must feel exasperation toward me. For out of necessity I was becoming single-mindedly devoted to weakness—steadily withdrawing from engagement with those deemed powerful. Nietzsche was weak. He too clung stubbornly to himself—a common trait among frail souls. From this arose his Übermensch philosophy; though it furnished strong individuals with convenient frameworks, to interpret its genesis as proof of Nietzsche’s own strength constitutes nothing less than grave error. Wasn’t Rousseau likewise? Schopenhauer too? Strong people find fortune by becoming paragons—great sages, righteous exemplars, noble gentlemen, chaste matrons, loyal retainers. Weak ones find fortune by remaining ordinary humans. Such distinctions rest on personal preference. Being weak, I had no path left but choosing ordinariness.

Fate is not ultimately unjust. It gives them what is theirs and gives me what is mine. And even if the two should part ways so completely as to lose sight of each other once, might they not someday suddenly meet again at some crossroads? That, however, is something I need not concern myself with. I have no choice but to resolutely charge down my own path.

And so, I pressed on with this pen.

VI

My individuality declares to me thus:

I am you. I am your essence. I am not some spectral concept divorced from flesh. Nor am I mindless flesh severed from spirit. Just as you exist within a unified whole where exterior and interior merge, I am the total sum of forces working rigorously within that whole. You resemble the Earth's crust. Though fractured into countless forms, this crust displays frenzied transformations while ultimately revealing only stillness, consequences, deathward tendencies, and shallow phenomena. I am what might be called the Earth's exterior. At first glance, one might perceive only chaos and singularity there. Yet examine its substance closely - it shares matter with celestial bodies, containing power to shatter crusts instantly and birth new surfaces. In one sense, you and I are identical. In another, incomparably distinct. The Earth's interior remains unseen from without. Outward observers fixate on surfaces. Thus people mistake you for my entirety while you obsess over your own form - never regarding me, trembling in fear, lost in doubt, hesitating, satisfied with surface glimpses of reality. What you saw before returning to me was illusion. Until you truly know me, your vision of reality remains impaired. This cannot stand. Persisting thus, you'd resemble an unskilled swimmer battling rapids - thrashing violently yet making no progress. So long as Earth's core endures, complete crustal destruction wouldn't erase its planetary existence.

However, one cannot even conceive of an Earth without its interior. By the same measure, you cannot conceive of yourself without me.

For you, there exists nothing more complete than myself. Yet this does not mean pursuing perfection like the gods and Buddhas that people conceptually devise. Were you to measure me by imaginings supplied through religion, ethics, philosophy, or literature, I would indeed be judged incomplete. True enough, I lack a demon's shamelessness yet fall short of an angel's purity. I am human in humanity's essential manner. My present pride resides in being unreservedly human with all my strength. Bring no demons or angels—those idols kneaded from your mind's clay—before me. Between you and those phantoms lies a vast chasm of futility within this present you must inhabit.

When you sell yourself solely to flesh divorced from spirit without possessing a sealed permit bearing my stamp, there emerges what we call a demon—a hollow semblance that nonetheless appears endowed with solemn substance. When you sell yourself solely to spirit forcibly torn from flesh, there emerges what we call an angel—a hollow semblance that nonetheless appears endowed with solemn substance. In the midst of such acts, you gradually drift away from me, ensnared by insubstantial phantoms, and there begin sketching out bizarre castles in the air. And within your innermost being, a painful duality is established. Spirit and flesh, heaven and hell, angels and demons—and what else, and what else… You cannot feel at ease unless you invoke opposing concepts, yet when those concepts stand opposed, you cannot feel at ease—an anxiety as though weighed on both scales, as though floating in a bottomless void assails you. The more this happens, the further you drift from me, until every word you speak, every thought you have, every action you take comes to be entirely governed by external forces. Unattainable ideals take shape within you, along with a conscience, morality, and God. And those are all not things I commanded you, but merely things borrowed from external sources. Brandishing those things, you begin constructing your patchwork mosaic. And while harboring in one aspect thoughts so vile even a demon would avert its eyes, in places visible to others, you pretentiously speak and act in ways so noble they shame even yourself. Moreover, you concoct plausible reasons for engaging in such despicable acts. To mimic saints and heroes—or to phrase it more elegantly—to learn from their words and deeds is but the first step in laying the foundation to become both saint and hero oneself. If I speak Shun's words and perform Shun's deeds, then that is precisely what it means to be Shun. Thus, while harboring profound contradictions, anxieties, and despondency in the corner of your heart, you strive to climb ever higher the vain Tower of Babel.

The problem is, that very attitude of yours conveniently conforms to societal customs. Although human life inherently possesses growth as an essential element deep within its desires, societal customs cling to peace—or rather, to mere uneventfulness. Society considers a life that mindlessly extends yesterday’s existence into today and today’s into tomorrow as the most trouble-free way of living, and within such uneventful days, seeks to steal even a single day’s comfort. This has congealed into a powerful inertia within social life. For adapting to such a lifestyle, your way of proceeding is extremely convenient. No matter how many contradictions and duplicities lie within you, custom-bound society does not concern itself with such things. As long as you merely maintain virtuous words and deeds, society will remain peacefully tranquil. Society will lavish praise upon you and bestow excessive rewards that you must secretly feel ashamed of. Although you force a bitter smile in your heart, you increasingly distance yourself from me to repay those excessive rewards, all while exhausting yourself in servile labors contrary to your true feelings until your life’s end.

While persisting in such ways under external pressures—maintaining this false existence—you will before long surpass me and unwittingly become both saint and hero. At that moment you cease being yourself—no longer a human individual—transformed instead into a specialist draped in human skin. We must respect those expert in their vocations. But specialists who heed only societal customs' demands—who abandon themselves to sell out wholly to externals—are already inhuman; however splendid they appear, they become naught but splendid machinery.

No matter how despicable or powerless, humans are noble solely by being human. Within the nobility that humans possess, where could one hope to find a nobility surpassing this? To retreat from this nobility will not only bring about your demise but spell the ruin of the very society you seek to serve. Because human society is built up, maintained, continued, and developed solely by living humans. You must feel ashamed of becoming a machine. If you feel even the slightest shame toward that, you should not persist in such reckless rushing ahead. Do not be so preoccupied only with externals; try turning your gaze this way a little. And remember that your Individuality—your true self—is here.

You who have discovered me will undoubtedly be disappointed at first, for I am not the possessor of that splendid form you had envisioned. If you measure me against the ideal yardstick externally instilled in you, I will appear as a woefully inadequate being. I am not Caliban, but neither am I Ariel. I am not a demon, but neither am I an angel. For me, distinctions such as spirit and flesh serve no purpose whatsoever. Moreover, distinctions such as good and evil are utterly impossible. In all my activities, I do nothing but grow as a whole. A florist would value flowers. A fruit seller would value fruits. An architect would value the trunk. However, for the cherry tree itself, there is only growth in that realm where such distinctions of good and evil are transcended. Yet my growth is not as rapid as you imagine. Because unlike you—who settle for merely enlarging your head or extending your limbs—I cannot be satisfied unless I advance through my entire being. You, afflicted by the plague called ideals, grow impatient with my pace and presumptuously push past me, striving to rush ahead by responding solely to external demands. You may appear to run faster than I do, but ultimately you move more slowly. The reason is this: even if you outstrip me and charge forward by surrendering yourself entirely to external stimuli, should you reach some destination, by then you will have ceased to be human and become a specialist—that is to say, an unfeeling machine. Because your own visage gradually fades, those faded patches becoming mended with the tattered rags of saints and heroes. You will inevitably discover that unsightly form and must come to regret it. Having come to regret this, you will have no path but to retreat shamefacedly back to me.

Therefore, you must remain under my complete dominion. You must walk while embraced by me. Return to Individuality. Discard all your past honor, achievements, and pride, and return to me. From birth, you have been in contact with the external world and raised by its demands. The external world has become like a second skin enveloping your own. Your individuality has differentiated and expanded yet grown diluted in substance, diffusely flowing outward from your core. Thus from one perspective, it is no wonder you outstrip me to rush ahead. Without consulting me, you performed acts brimming with love when no love existed, or behaved generously while hatred burned in your heart. Through such shallow actions, you convinced yourself that the inevitable unpleasant feelings stirring within were merely effort's companions. You believed you were training your emotions. Yet while you persist in this foolish estrangement from me—even accomplishing mountains of work—you yourself have not grown an inch. Through this wretched conduct, you obstruct true human life and increasingly heap life's dregs like refuse upon existence's path. For a florist's sake, a single cherry tree might exist solely for its blossoms. Should it wither completely, the florist would unhesitatingly fell its trunk and plant another sapling. But a human living among humans must never be thus. For a human losing individuality directly weakens society's very lifeblood.

You too must have once passed through the gate of faith. From a certain loneliness born of not experiencing what others do, you ended up dabbling in religion as well. As you should know, I—who am your individuality—might be called religious in being aspirational, that is to say, in intensely harboring a desire for growth. Yet I do not walk in such a frivolous manner as you. You scarcely acknowledged my presence here and, dragged by habits and petty temptations, immediately ran off to friends, the Bible, and the church. I watched your habitual rushing ahead with profound unease. You began your efforts as ever before. What I perceive from your efforts is that bitter aftertaste lingering each time after some unbecoming, impulsive act. While making lofty confessions with one breath, were you not—precisely as Christ defines it—committing theft, adultery, murder, and offering false prayers? When your actions grew guilt-ridden, did you not—parroting “Man is justified by faith apart from works of the law”—beg mercy from what you called God like some supplicant? And when they sought to expose your faith’s falseness, did you not defend yourself by declaring, “Not everyone who cries Lord, Lord shall enter heaven, but only those who do my Father’s will”? What you named your god was ultimately but the faintest shadow of me. You had raced past me into religious life while shaping your object of faith in my image. And in your life, no essential change ever came to pass. Even what changes occurred were mere surface ripples—you never sensed any power beyond yourself as divine revelation. You were merely straining your mind to conjure God. That is to say, through your most superficial reason and emotions, you were kneading my faint semblance into deity. Never once did you experience a force beyond yourself acting upon you—a power compelling you to rise despite your resistance. Thus your prayers—like stones hurled skyward—could only fall back upon you cold and impotent. Despite enduring these bitter trials, you stubbornly deceived yourself into believing this was devotion.

And by deceiving yourself, you were deceiving others as well.

You were always employing the deception of giving beautiful names to words and deeds not in your heart. However, the time was finally approaching when you would find yourself unsatisfied even with that. That some sincerity still remained must have been such a fortune for you. You began to turn your face toward me, whom you had long since abandoned. Now, you admitted that the greater part of your actions were falsehoods, and came to know that you were, in the true sense, a human who had never once prayed. From now on, you must hasten unwaveringly to unite with your individuality. You must discover the fountain of life within your individuality and, using individuality as your foundation, build up your true self upon it.

VII

My individuality further informed me and said: Shall I—your very individuality—expound upon what path you must take in accordance with me?

First and foremost, what I demand of you is this one thing: you must avert your eyes from all external standards and return to me. That will likely strike you as precarious. These so-called external standards are formed from an integration of ancient human history—a vast repository containing all great men and saints, encompassing every philosophy and science, every culture and progress—and modern humanity’s manifold activities. Moreover, that you would wholly turn your gaze away and fix it solely upon me must seem both unsupported and unnerving. Yet I declare to you: Do not waver. Tear out every root you had extended toward the external world, trim their tips, and thrust them into me. I—who am your individuality—may appear base and deficient when measured against others', but for you, there exists nothing more complete than myself.

Now that you have finally returned to me, you must not arbitrarily dissect me as you were accustomed to doing toward the external world. You must not force me into frameworks of good-evil or beauty-ugliness like you did when engaging outward. You must accept my demands in their undivided totality. Only by meeting all my requirements shall I attain growth. Even if obedience-born thoughts or deeds clash with external legends and customs, never let turmoil make you doubt me. Neither rush nor waver—fix your mind on cultivating individuality’s maturation. But mark this well: abandon those external, prefabricated lenses through which you’ve interpreted my workings. When my demands seem carnal at first glance, reject your old habit of reducing them to mere fleshly craving. Likewise, never isolate spirit-directed urges from the body—that too violates my essence. Our flesh-spirit unity defies philosophers’ dichotomies; it thrives indivisibly within me. Studying hydrogen and oxygen tells you nothing of water—only water reveals water. Thus I command: receive my demands whole from external standards’ fragmentation; find satisfaction solely there. With this readiness forged, charge forth unhesitating. Let pride be pride when it rises; humility as humility; love where I love; hate where I hate; crave what I crave; spurn what I spurn.

In this way, you will for the first time be able to return to yourself. From the moment you were born into this world and swaddled in your first garments until today—through all the external pressures imposed upon you—you can now become free for the first time. Those parts of yourself that you had forcibly deemed unnecessary and cast away in your need to fit into an external mold have now regained their true value, becoming indispensable elements for you once more. All your branches have now met their destiny of joyfully putting forth fresh buds toward the sunlight equally. At that time, you left eternal denial behind, crossed the valley of indifference, and became able to stand for the first time at the gateway of eternal affirmation.

Nor is that influence absent from your actual life. From now on, you shall move by necessity rather than through forced contrivances. Until your individuality grows to shatter your former self and forge a new being, you will remain bound by external pressures, no longer finding cause to act through such contrivances. When you lived aligned with the external world, did you not practice the morality of restraint? Fearing to perform excessive good deeds without true intent, did you not measure out virtue in moderation? Yet in concealing your flaws, you showed no such restraint. Did you not wield terrifying boldness to hide your heart's ugly secrets? Before others, did you not skillfully cloak base desires until they vanished from sight, all while parading virtues more humbly than your secret pride warranted? This I name forced contrivance. But in a life aligned with me, such stratagems become unnecessary. Every desire shall ultimately nourish your individuality's growth, leaving no cause for timidity. Thus must you transform solely through my growth's necessity, ceasing forever to expand or contract at the external world's whim. All else follows thereafter.

Before you could return to me again—before you could completely turn your eyes from external standards and rely on me as your sole power—you may have been troubled about how your position harmonizes with humanity. Might it not cause even slightly such consequences as becoming a nuisance to humanity, hindering human progress, thereby disrupting life’s order and undermining moderation—this sudden charging forward of yours together with me? Yes, you must have wavered in that way.

That would indeed seem conceivable to you, who have grown accustomed to clinging solely to the external world. However, the more earnestly you confront this problem, such external considerations will become impossible for you to contemplate—indeed, even if you attempt to do so. Just as one trying to drown cannot possibly imagine someone in some corner of the world attaining small happiness and send them blessings, so too when you come to me in true earnestness, you would be unable to consider the consequences arising from it. Those who imagine Saint Francis—who suffered under his sins, writhed amidst thorns, and agonized—ever pondered what influence his repentance might have on humanity must be called pitiful souls who have never tasted even a dewdrop’s measure of true nobility within the human heart.

I will make you hear this. As long as you voice such questions and agonize over such doubts, you lack the true right to return to me. You remain utterly a creature of superficial pretenses. Cast it off. Open your eyes to past fallacies until you must discard them. My stride never slows enough to require weighing consequences. To you who cling to petty conflicts with the external world while your very life falters—I stand merely as pitiless witness. I shall watch your wretched demise unmoved, withholding even a finger's aid.

Moreover, as I have said before, you can no longer be satisfied with merely becoming a specialist. A person must be their own master wherever they go. However, becoming a specialist means selling oneself off to a certain department of human life. It means becoming, more or less, a sacrifice to the demands of the external world. Where could there be one who does not wish to become a complete human being—a human with sharply outlined Individuality? Yet you so readily forget this primary demand—driven by the temptation of reputation or, worse still, presumptuous desires to hasten society’s general progress—and thus willingly seek to cripple your one and only entire life into a lopsided thing. However, you who have returned to me are not performing such a dangerous dance on the summit of a volcano. Your hands, your head, your profession—no matter how specialized the matters they may involve—it is because you always connect them to me, your Individuality. You can remain yourself even when engaged in most divisions of labor. Moreover, if the work you are doing proves utterly incapable of satisfying Individuality, you would not hesitate to discard it for the sake of Individuality’s fulfillment. At the very least, your Individuality will present its demands to eliminate such unreasonable living. What you do may result in inconvenience to the lives of humans who cling solely to safety. Moreover, it may cause inconvenience to a society that takes only superficial progress as its measure. But you need not worry about that. I clearly know. The true demand of human life is neither safety nor superficial progress. That true demand is growth, the same as that of a single human being. Therefore, you should calmly and with conviction choose your path. No matter how much a civilization that has severed spirit from matter and Individuality from work may progress, it remains but a single river flowing into an infinite desert. It will eventually wither and dry up completely.

I will say no more to you now. I have grown too weary from this old woman's garrulous kindness. Yet you seem faintly stirred. In your eyes—lost amid paths to choose—a light like glimpsed homeland shimmers before me.

O pitiable hypocrite. O hypocrite who constantly breaks from the balance of strength—at times slightly strong, at times collapsing into weakness that can only envy strength. That your strength and weakness remained unbalanced was a saving grace. You will likely be saved from that. From the contradictions of that imbalance, you shall salvage even a shred of your sincerity. Do not let that sincerity slip through your fingers. If it be pure, then even a mote of sincerity suffices. To speak truth—there exists no such thing as impure sincerity. Nor any sincerity measurable by quantity. Sincerity exists. Therein lies purity and everything. Therefore, take your stand boldly where you find sincerity; fear nothing.

Rise. There, before your eyes, a new field of vision will open. You must articulate that in my place.

You must not make me waste these lengthy words. With warm hands outstretched, I await your arrival.

My individuality, having told me thus, quietly fell silent.

VIII

My individuality granted me a sliver of sincerity—if such a thing could even be called sincerity at all. But what is sincerity truly? After groping blindly in all directions and finding not a single straw to grasp, I had no choice but to seek final refuge in my own ceaselessly faltering individuality—a quality that holds no superiority over anyone else’s, even in my own eyes. Could this truly be sincerity? Yet names matter little. Some will claim my ultimate realization sprang from abasement; others may attribute it to courage. If I must speak for myself, it was nothing but an inexorable force that dragged me here—a force that drives all people back to themselves eventually. When death draws near, none escape its summons. No one avoids confronting individuality forever—not even I, who faced mine as mundanely as any mortal might: earlier than some, far later than others.

This was, at least for me, better than anything else. After a long period of futile turmoil, I found some stability within myself for the first time. Here felt comfortable to dwell. As I began my work, I felt as though I had first obtained a well-fitting chair. I came to accept that my work would be best conducted by leaning upon this chair. Though I would likely repeat countless anguishes and failures from this point onward, there was no reason these should be repeated uselessly anymore. Even anguish would surely serve me as nourishing sustenance. Entrusting myself to this chair, I resolved to record what I had come to know—primarily for my own sake. I was not writing this for propaganda. My experience remained narrow and poor; I knew full well I could make no universal appeal. Yet if even a few people undergoing similar mental processes were to read this and respond with so much as a knowing smile, the joy of self-expression would be compounded by greater joy still.

Without order or system, I simply continue writing with joy.

IX

Sentimentalism, Realism, Romanticism—these three -isms are determined by the disposition of those who embrace them. Some people harbor attachment to what has appeared in the past or what should have appeared. And they attempt to guide both the present and future—as much as possible—by the foundational tone of the past. All beautiful dreams emerge from the outcome of experience. They do not come from experience itself. People who live by such a perspective are sentimentalists.

Others clung to yearning for what would emerge in the future or what ought to emerge. What had already manifested and what was now taking shape lay utterly misshapen and warped. That which could sate humanity’s unceasing cravings had to dwell exclusively within what remained unmanifested. Those who lived by such an outlook were Romanticists.

Furthermore, some people place the highest value on the present. No matter how excellent what has already appeared may be, it cannot be reproduced in either the present or the future. Even if any good things lie hidden in the future, they are not in our hands now. In the present, there may be nothing as beautiful as what existed in the past. Nor may there be anything as radiant as what one might dream of for the future. But here there exists our own life that can be concretely grasped. Let us live it with all our strength. People who live by such a perspective are Realists.

The first person clings to legend, the second to ideals, the third to humanity.

Could my view of these three -isms be mistaken? If my view is not mistaken, then I must declare that I belong to the ranks of Realists. The reason is that I now have nothing outside myself to rely on. And because this self of mine has its existence in the present. I too have my past and future. However, the I that I must rely upon most is this I sandwiched between past and future. It is I of this present moment. I do not neglect my past or future. Even if I were to neglect them, in reality, the past would seep through me, and the future would guide my present into unknown worlds. I can do nothing about that. Yet I do not attempt to view my present through past and future; instead, I endeavor to absorb both past and future within my present self. My present is my past and at the same time seeks to become my future. In other words, I seek to gain freedom of emotion toward the past, assert freedom of will toward the future, and establish only the necessary norm within the present.

If asked why you take that stance, there is no reason other than that doing so suits my disposition.

To me, nothing feels more precious than life's own grasp of life itself. That is to say, life's tension appears most desirable. Does not this tension of life perpetually draw both past and future into the present? At such moments, I am not measured by legends—rather, I measure legends themselves. My ideals now press close, entering this present self of mine, striving to manifest within me as I truly am. Thus do I unify the three -isms within the now. To elaborate—here remain not three -isms, but myself alone. I cannot but feel this state of individuality to be most intimately mine.

My present has no choice but to be as it is. Even if others may view it as utterly incomplete and blemished with stains, and even when I step beyond that temporal boundary to reflect on it as the past—finding it entirely inadequate—for me living in the present, this present self of mine can only exist as it is. Whether good or bad, it cannot exist otherwise. For me, my present always holds supreme and infinite value. For me, there is nothing else that could replace it. The certain affirmation of my existence is granted solely in each present moment.

Therefore, for me, there remains no other path but to respect the present as the sole jewel and live it most fully. I have made my decisive stand there with no retreat. Yet, how could I possibly despise all of the past and ignore all of the future? Is not my present all of the past that clings to my soul? There are my parents there as well. There are my ancestors there as well. There is the full measure of their work. There is also the vast world that surrounded those people and their work. At times the sun would shine upon it and the rain would moisten it. At times, a comet wandering from end to end of the heavenly realm would cast its rare light. At times, the Earth’s axis shifted its angle. Is it not that all those forces have gathered every bit of their power and accumulated within me? How could I possibly despise them? Even if I were to forget that power, that power would never forget me for even an instant. I merely consider it utterly futile and fruitless to think of those things as detached from my present. I came to realize that those things can only possess value when strictly woven into my present. After all, the past that has been completely absorbed into the present is—even if one were to call it “the past” with that word—nothing outside the present to me. Unless I bring what constitutes the very essence of the present to this point, its substance cannot hold together at all.

I have grown utterly weary of the hollow attempt to construct a seat for individuality through comparison—pitting the past in its detached state against the present. Is this not a foolish, futile attempt—like scientists trying to immediately apply their approach to handling experimental materials directly to life itself? Between scientists and experiments there is clearly a subject-object relationship. But between myself and my individuality, there must not exist the slightest gap or hierarchy. All oppositions must disappear within me.

Regarding the future as well, I believe I can say the same. There exists nothing that can complete my future—or rather, the entirety of what is to come—save myself. When considering how the future unfolds, if one were to disregard me as but a single human being, no aspect of that future could take form. This is not in any measure an arrogant declaration. What constructs that future is my present. Should my present become lost, my future could never emerge. If my present can be lived to its fullest height, then my future will stand established in its noblest form. To slacken from the tension before one's very eyes and idly fantasize of tomorrow—how could such trifling ever lend even a mote's worth of aid in forging the future? When strength is gathered so completely into the present that no thought remains for what lies ahead—is not a worthy future being wrought at each passing moment?

I possess none of the sentimentalist's bittersweet tears. I lack the romanticist's dazzling reveries. Yet bearing every flaw and all ugliness—how profoundly intimate, how immeasurably precious this present remains to me! The vital savor of fulfillment dwelling there, that essential humanity—these prove more than sufficient to compel my being. This banquet leaves me utterly satiated.

10

And yet, how unattainable are the complete fullness and intensity of individuality! Words like "a life aflame" or "white-hot vitality" may find expression through pen and paper, yet they seldom grace my actual lived experience. But this was not entirely absent for me either. I managed to catch faint glimpses of how precious and rare that boundary truly was. Before and after that quintessential moment stretches an unbroken continuum of existence never reaching that threshold. This relationship—I shall now endeavor to trace its contours, however indistinctly.

My individuality—unable to free itself from contact with the external world—must, even while guiding an autonomous life, perpetually maintain some angle toward that world to sustain its existence. At times I accepted external stimuli as they were and lived without reflection. At times I lived by reflexively moving my consciousness in response to external stimuli. At other times, without waiting for external stimuli, my life was moved by an irresistible internal force and acted upon the external world. Such changes resulted solely from fluctuations in the intensity of my life’s tension. This did not represent a state of living achieved by decomposing life into intellectual activity, emotional activity, and volitional activity. When expressing the workings of human individuality, resorting to such decomposition methods was what I most detested. In the life processes of humans, distinctions such as intellect, emotion, and will did not truly exist. It was merely that situations where life worked unchanged upon a certain object were called will, situations where life acted by altering the object or changing the quantity of force were termed emotion, and situations where life made choices concerning two or more objects were named intellect. Human mental activities were not governed by a triumvirate. They were governed by a more pure and unified force. Therefore, a slightly meticulous observer would discover numerous mental activities between intellect and emotion, between emotion and will, and between will and intellect—activities that could not be clearly assigned to any of these categories. When examining the iris, one discovered an infinite number of intermediate colors between red, blue, and yellow—it was precisely the same. Red, blue, and yellow were originally mere illusions that should have been unified by white. Thus, just as when we tried to fully observe sunlight itself—no matter how much we studied its decomposed colors—we could not thereby fully comprehend the totality of the light’s essential characteristics, so too, no matter how scientifically we investigated the phenomena of intellect, emotion, and will, we could not even conceive of grasping mental activity itself. Induction served only description. But it did not serve to express the essence. This simple principle was often overlooked. In an age that placed supreme value on science—and consequently on scientific research—the fundamental flaws of induction were often thoughtlessly overlooked.

Now, I seem to have wandered into a crossroads. I will return once more to my immediate problem.

I tentatively called a life that accepted external stimuli as they were a "habitual life." That was a life no different from that of a stone. A stone, without external stimuli, remained eternally in one place, gradually perishing over time. A stone never acted upon the external world from its own initiative. In me—as if traits common to what were called lower animals remained—even the existence of inorganic substances appeared stagnant. That was a phenomenon that always emerged where human life became most sluggish. When matters our ancestors had fully experienced were repeated again, we no longer needed to consciously exert our abilities. Life activities regarding such matters were left to us solely in the form of habit.

Chesterton observed, “No revolutionary behaves like one in mundane matters—they perform perfectly ordinary acts no different from common people.” How true this rings. For one such as myself—no revolutionary—this manner of living constitutes a significant portion of my existence. Each morning I washed my face. When no alteration occurred in my washing implements, I performed this ablution through identical motions without conscious thought. Any careless deviation from this ritual only bred fresh irritation. Such a life lay entirely under the dominion of the past. The consciousness of my individuality remained utterly dormant in these moments.

I do not say that such a life is without merit. Because I live this kind of life, there is no telling how much my daily existence is spared from tangled conflicts. Through this sluggish life being sustained on one front, we come to feel on another the desire for a necessary direction—a life of tension—and are able to achieve it.

However, from the perspective of my individuality, such a life—whether it should be considered good or bad when placed within individuality—is called into question. Because my individuality strives to cling strictly to the present, while such a life is nothing more than the accumulated past operating within me without any link to my individuality. Moreover, the content of such a life exists in a deeply unstable state. If external circumstances change even slightly, this life can no longer be sustained there. And I find myself entering the realm of intellectual life that I am about to describe. I cannot remain content relying on this life.

Moreover, individuality—which by instinct demands self-expression—cannot sustain existence through reliance on habitual life alone. I cannot find satisfaction in mere repetition of the past. Because there dwells no self there—only habit—and because between the external world and myself exists nothing but inorganic causality. I yearn to advance from stone—to become at least plant or beast. The tension of this craving drives me to select yet another facet of living.

I.

I call that intellectual life (intellectual life).

In this form of life, my individuality first revealed itself as an independent entity and established opposition with the external world. That was a reflective life. When the external world acted upon individuality, individuality consciously reacted to this. That is, experience and reflection emerged in my life. The individuality that had resigned itself to being conquered by the external world now exerted its uniqueness, took on the external world, and challenged it. In habitual life, I existed in an originless world. In intellectual life, I for the first time entered a dualistic existence. Here I existed. There lay the external world. The external world assailed me. I collided with the external world through the form called experience. And from this battlefield of experience arose what we called reflection. At times it was victory; at other times, defeat.

In either case, reflection sorts the results of experience into appropriate categories. People name this accumulation of classified experiences as knowledge. To organize knowledge, I create certain reliable laws. The laws erected upon this accumulation of knowledge are what people name morality.

The view that morality concerns interpersonal relations may appear reasonable at first glance, but I do not share this perspective. Even Robinson Crusoe in his initial solitude upon being cast ashore possessed a morality directed toward himself. Could we not call any inclination toward self-improvement in response to external stimuli morality? Was not Crusoe's journey to retrieve supplies from the wrecked ship an act of personal morality? Yet Crusoe eventually rescued Friday from his would-be murderers. Crusoe and Friday mutually demanded to sustain an optimal relationship. Crusoe needed to discover a mediating point between his self-directed morality and that governing his conduct toward Friday. Friday exerted equivalent effort regarding Crusoe. Fortunately their endeavors found common ground. Thus they not only maintained harmonious relations on that island but ultimately achieved rescue and return to England. Though interpersonal morality emerged following Friday's arrival, would it not be erroneous to claim no morality existed during Crusoe's solitary period? Morality constitutes determining one's proper stance through knowledge of both self and external world—be that nature or fellow humans. Therefore morality must inherently apply both to solitary individuals and groups. Yet its substance transforms alongside shifts in knowledge. For knowledge itself evolves with changes in the external world. Hence morality inevitably changes as the external world changes.

There seem to be no small number of people in the world who find the mutability of morality unsatisfactory. The fact that the sole standard by which one must govern oneself must constantly change immediately suggests the very instability of human life itself. Behind the morality that humans possess, there must be something immutable; even the easily changing derivative morality undoubtedly has, so to speak, temporary roots there. Because imperfect humans cannot grasp the universal and immutable root of morality all at once, they merely adopt a part of it erroneously as their standard through groping efforts. Because it is a partial aspect, it may require revision due to external circumstances—yet this does not immediately and conclusively prove the mutability of morality itself. Certain people may think so.

Even so, I insist that the content of morality constantly changes. What I perceive as universal and immutable is the moral nature inherent within me. That is to say, I know this tendency—which inevitably seeks to create standards from accumulated knowledge for regulating oneself against the external world—persists unchanged in essence (leaving aside fluctuations in intensity). Yet anyone should readily understand that moral nature and morality constitute entirely distinct concepts. To me, the mutability of morality's content holds no mystery whatsoever. Nor does it cause distress. What remains immutable despite one's desire to alter it is precisely this tendency that generates morality. To presume its content might change would leave me desolate. Yet fortunately, I need harbor no anxiety on that account. For through lived experience, I know its permanence full well.

Knowledge and morality change. Yet as long as they remain fixed for a time and my efforts in life cannot enrich their substance, they persist rigidly as knowledge and as morality. But when my life transcends them, both knowledge and morality withdraw into the realm of habit, forfeiting their value as knowledge or morality. In my existence of unconsciously adapting only to external stimuli, there may be what some observer deems a moral act. Yet for me this can never be moral—because to be moral, I must be exerting effort.

Intellectual life was not only a life of reflection but also a life of effort. Humanity had to synthesize here the results of long experience, create shared norms to rely upon together, and live their lives according to those norms. Effort was truly the vital touchstone that sifted people from mere stones. In plants and animals, this life activity called effort was carried out unconsciously or as a painful condition of life. However, humanity did not view effort as mere pain. Effort was perceived by humanity as fulfilling moral demands—a consciously developed tendency particular to humankind. In order to satisfy that tendency, humanity did not seek to inflict pain that accompanied moral effort. This manifestation lent solemn grandeur to human history.

Is there anyone who does not praise knowledge and morality—the products of intellectual life? It is a phenomenon that suggests humanity’s unwearying path of endeavor toward truth. Amidst all doubt and all destruction, this great power has never been worn away. Just as the Phoenix, though burned by fire, revives again into youthful existence and perpetually spreads both wings toward the vast sky, so too shall this life of ceaseless endeavor long flourish in this world as humanity’s rightful warrant as sovereigns of the earth.

However, having obtained supreme stability in this life, do I not still feel emptiness in my heart?

I must answer no. After a long detour, I found within my individuality the homeland I had long sought in vain. Though encircled tenfold by the external world, this individuality must find fulfillment within itself. It never tires until that demand is fulfilled. Did intellectual life fulfill this for me? It did not. For intellectual life remains at its core a dualistic existence. Therein lies an eternal requirement: opposition between individuality and external world. I must assume a stance toward nature or people. Where there exists an experiencing self and an experience-imposing external world, knowledge emerges. Where there exists an effort-striving self and an external world as its object, morality arises. I am neither knowledge itself nor morality itself. They serve merely as rational bridges connecting self and external world. I cannot mistake these bridges—these means—for reality itself. I desire peace yet crave progress. I seek elaboration yet yearn for creation. Peace becomes the adjustive continuation of existing states; progress their constructive dismantling. Elaboration improves what exists; creation births what never was. I cannot endure dwelling solely on one side. I ceaselessly strive to leap from one re-creation of individuality to another.

However, does intellectual life fulfill this leaping internal demand of mine? The starting point of intellectual life was experience. Experience was, in short, the residue of my life. That could only be recognized through reflection—the retrospection of consciousness. For a single phenomenon to become knowledge, it needed to have been filtered through life. Suppose there existed a certain piece of knowledge here. For me to acknowledge it as something useful for recognizing phenomena—even if that knowledge had been formed through others' experiences—my own experience must have endorsed it. Had my experience borne no relation to the foundational experience of that knowledge, I could never have acknowledged it as usable knowledge. Therefore, the knowledge I possessed became ultimately a tool for organizing my past and handling future events. My relationship with morality could be determined through identical reasoning. Both knowledge and morality were constructs built upon existing experience—to keep them useful unchanged required my life to travel repeatedly along identical tracks. Therein naturally had to be shunned all vigorous activity of progress or creation.

I cannot say I do not rejoice in the peace of my life and the embellishment of its content. Needless to say, such demands are at work within me with great force. I must be grateful to intellectual life for the fulfillment of those demands. However, will I forever remain satisfied adhering solely to these conservative tendencies? In social life—which tends toward more sluggish activity than that of an individual—the demands of this conservative intellectual life naturally grow stronger than those of an individual. The state of peace and safety tends to become the foundation of social life. Therefore, under the current mode of human life, even if individuals' dynamic tendencies are ignored and suppressed, there remains hope to establish intellectual life. Modern politics, education, academia, and industry have set their aims largely on emphasizing and practicing this intellectual life. Therefore, if I were to settle solely into this kind of life and rely on the knowledge and morality prescribed by society, I would likely receive the highest reward from society. And my external right to survival would be most securely guaranteed. And the substance of society would increasingly become peaceful, embellished, and integrated under an orderly form.

But—as even society dimly perceived this tendency—what was I to do about the stern existence within me of life tendencies more intense than intellectual life? Should I sacrifice them for social life? For peace—society’s greatest demand—should I suppress these impulses toward progress and creation? Must my dissatisfaction remain baseless? Though social life often moved more sluggishly than an individual’s own existence, I could not believe society wholly lacked what I possessed—for was I not myself an undeniable constituent element forming that very society? What I desired must surely align with society’s desires too. And I yearned for progress alongside peace—creation hand in hand with elaboration. Though society now treated this impulse as a stepchild—and given its nature would likely forever do so—this force must lie dormant somewhere as latent potential within its fabric. For society ceaselessly progressed and created despite its own will.

The unified existence of me becoming wholly myself—this I had long yearned for. I now felt as though I was slowly advancing toward that temple.

12

Up to this point, however haltingly, my words had remained faithful to what I meant to convey. Yet the words I was about to write would likely rebel against my control. But even should they rebel, I could not lay down my pen here. By whipping words, I tried to whip myself. Both I and my words might falter in this arduous task of expressing individuality. The readers—likely few—who had been my companions thus far might despair and abandon me. At that moment, rather than resent their fragile patience, I could only mourn the inadequacy of my own experience. I would not justify even this corruption of words. Relying on faint suggestive expressions, I resolved to manifest myself nonetheless.

From non-origin to duality, from duality to unity. From preservation to organization, from organization to creation. From no effort to effort, from effort to super effort. The final stage of each of these processes now lay before me, poised for expression.

The tension of Individuality dragged me forth and thrust me into the external world. In the absence of the external world acting upon Individuality，Individuality proactively acted upon the external world. That is，Individuality began its own life not through external stimuli，but through self-necessitated impulses. I tentatively called this instinctive life (impulsive life). What ignited this impulse within me? I did not know. But could we not discern in nature the provisional form of this impulse?

At the beginning when the Earth was formed, not even a trace of organic matter existed there. When a certain period arrived, organic matter emerged. Even if it was brought to Earth's surface via meteorites from another celestial body as some scientists have imagined, our planet—initially inhospitable to organic existence—had gradually transformed to accommodate its development. Following organic matter's emergence, single-celled organisms appeared. Then began growth and differentiation. Their forms differed markedly from the crystal-like growth phenomena seen in inorganic substances. Single-celled organisms eventually became multicellular organisms—some anchoring themselves as plants, others developing mobility as animals. Until humanity emerged from these animals, their evolutionary course saw repeated phenomena we might rightly term creations. Rather than successive occurrences, every process formed an unbroken chain of creation flowing into creation. A mysterious force whipped organisms that clung like Caliban to preserving habits and forms, driving them through successive differentiations. Who could behold this undeniable reality without awe? The great power that thus guided earthly existence also constitutes the core of my individuality. Urged by an irresistible force, my individuality strives to leap toward new being. The origin of this force remains ever intrinsic. It springs from within. Dofris's experimental report—showing how evening primrose seeds from a single flower sprouted in identical soil and conditions yet emerged in diverse forms—directly translates my individuality's yearning. Even should Dofris's Mutation Theory face experimental disproof, my individuality would maintain this reflects experimental error rather than nature's fallacy. At least upon Earth works this wondrous power—conscious or not—of recognizing and creating individuality. What Bergson calls recognition and experience within pure duration perfectly aligns with what my individuality affirms. Within individuality reside experiences transcending physical time.

The very experience that cannot be grasped by so-called reflection—this backward glance through consciousness—manifests itself as recognition. Here there remains no distinction between self and other. No dualistic opposition exists. Is this not life’s true naked expression? My individuality had long yearned to return to this realm.

For example, I pictured a great current in my mind. I did not know where this flow originated or where it flowed away. Yet that river surged boundlessly from infinity to infinity. Nor did I know what soil formed its banks. But had not that river built them from within itself over eons? My individuality too was a single drop in those waters. The current's force dragged me along to some unknown destination. At times I drifted near the bank. There, friction with the shore slowed both the surrounding water and myself compared to midstream's flow. Sometimes—as one often observes in rivers—midstream's velocity even pushed me into reverse eddies. At such moments I felt wretched. I could not advance from vista to vista. Yet once carried to midstream, I became utterly secure and free. I moved by the river's own momentum. Though propelled by the force sweeping all waters forward, I remained unaware of this fact. I flowed downstream through every desire. For the river's swiftest current was none other than my very craving. Thus I was absolutely free. But approaching zones where both banks constrained the flow, I bitterly sensed my freedom diminishing. There first appeared fate's stern hand—existing beyond myself.

I must tremble before the feeling of an inescapable destiny there. The river water knows no path by which to choose its own position. Yet humans know that. And they can execute that choice. That is the act compelled by the awareness humans possess.

Are humans the master of fate or its slave? This problem often plunges us into gloom. Without decisive critique of this problem, understanding of God, establishment of moral law, foundation of science, and human standpoint—all will remain unstable. I too have long suffered over this problem. However, I now feel that I can perceive, however faintly, a glimmer of dawn toward its resolution.

If instinctive life was experienced, the person who experienced it must certainly have known the absolute freedom of human will. Instinctive life was monistic, and there existed no object to restrain it. It proceeded along the inevitable path by its own necessary will. Is it not that freedom of will ultimately refers to the very necessity of the will itself? If one did not acknowledge the will’s desire, the problem of freedom or unfreedom did not arise. If one acknowledged the will’s desire, acknowledged that this desire of the will was inevitable, and came to know that the will placed in the instinctive realm was instinct itself—with nothing to obstruct it—then the freedom of will as we define it had to be affirmed as such.

In intellectual life and what lies beneath, matters do not proceed in such fashion. Intellectual life subsists solely through perpetual regulation with the external world. Without existence of this external world, such life cannot operate. The external world perpetually stands in oppositional relation to intellectual life while simultaneously forming its very foundation. Thus this existence cannot know freedom. Moreover, I had earlier posited that intellectual life's mode necessarily arises from retrospection upon the past. Any lived experience already concluded—even were it instinctive life—remains concluded experience. Its form neither regresses nor transforms. Intellectual life indeed takes shape through cognizance and contemplation of such fixed, finalized existences. How could concepts borne of such contemplation escape being dyed with fatalistic hues? Therefore we may declare human existence alternately fated or free. When fated, it signifies life's recession from proper tension. While lived under true tension, individuality invariably dwells within consciousness of absolute freedom. Hence more precisely expressed—fundamental human existence proves guidable by will's freedom.

Simultaneously, there is no morality in instinctive life. Therefore, there is no effort. This life is an inevitably free life. In inevitability, there are no two paths. Where there are no two paths, there can be no choice between good and evil. Therefore, it transcends morality. Freedom is sein, not sollen. It is precisely for choosing between two paths that effort is required, but in freely advancing along a single path, what assistance of effort could be needed?

I play for creation. I do not make effort. Therefore, I neither succeed nor fail in my efforts. As I succeed, there is no need to be humble toward fate. Nor, as I fail, is there any need to look back upon fate and make excuses. All responsibility—if one were to insist on saying it—lies within me. All reward lies within me.

For example, there was a certain rural area. Within it were scattered cultivated fields, forests and woodlands, roads, and houses; people each privately owned certain parts of this land and worked to maintain the order and peace of the rural area. Those who harvested another’s fields were charged with a crime. Those who wandered through forests and woodlands instead of using the roads were viewed with suspicion. That was as it should be. The reason was that fields existed for the livelihood of their owners, and roads were established for the travel of wayfarers. It unfolded before me a bird’s-eye view of intellectual life. There was a person there. He felt the impulse to explore the uncharted land that spread beyond that rural area. He stepped out of the rural area and set foot into that wilderness. There, no road lay for him to advance upon. There were no crops to plunder. Who could pass judgment on the step his foot took at that moment? The very fact that he resolutely took a step into the unknown world could indeed be called good, if one were to call it such. His foot was treading a world beyond morality. It faintly evoked in me an image of instinctive life.

The sight of lightning splitting through dark clouds as it flows from one corner of the sky to another made me contemplate the power and sharpness of instinct's torrent. In the lightning that ran in a powerful arc, one could sometimes see tributaries branching from the main stream here and there, racing toward their destinations like the branches of a great tree. The ends of those tributaries were often swallowed by dark clouds and vanished without a trace. Do such phenomena not frequently arise even within human instinctive life? When someone moved purely according to instinctive tendencies, they mistakenly tried to advance even faster than instinct's own pace. And finally deviating from instinct's main current, they recklessly charged forward along the labyrinth that led to self-destruction. And finally, they vanished completely, ceasing to be anything at all. That was a tragic self-contradiction. His creative tendency led him to fruitless self-destruction. When viewed from the world of intellectual life, this might appear as nothing more than a foolish blunder. It was certainly not rational. Moreover, when such phenomena were discovered amidst the turbulence of intellectual life, they were not moral. But for the very individuality that lived that life, there was no room to insert conflicts between good and evil or the rational and irrational. Such a tension-filled life as this had been lived with self-satisfaction—that was all there was. We who lived with intellectual life as our foundation and had become accustomed to its standards—did we not tend to view all phenomena solely through this intellectual lens? And did we not fail to see that beyond where we had taken a single step past intellectual life lay an even more intense and pure existence lying in wait? If we persisted in such an attitude, that had to be called a grave error. Because human creative life came to a halt in that very moment. A society that remained vague and incapable of even hazarding a guess in contrast to this instinctive could be nothing other than what might be called as sound as pigs.

The world of free creation was a world of play, a world of inclination, a world without purpose. I called it play precisely because it required no effort. I called it inclination precisely because it required no obligation. I called it purposeless precisely because life itself was not a means to achieve a purpose. In earthly life—surrounded only by slow and retrospective existence—I believed I could find the manifestation closest to purity in the embrace formed between healthy lovers at love's zenith. Before they approached their bed, the world of moral knowledge withdrew its shadow entirely. The man and woman became nothing less than incarnations of love's instinct. At that moment they neither regarded their neighbors nor weighed their own lives and deaths. The two burned solely with exchanging love's tokens. And this self-oblivious ecstasy—ecstasy verging on anguish—became love's game stretched to utmost tension. It was nothing beyond that. Yet within this very state was being accomplished humanity's mightiest mysterious creation. What strangeness could there be in Whitman singing of carnal desire in *Children of Adam*, praising those moments evoking nature's virile nakedness? How manifestly clear stood his reason for resolutely refusing when Emerson demanded its retraction! That love which advances even unto flesh yet ferments no regret or hatred—this alone was true love. The form of that love held matchless beauty. I believed I could also discover instinctive life's near-primordial manifestations within innocent children's absorbed play. He truly transcended both time and reputation. For him existed no purpose beyond play itself. Even were we to posit his superficial purpose as creating a paper box—in that moment of total absorption into production—the purpose became subsumed within creation's very means.

There was no effort or obligation attached there. As I watched that pure and unadulterated outpouring of life, tears welled up from sheer envy. If only there had been moments when my life were guided by such an attitude—then might I have achieved true creation at last.

Have I neglected describing instinctive life while squandering words in its praise? I must ask your provisional indulgence. Because I mean to position instinctive life above intellectual life. There exists none who would not place what I call intellectual life above habitual existence. Yet when proposing instinctive life's elevation over intellectual life - would not most people hesitate? Considering humanity's present foundation in intellectual life, this hesitation proves entirely natural. From purely utilitarian grounds alone, one might even deem such hesitation justified. But if we accept this vital premise - that existence attains truest form when expressing instinct's purest reach - then instinctive life holds greater worth for me than intellectual life. If measuring by value be unjust, then call it nobler still. Moreover I cannot properly conceive this life's substance (itself because it transcends rational expression). Here I can but faintly trace this noble life through metaphor and praise - there exists no other path.

13

14

When using the term “instinct,” I am not without some fear of misunderstanding. This term has been particularly debased from its true meaning by science. Or rather, the masses thoroughly distorted and defiled this term that science had used naively. However, it must now be restored to its original meaning. Bergson began using this term in its correct sense. Russell (though I have never read Mr. Russell’s writings myself) also appears to follow Bergson’s lead in striving to use this term appropriately.

Instinct can be considered as referring to the will inherent in nature itself. In wild beasts, this force manifests itself with a rawness inherent to their nature. Natural science observed these manifestations and described them in detail, and noted that this could also be observed in human activities. This description is undeniably an evident fact. Yet science has never concluded from this fact that all human activity consists solely of the instincts manifested in beasts. Nevertheless, people frequently attempt to misuse scientific descriptions. I believe this cannot be dismissed as mere misunderstanding.

Humans are human. They are not beasts. What beasts do with near-unconscious minds, humans perform with full awareness. If people were to misuse that self-awareness and—in the absence of love's demand reaching even to the flesh—simply pursue beastly instincts observed superficially, this could never be called the complete activity of human instinct. At the same time, attempting to intellectually separate elements shared with beasts from human instinct and fabricate realms like "pure spirit" constitutes clear persecution of instinct without justification. Instinct cannot coexist with division. Instinct must always function in its entirety. Human instinct—neither that of beasts nor angels—must also operate through its complete being. Only from this totality could emerge—should it arise—the instinct for existence beyond humanity. When people fail to accept instinct's harsh reality and romanticize it instead, they erect empty castles in the air called worlds of pure spirit. Is this not where ascetic moral codes take root—those that presume we can sharply divide flesh from spirit, then dogmatically declare leaning toward one extreme as life's highest form? When people avoid instinct's harsh reality through sentimentalizing it, they imagine debased worldviews called realms of carnal desire. Is this regression to bestial origins—itself resulting from instinct's fragmentation—not what tears humanity from its majestic throne? I knew full well that whenever my life lost its intensity and unwittingly drifted from present reality toward future or past, such instinctual fragmentation inevitably manifested. In those states I invariably felt dissatisfaction. A single misstep would send that dissatisfaction charging recklessly toward deeper fragmentation—all for some physician's sake. This was perilous. In such moments I was unmistakably digging my own grave. No one could save me from this. Only I myself could achieve salvation.

If there are those who misuse the instinct I speak of to advance toward self-destruction, then I would have nothing more to say. To tell the truth—if I fear misunderstanding—I should not have said anything from the start. I must cease this presumptuous meddling—this old woman's kindness that ill becomes me.

15 Humans are human. They are not beasts. They are not angels. I stated that humans have instincts bestowed upon them by great nature. In that case, I would likely be met with a counter-question: “Then what exactly is this instinct?” I naturally bore the responsibility to answer this. I resolved to fulfill that responsibility in my own poor way. I attempted to lay bare here what my small experiences compelled me to write. I had carelessly referred to the flow of instinct carved out by humans simply as instinct. That was permissible to some extent. For the instinct possessed by humans was also part of great nature’s instinct. However, having written my analysis this far, I found it convenient to call it by a specific name.

The instinct carved out by human agency—do people not generally call that love? The Way that Laozi said should be called the Way is not the constant Way—perhaps that very path might signify this instinct. The loyalty and sincerity that Confucius declared paramount might perhaps denote this as well. The bodhicitta of Shakyamuni, John’s Logos, and countless other names might have been devised to signify this instinct. Yet for my own convenience, I shall provisionally name it love. Though love, like instinct, already clings to various impure attributive meanings, among all designations this word seems to contain the least specialized and most universally comparative substance. When one speaks of love, people commonsensically grasp—however dimly—what it signifies.

Love was the pure instinctual force manifested in humans. Yet we who were bound by the habit of conceptual thinking—even when examining the grave matter of love—found ourselves captured by deeply ingrained, superficial notions; had we not often reached conclusions diametrically opposed to its true nature?

When people examine love, as with other matters, do they not attempt to begin by observing its external manifestations and strive to fully grasp its essence? Polo states in his epistle that love “gives without sparing”—“and so on”—these are words that perfectly express love’s external manifestations. Those who love are those who give. He seeks to give as much as he can from his own possessions. From him, what he once possessed is lost; though he may appear impoverished as a result, not only does he not lament this—he instead rejoices and leaps for joy. This is undoubtedly a phenomenon observed wherever love exists. The defining characteristics of lovers’ psychology and actions are radiating and giving. People start from observing this phenomenon and attempt to deduce love’s essence—immediately defining it as an instinct to give and a radiating energy. Many limit their reflection here and, without fully savoring love’s experience, hastily accept this notion to build their life philosophies upon it. This concept becomes recognized as morality’s central pillar. An ethical perspective of altruism takes form. Sacrifice and devotion are extolled as human life’s most sublime virtues. Furthermore, this concept comes to be considered the sharpest weapon against egoism’s vital core.

I did not categorically reject that this was viewed as such. When love was brought into intellectual life, it was natural that such conclusions were reached. In intellectual life—because love was examined solely through rational analysis—it was never recognized in its active form within existence's inner workings. Love became provisionally detached from life and observed only as a fixed phenomenon. Intellect merely revolved around love's periphery—no matter how thoroughly—without penetrating its core. However intellectually meticulous and precise those conclusions were, could they truly claim to have grasped instinctive love's essence?

To grasp instinct—to understand instinct in its pure form—there was no path other than grasping it within instinctive life. Only experience made it possible. My experience—even if it might be meager—could not perceive love’s essence as an instinct to give. According to what my experience told me, love was not an instinct to give but one to take; not a radiating energy but an attracting energy.

If acts done for others are called altruism and acts done for oneself are called egoism, then those terms are appropriate. Because the term “to benefit” is a word that should express actions. However, if ethics defines altruism as recognizing an impulse or instinct aimed at benefiting others and asserts egoism as an impulse or instinct aimed at benefiting oneself, then those terms lose their precision. That terminology must naturally be rewritten with the terms “love-other-ism” and “love-self-ism.” As the two terms “benefit” and “love” self-evidently indicate, this is because benefit is a word expressing actions or results, while love is a word expressing motives or causes. Doesn’t this terminological error inadvertently expose a conflation between love’s essence and its function? In other words, when people observe love’s function, do they not immediately speculate about its essence and bestow upon it a name that should apply solely to the essence? Moreover, people have the custom of calling the tendency of love working upon others altruism and the tendency working upon oneself egoism. Does this not also serve as evidence that people are viewing love’s workings through a kind of preconceived bias? Among these two terms, using the one carrying material associations for cases involving oneself and employing the term evoking spiritual associations for cases involving others likely reveals how we are constrained by the preconceived notion that love can only fully realize its function when benefiting others. From this confusion between love’s essence and its phenomena, our understanding will wander into labyrinths beyond anticipation.

XVI

Let us cease being mere bystanders to love; plunging into it through lived experience, we shall verify whether the notions thus far accepted hold true.

Do I love myself? I can answer without hesitation that I do love. Do I love others? To give an affirmative answer to this, I must necessarily impose certain conditions and limitations. If others do not interact with me in some way, I cannot love them. To speak earnestly: it is only because I feel this love toward myself that I can love others who interact with me. When I lose sight of my own existence that I should love—how could I possibly engage with others? And how could my love act upon those with whom I have no interaction? Therefore—to speak even more earnestly—I love others only when they have been assimilated into me in some state. However—truth be told—those assimilated into myself are no longer others. They are clearly part of myself. Thus even when loving others—in essence—I am loving myself through loving them. And I love only myself.

But what does loving oneself signify? I love myself. There is not the slightest pretense or exaggeration here. Nor can this be dismissed as an arrogant claim. It is merely stating what exists exactly as it exists. However, when I reflect on how profoundly and completely I love myself, the issue naturally shifts dimensions. If my reasoning holds true, has what has been called egoism—generally accepted until now—not been examined solely from an utterly utilitarian, materialistic, and superficial standpoint? In other words, has it not been that they appraised the biological principle of self-preservation in the crudest manner and conflated it with the instinct of self-love? "When we examine the state of biological development," could it be that Spencer's vague pronouncements about living organisms—like "We cannot help but acknowledge this"—have fundamentally underpinned our understanding of egoism? I do not deny that this assertion forms part of the complete truth. Yet my instinctual demands clearly refuse to find full satisfaction in this alone. Within the currents of my life, I recognize an abundantly latent desire to love myself more profoundly and completely. I am distinctly unsatisfied with mere guaranteed self-preservation. I actively push to expand myself, strive to enrich myself, and am ceaselessly driven by this desire—whether consciously or unconsciously. I must reject having this earnest desire equated with that utilitarian egoism. For this constitutes a terrifying tendency that would fundamentally destroy the meaning of egoism. If my egoistic instinct resided solely in self-preservation, it would be nothing more than a form of desire within intellectual life that seeks personal tranquility. Love is instinct. There can be no satisfaction in such a state.

My love within me desired the highest growth and completion. My love sought no objects outside myself. My individuality thus hastened along the path of growth and completion. How then was I to achieve this growth and completion? It was through plundering. The expression of love gave without reserve. But the essence of love plundered unreservedly. Just as an amoeba extended its pseudopods to engulf external nourishment and eventually assimilated it into its protoplasm, my individuality grew and completed itself solely by assimilating the external world through love. This did not occur through casting the stored elements of individuality out into the external world. Suppose I loved a canary. Because of that love, I gave a beautiful cage, fresh food, and ceaseless caresses. Would people not have hastily concluded, upon seeing these outward manifestations of my love, that its essence was founded solely on giving? Yet that assumption proved a lamentable fallacy fundamentally mistaken at its core. The more I loved that little bird, the more it became absorbed into me, inevitably assimilating into my very existence. Only the relationship of external forms maintained an eternal appearance of separation. In the canary’s intermittent chirps, I rejoiced or grieved together with the bird. At those moments, joy or sorrow belonged to the canary while also being my own. The more I loved the canary, the more the canary became my very self. For me, the canary ceased being an existence separate from myself. It was not a bird.

The canary was me. It was I who lived as the canary. "(The little bird was myself, and I lived a bird) 'I live a bird'... In English there exists this apt conception of love." If there were someone who nodded at this expression, that person would surely have nodded at what I meant to convey. I lived as that very canary indeed. Therefore I had no memory of granting external things - neither beautiful cage nor fresh food nor ceaseless caresses. Clearly I bestowed those things upon myself. Without exception I plundered both canary and all its possessions from external world into my individuality. See - love stands neither as radiating energy nor instinctual giving. Love constitutes fierce plundering force. To see it as giving amounts only to conclusion formed when third parties - having no direct stake between lover and beloved - superficially observe loving one's expressions of affection.

Thus guided by love’s instinct, I assimilate others into myself; through being loved by them in turn, I immerse myself within them—so that we, like warp and weft in woven silk, naturally weave life’s beautiful patterns there. As my individuality grows richer and deeper, the finer external world is drawn ever deeper into my being. Only then does life as a whole truly come into its own. There exists no sacrifice there. Nor any obligation. There remains only a privilege worthy of gratitude and a smile-kindling fullness.

XVII

When I lifted my eyes and looked, everything I saw was a mystery. When my mind momentarily shifted its perspective from its usual stance, what unfolded before my eyes was nothing but an astonishing mystery. However, for me who has completely anchored myself in the real world, such mystery remains a mystery yet is an ordinary fact. I can no longer maintain a childlike gaze of constant wonder. Even to this realistic, prosaic me, the workings of love alone are felt as an elusive manifestation of mystery.

Love plunders the external world to nourish my individuality. Yet because of this, the external world does not lose even a fraction. For example, through love, I plunder the canary into my innermost being. But through being plundered, the canary does not become either happy or unhappy. That little bird is at least materially enriched with a beautiful cage (which is surely better than being in an ugly one) and fresh food. This mystery, transcending the laws of matter, fully surprises me and even makes me sentimental. What a splendid world the world of love is! There, strange magic is ceaselessly performed in broad daylight. By observing this, I even try to forget all other mysteries. By being able to possess this one gift, I cannot help but feel profound gratitude toward all existence.

Those who insist love means an instinct to give would likely sneer upon hearing this assertion of mine. "What you proclaim," they might say, "is what I myself championed long ago. Do you not know this marvel—that love doubles itself through giving? Those who give love grow rich through giving; those who receive love grow rich through receiving. Have you truly never known this truth as ancient as the earth itself?" I am not ignorant of this. Yet I must impose one condition upon that proposition. This phenomenon of love doubling through giving occurs only when mutual affection exists between lover and beloved. Were such love fully received, its blessing would indeed multiply twofold. But what if the beloved remains unaware of being loved? Or rejects it outright? Could one still claim love had doubled then? Is this not merely a sentimental self-deception— or worse, an artificial mysticism forcibly grafted onto common notions?

If those who viewed loving as bestowing a favor when love acted unilaterally were to claim that the richness felt by the beloved’s heart became doubled precisely because the act of loving brought them a kind of self-satisfaction, then we had to declare this an utterly unbecoming stance for altruists who vehemently insisted love’s workings must be selfless. For at that moment, that person was clearly receiving a reward through the act of loving. How could work done while receiving a reward—whether from people or God—or work performed with the expectation of obtaining a reward, be called altruism? How could this possibly be a mind devoted to sacrificing for others? Those who insisted that loving was not for oneself but for others had to first examine these feelings without prejudice, I thought. They often preached “utilitarianism, utilitarianism,” abhorring reward-seeking actions as if they were snakes and scorpions. Yet was such a tendency not seen in their own actions and feelings? Their attitude toward that reward differed. Were we to claim it was incomparably more noble than base utilitarianism? Such sentiments held no resonance with me. The more they proclaimed its nobility, the more it appeared a lie. It could only be seen as utilitarianism concealed beneath a highly skillful and cunning mask. Whether it was non-material or purely spiritual—though such superficial distinctions held no real validity for me, I temporarily adopted the terminology some people advocated—what devotion, what sacrifice could there be in an act where some form of reward was imagined? If this could indeed be called hypocrisy, then was this not a monstrous, abominable hypocrisy? Because they asserted these things as if they were not utilitarian at all, feigning ignorance of the utilitarian results that should naturally be expected.

Perhaps they would say: "To love is humanity's supreme internal command. When people love, they love as water flows downward. There exists no expectation of reward in this act. Regardless of consequences, those who love will love." To equate this with utilitarians who act for rewards shows ignorance of the heart's exquisite workings—or so they claim. I consider this sophistry. Those who have loved know love's inevitable result: the acquisition of meaning. Such experiencers would never again name their heart's workings altruism. They would never speak of minds devoted to others' sacrifice. To do so would be profoundly wasteful.

Love is acquisition directed at oneself. Love unstintingly plunders. The beloved are plundered, yet strangely enough, nothing is taken. Yet those who love are surely plundering. When Dante was a boy, he saw Beatrice and experienced a love beyond worldly norms. After that, he did not see Beatrice for a long time. There was only one encounter. That was in the streets of Florence. Beatrice was with a female companion and held a red flower. In response to Dante's greeting, she returned a graceful acknowledgment. Afterward, Beatrice married another. Dante attended that wedding ceremony and fainted from overwhelming passion. From that time onward, he never again saw the lover dwelling in his heart's depths. And Beatrice—as befits the fate of all beautiful things—departed this world young. Records suggest Beatrice ended her days without ever encountering Dante's ardent love. Dante's love did not flow mutually with Beatrice (let those who believe love exists only through mutuality take heed). Dante alone loved her within his secret heart. And was he left bereft? How abundantly did Dante plunder from Beatrice! Did he not seize so richly from this lover that even after expending Beatrice throughout his life, surplus remained?

His life was lonely. It was squalid. Yet compared to the loneliness of those who have never loved deeply, what a difference there was! Dante, unable to contain the fullness of what his love had seized within himself, poured it beyond his heart as *New Life* and *The Divine Comedy*. How greatly we value this surplus born of Dante’s satiety! Whitman too once wrote in his tender impromptu verse: “I have loved. That love went unreturned. Did my love end fruitlessly? No. Through it I brought forth poetry,” he sings.

Behold how love plunders! Love devotes all its power solely to achieving the fullness and freedom of individuality. Love knows no obligation. Love knows no sacrifice. Love knows no devotion. Whether those plundered permit their plundering or not，love plunders untroubled by such concerns. When love acts mutually，we vie to plunder one another. We never give to each other. Thus we lose nothing yet mutually gain. This explains why lovers are said to receive double blessings. I rejoice at acquisitions matching my expectations，reaching ecstasy. I feel unmistakable gratitude toward these gains. This gratitude contains no hypocrisy. It is humanity’s innate sentiment toward what was destined to exist. The rapture of love… To speak plainly，my life exists nowhere beyond this. I clearly acknowledge that through loving others，I assimilate all into myself. Should people call me an egoist，I will not protest. If required，they may name me an altruistic egoist. For when I love spontaneously，I know beyond doubt I plunder for myself.

Is it not this centripetal, unsparing action of love that has bound all living beings together? Behold the beasts—how directly their love’s action (this state of mutual plundering) manifests itself! Are we to believe that with humans alone it takes an entirely opposite course? Such a thing cannot possibly exist. It is merely that humans attempt to deceive themselves beneath the mask of nicety. And indeed, humans suffer divine retribution for this deceit. This is hypocrisy’s emergence—absent in beasts, seen only in humans. Why should it be wrong to contemplate love purely in its radical essence? Without contemplating it in its essence, true progress and creation will never arise in human life.

The tendencies of intellectual life always debased instinct and utilized it only in a secondary state. What intellectual life demanded was peace and safety. In this life, the appearance of love was needed more than its essence. Whatever the internal demands were，as long as they simply gave to each other，peace was thereby maintained. Therefore，ethics and morality emphasized the virtues of duty and devotion. People were ultimately deceived by these fixed concepts. And where there was no love，they performed the same actions that love did. That is，they unashamedly radiated possessions lacking love’s hallmark toward the external world. However，possessions lacking love’s hallmark，once radiated into the external world，never returned to that person again. At that moment，a bitter aftertaste of the action’s consequences remained for him. To disguise that aftertaste，he resigned himself to having fulfilled duties for others and society and performed acts of devotion. And he attempted to feel an unworthy pride in that. Society，without considering the motives of such a person，immediately bestowed upon him the name of benefactor of society and humanity. For in intellectual life，it was convenient to encourage such conduct. While such people said and thought that such matters were not worth considering，due to the unfulfillment in their hearts，they unwittingly ended up considering them. Thus，that person obscured the divine punishment arising from the misuse of love through superficial concepts and societal praise，while society maintained peace through that person’s superficial actions. Thus，the result became lifeless material dregs that piled up grotesquely on the road of life. What could be the harmful effects of this accumulation? As anyone can infer，is it not the death of humanity itself?

18

Love was the growth and freedom of individuality.

“You may insist on that,” someone would surely say to me, “but— “There are countless examples in this world of people daring to destroy themselves for others—how do you propose to view that? “Even among animals that have not developed as far as humans, can we not observe the phenomenon of mutual aid? “How does your egoism intend to interpret that? “Even in that case, do you still intend to deny the existence of absolute altruism? “By destroying yourself, what do you seek to gain for yourself?” Someone might have pressed me with this question. Egoists who attempted to explain love from a scientific standpoint were trying to address this difficult problem through what should be regarded as the instinct for species preservation—a variation of self-preservation. However, this interpretation did not fully satisfy altruists, nor did it satisfy me. I had to examine this phenomenon from a different perspective.

The ferocity with which love spreads its unceasing plundering hands was beyond the imagination of those who habitually considered love only as something gentle. Just as the term “instinct” was plagued by attributes prone to misunderstanding, the term “love” too had been assigned many distorted meanings. When we spoke of love in general terms, was it not viewed as an exceedingly gentle, feminine emotion? Those who spoke fondly of love—was there not a danger that they would be taken for soft-headed sentimentalists? However, I had to say that that was a dangerous misunderstanding arising from a way of thinking extremely removed from the essence of love. Love might indeed dwell in gentle hearts. Yet love itself was not gentle. It was a fierce, merciless force. It was such a merciless, fierce force that one might fear its unadorned manifestation in human life would disrupt the very rhythm of existence. Consider—even in fleeting love, did not the lover’s cheek grow hollow? Even in the slightest illness of a child, did not the mother’s eyes grow hollow?

Individuality sought through love to plunder everything that can be seized from the external world for its growth and freedom. Love began its work from what lay close at hand, hauling back spoils of war in frantic disarray. The more intense the individuality grew, the more astonishing love’s workings became. If I were to plunder all that I loved, and if the one who loved me were to plunder all of me in turn, then the two would become one. There remained nothing left to seize—no one left to be seized.

Therefore, in that case, his death is my death. Suicide following one’s lord or love suicide could be perfectly natural in this way.

Yet even when two people’s love does not fully plunder each other, if my love can act with intensity, my growth will expand ever more. And a world—a world with an expanse that even negates time and space—becomes firmly established within individuality. And that world’s inexhaustible expansiveness shatters my habits, transforms my life, and ultimately destroys my weak, fleeting flesh. It ruptures them utterly.

What then do these critics truly mean by "self-destruction"? Does it not merely indicate physical annihilation? We are human beings. Humans must inevitably die someday. Eventually our bodies perish. This cannot possibly be avoided. Yet when critics must die because I loved them, it would be wrong to consider this a loss of individuality's growth and freedom. This is not disappearance of individuality—it signifies its expansion through growth into freedom until bodily destruction occurs. There are those who die fettered to mortality without achieving full individuality due to lack of love; there are those who die untimely yet complete in individuality's fulfillment through love's presence. But who can definitively judge what constitutes natural or premature death? To perish when love achieves completion—to shatter the body when individuality has accomplished its expansiveness yet still overflows—if this cannot be called natural death, where then exists true natural death? No death brings peace and purity like that of one who has loved. All other deaths bring anguish. This is not self-ruin for others' sake—the individuality of those destroying themselves attains supreme growth at death's instant. They seize everything attainable through human plundering. People merely provisionally term this state where fulfilled Individuality desires nothing more as "self-annihilation."

Whenever I reflect on this fact, what never fails to deeply impress me is Christ’s brief earthly life and his death. In his thirty-three-year life, remote from worldly eyes and surrounded by unlearned fishermen, tax collectors, and prostitutes, he was an unparalleled possessor and servant of profoundly good love. When he spent forty days fasting in the wilderness, he was tempted with the relief of the poor, the establishment of an earthly kingdom, and the acquisition of miraculous powers. However, he chose nothing but the work of pure love. He did not dare to do anything for the sake of intellectual life—that is, for earthly peace. He became estranged from his mother and brothers. He turned many children against their fathers. He angered its patriots by risking the disturbance of Judea. Then what did he do? Through his supreme love, he assimilated all humanity across three generations into himself. That alone was his irresistible work. The fact that he kept giving ceaselessly attests to how he found satisfaction in the expansion of his individuality and took joy in giving to himself. Was it not he who said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”? He indeed can be called the foremost one who profoundly understood the spiritual ecstasy of loving oneself. If he had not possessed the consciousness of having completely assimilated all living beings through that love, how could he have remained composed while surrounded solely by the destruction of his immediate life? And he said, "You too shall follow my example." It is that this boundary was not Christ’s own; he himself testified that we ordinary people too can walk the same path.

At last came the time when Christ had to perish physically. He suffered. And what wonder was there in that? He must have suffered from being unable to see with his eyes, hear with his ears, or touch with his hands the object of his love. He must have suffered too from the object of his love failing to understand love’s power as deeply as he did. But what tormented him most must have been that moment of doubt—whether his love had fully accomplished its plundering work. Yet at last came final peace: “Father—Father being Love—I entrust my body to Thee.” And truly divinely, he trampled underfoot that body emaciated through hardship for supreme satisfaction.

Where in Christ’s life was there obligation, where was there sacrifice? People often said Christ had sacrificed all things, endured every persecution and hardship for his messianic duty, and even dared to bear death on the cross. “Therefore you have been redeemed from sin through Christ’s Passion,” they declared. “You too must lead lives of sacrifice and devotion following his example”—so they preached. Yet I, as one individual, could never view the life Christ left us in such terms. Christ was no pauper of love who regarded giving as suffering. Christ had already plundered us into himself. He whispered in my ear: “Christ’s love has wholly assimilated all that is lofty, pure, and beautiful in this world. Evil things and ugly things too were assimilated into me and purified. Open your eyes and behold how abundant Christ’s possessions are. All that appears given and bestowed by Christ was in truth given and bestowed upon Christ himself. There exists nothing Christ did not give. Yet he lost nothing and gained everything. May you too partake in this great joy. What Christ demands of you is solely this one great matter: Even were you to give away everything, what would it profit you if you lost eternal life? Do you know the hypocrite? They are those who greedily cling to the noble name of sacrifice and devotion while squandering themselves on externals they’ve failed to assimilate. They are those who’ve so utterly lost love’s refuge that they cannot recognize this truth most worthy of gratitude—that to give to what has become one with yourself is to give to yourself.” “Look upon their distorted faces,” he urged, “as they forcibly mask wasted efforts’ bitter aftertaste with laughter.”

“That is a tragic error.” “You must know that to give what bears not the mark of love is the greatest sin.” “And that which bears the mark of love will return swiftly to your lap like a faithful dog, even if you were to cast it into the depths of hell.” “Fear not.” “Facts must finally overcome legend.”

That is truly so. I must not govern and bind love with the virtue of sacrifice and devotion. Love must be liberated from the world of intellectual life. This discovery was no small matter for me. Though based on frail and limited experience, my observations fully corroborate it. When driven by creative impulse to mercilessly examine myself—behold—did there not unfold a vibrant new world? When I discovered within my innermost being—that self which had trodden a lonely path scarce in life's vicissitudes—this multitude of individualities never before imagined, could I help but stare wide-eyed in astonishment? The more I fixed my gaze and gazed unflinchingly upon myself, the more distinctly emerged the manifold aspects of true human life. This mysterious world filling my interior and awaiting expression—what is it? I now finally know. It is the great host of love's captives—so to speak—that my ancestors and I have brought into my innermost being from the external world through love. They each recount their entire lives in their own words. And I know that if even my heart is properly prepared, it becomes possible to discern them through hearing, distinguish them through sight, and reproduce them in their true vitality. I already possess more than enough. For artistic creation's materials, I hold such abundance that even a lifetime spent expressing them would leave surplus. How could one explain this evident fact while ignoring love's plundering workings from without? Yet my love still seeks to plunder, insatiable. What fierce and unquenchable power this is!

The formidable strength of instinct that pierces through us. Even manifesting solely in humans, it remains so potent. To contemplate the totality of this power might expose the frailty of our cognitive faculties—yet even to these limited capacities, does it not appear as something infinitely grand and fervent?

XIX

In the guise of loving others, I have plundered all into my individuality. I must love better and more deeply to plunder more righteous things. Through loving myself more profoundly and truly, I shall come to see clearly what I must assimilate from others.

Since I love, I cannot forget there exists an aspect where I must hate. Does such a love exist beyond love and hate? A form of love that negates the two poles of hatred and affection, unifying yin and yang into something akin to Taiji—while not theoretically inconceivable—could such a thing truly be an indispensable grave matter for us humans in building our lives? At least for me, it holds no value beyond being a mere desire. In the world of God, or in transcendental metaphysics, such matters must be considered urgent issues that cannot be dismissed. Yet for me as one human being, what matters more is simply the immovable, undeniable fact that I both love and hate. The coexistence of these two seemingly contradictory mental tendencies vexes me and renders me wretched. For my Individuality in any circumstance aspires solely to an undivided singular path.

However, upon closer examination, love and hate do not signify two poles of opposing mental processes. Hatred is one transformed form of human love. The opposite of love is not hatred. The opposite of love is not loving. Therefore, only when I do not love am I unable to plunder anything into my individuality. Even when I hate, I plunder. That is the external world I hated, and what I cast against it. In loving—for example, were I to love a starving person and give them a meal—both the loved one and that meal would return to become my own flesh and blood. In hating—were I to hate someone who betrayed me and hurl abuse at them—both the hated one and my ugly invective would come back to nest within me. There they remain in my heart undiminished, just as with what love acquires. Through this, love feels like a stomach bearing undigested stones. So long as my instinct of love functions true, these persist like foreign matter within my essence—never dissolving into love’s core. I must endure perpetual discomfort from this. Is there anyone who does not hate? Hence among humans, does any exist who does not furrow their brow in gloom? When people wear expressions that disquiet beholders—might this gloomy visage stem from love’s monstrous spawn plundered through hatred, lodged within their depths to prod them? I know this bitter gloom intimately. It likely arises from knowing I’ve retreated one step from the brink humanity barely attained. Having tasted even scant joy in loving, I ache with hatred’s pain. Though both spring from instinct’s work, I must suffer knowing how hate pales beside love’s gratification.

Those who love well probably know how to hate strongly. At the same time, they also keenly feel how painful hating is. And they strive to find a way to exist without hating.

Not hating—is that an impossible thing? As humans, it may perhaps be impossible. However, we can at least reduce hatred’s objects. Not only can we do this—are we not constantly striving for it? If love and hatred are indeed born from the same instinct, this must inevitably be fulfilled. We will come to realize anything hateful from one perspective must necessarily prove lovable from another. Here stands a vessel. Had I not loved that vessel, it would mean nothing to me. But once I begin hating it, that vessel enters into strict communion with me. Only one step separates this from love. By using that vessel for purposes beyond my initial designs, I may make it serve me anew. Then my hatred would already have transformed into love. Should someone shatter this vessel immediately out of hatred—that person could only love just as shallowly where love is concerned. Strong lovers are tenacious clingers. Even their hatred stands substantiated by profound anguish. Thus they never lightly discard their hated object—and through that very tenacity may chance upon replacing it with love’s object instead.

As my love grew deeper and truer, I assimilated ever more through love, and all that was assimilated assumed their proper arrangement to become integrated into my innermost being. Thus was born anew within me that perfect world. To this great exultation I would fling anything without reservation. Yet when I knew how insignificant these flung treasures were compared to that joy; when I discovered even what I thought given as gifts ultimately returned to myself; when I felt what others saw as sacrifice was truly my own growth—in that moment, how could I be anything but life’s thorough affirmer? When all people lived by instinct’s demands and interacted thus, what could emerge but a truly sound society? When humanity truly felt that all deeds must be play rather than duty, precise intimations of life’s necessary progression would be granted. An undeniable falsehood lay at humanity’s communal foundation—this morality demanding instinct’s suppression. Calamitous were these moralists who championed this lie as necessity, bleeding themselves dry to enslave instinct. Calamitous indeed—those who confined human endeavor within intellectual life’s bounds and proclaimed this cramped path supreme. For they must someday meet sorrow’s revelation: that through lacking instinct’s experience, they had become shackles upon human life.

20

Do not pretend to love where you do not love. Do not pretend to hate where you do not hate. If there exists a supreme commandment that humans must uphold, there can be no other than this. Because love is a force of intense power, those who pervert it must be wounded on the spot. That person must bandage that wound with either incurable resignation or resentment—there can be no such aberration.

× Love was self-sufficient and still overflowed. Love had never borne a covetous countenance. Refrain from covetous countenances.

×

Christ said, “Do not judge one another.” Those words held a meaning beyond what was commonly perceived. For the life of love concerned solely the one who was loved. No matter what the result may have been, others possessed absolutely no criteria by which to judge it. However, in intellectual life, there existed externally prescribed standards. Anyone could apply that standard and measure another’s actions. Therefore, Christ’s words were not something to be applied to intellectual life. Christ had known full well what the life of love truly was. However, in their manifestation, it was nearly impossible for humans to distinguish between actions born from love and those born from imitation of love. Therefore, people must not judge others. And yet in this present world, how easily people are being judged!

×

Wherever sacrifice, devotion, duty, service, or the virtue of obedience were preached, we had to keep our eyes wide with vigilance. Thus theologians devised the relationship between gods and humans following the model of despotic politics. Thus politicians devised the ruler-subject relationship following the example of gods and humans. Social morality and industrial organization followed after that. They were all constructed upon the same principle. There had to necessarily be rulers and the ruled. And what were privileges for the rulers became obligations for the ruled. What the ruled possessed was what the rulers did not possess. Rulers and the ruled were composed of different elements. There lay the life of rulers, and here lay the life of the ruled. Was it truly necessary for life itself to have such a binary division? In any case, there was no such separation in the life of instinct. Organic matter arose in the direction of the instinct possessed by stone. In the direction of the instinct possessed by organic matter, various organisms arose. In the direction of the instinct possessed by various organisms, humans arose. In the direction of human instinct, instinct itself moved forward. Everything was an acquisition toward the self. There was not a single discontinuity in between. There was no 180-degree reversal in direction.

×

At humanity’s current stage of evolution, abandoning intellectual life would likely lead to the collapse of human existence itself. However, should anyone use this reasoning to warn against the dangers of instinctive life and demand its suppression, we must declare they are steering both themselves and humankind toward self-annihilation. When I frame this issue in such abstract terms, no one appears to raise objections. Yet if one were to cite Nietzsche alone, his Übermensch philosophy would instantly incur condemnation from every quarter.

× Power and public opinion are products of intellectual life. Authority and originality are products of instinctive life. And in this world, the former always overwhelms the latter. Buddha was dragged down by Nagarjuna, Christ by Paul, and Confucius by Zhu Xi—all from their thrones of love to seats of wisdom and virtue.

× The error of life begins when one underestimates love as merely a gentle force.

×

Women's love, though evident, is small. Men’s love is vast, yet obstructed. And vast love is often defeated by evident love.

×

da Vinci said, "To know is to love." To love is to know.

×

The ultimate and inevitable demand of human life is self-completion. The notion that perfecting society constitutes perfecting the self, and that perfecting the self will eventually perfect society, merely explains the cyclical nature of phenomena—it does not articulate the demand itself. The moment the demand for self-completion is erroneously directed toward a single part of oneself, the path to self-completion utterly collapses.

×

Some may argue that a person’s individuality is nothing more than the total sum of their entire past. No—all individuality is that total sum with “the present” added. And “the present” can govern both past and future.

I have been told that Russell distinguished instincts into two categories: the creative instinct and the possessive instinct. I do not think so. The essence of instinct lies in its possessive tendency. And creation emerges as the result of its action.

× Why does romantic love so often become the subject of art? Art is the purest attainable expression of love. And this is because romantic love surpasses other human actions as the concentrated and indeed comprehensive action of love.

× Let me pose a question to you self-sacrificing altruists. Since you began advocating that doctrine, have you given nothing whatsoever to yourself? Even if you did give something, was it given solely out of survival necessity to love others? Yet there ceaselessly exist people in this world who perish in anguish from being denied. Even so, do you first give yourself what you need to help those people? Do you not perceive some contradiction there?

× I must live organically as a unified whole. For this to be achieved, actions must emerge solely from within. Not like the accumulation of stone, but as plants sprout forth.

×

A ship found itself surrounded by a fleet of pirate ships. If defeated, they would become seaweed scattered upon the sea. If they surrendered, they would become rust on the pirates’ swords. In this crisis, each sailor would strive most directly to rescue their own life from the threat of death. And that desperate effort would simultaneously drive them to seek the ship’s safety and compel them to ensure the security of those aboard who had to cooperate with them. Among the crew members, a perfect collaboration would arise unspoken—if only humanity were to always live with this same mindset. If only we had not neglected this mindset during times of peace.

×

Habitual life accumulates its products upon the self. Intellectual life stores its products within the self. Instinctive life always discards its products and leaps.

XXI

I came to a standstill, and for a time traced eddies. I will flow forth once more. I will first consider art by taking love as my starting point. All thoughts, all actions are representations.

Representations are the anguish love undergoes to express itself. The outcome of that anguish is none other than creation. Art is creation. Therefore, all people must be artists in some measure. If only those deemed artists govern creation while others remain excluded, how could artworks ever resonate with the general populace? Should a chasm of love exist between artists and non-artists, would not every expressive endeavor by artists ultimately prove vain?

A certain literary scholar of the formalist school once said: “If there were a sailor who, having secured a grand view of the sunset from atop the mast, lacked the ability to express this profound emotion in a way that could be conveyed to others, then that person could not be called a poet.” However, I do not think so. As long as the sailor felt moved by that awe-inspiring spectacle, in that very moment he was a poet. Because he was expressing that profound emotion to himself through his own thoughts.

In this world there exist many mute artists. Although they lack the means to express themselves to others, their profound emotion often far surpasses that of so-called artists. The child—what an astonishing artist he is! His mind had not yet formed the crust of habit. That mind was painfully exposed and sensitive. We are captured by things in the very act of seeing them. He grasps things in the very act of seeing them. He grasps them in the very essence of things themselves. And he immerses himself in the sacred awe that marks the dawn of wisdom. There exists no sort of preconceived bias there. This is indeed the pure artistic attitude. Love expresses itself most clearly by passing through such stages.

But are not many of us living lives that repeatedly neglect this crucial point? James states that ultimately, the hues of all philosophies that have branched off in various ways since ancient times can be attributed to the temperaments of their respective creators. This must be called a profound truth. The same thing can likely be said of our way of life as well. Certain people attempt to utilize the materials left behind by predecessors to express love (that is, individuality). Meanwhile, others, desiring a pure expression of love, refuse to taste the dregs of their predecessors and seek to rely solely on their own means of expression. The former relies more on intellectual life, while the latter seeks to rely more on instinctive life. If we were to further borrow James’s terminology, could we call the former strong-minded and the latter tender-hearted?

Those who attempt to express individuality through reliance on intellectual life seek the materials for expression largely outside themselves - such as stone, clothing, armies, or power. They emphasize quantity over quality in expression, prioritizing arrangement of materials over their careful selection. Voltaire said, "The first person to compare a beauty to a flower was a genius; the second one to say the same thing was a fool." At least those clinging to intellectual life never make original comparisons like likening beauties to flowers - unless specifying lilies or roses instead. In this regard, he clearly avoids foolishness. He might even be considered wise enough. Yet such people scarcely recognize the value of delicacy in expressing individuality, tending instead toward haphazard outcomes. These tendencies prove particularly prevalent among so-called businesspeople, politicians, and agitators.

It could not be said that even a single perfectly square building constructed solely for practical purposes contained absolutely no expression of individuality. Yet to seek out individuality—that is, love—from within them proved an extremely difficult thing. Individuality found itself mercilessly crushed by meaningless utilitarian materials, while simultaneously teetering on severance from its organic relationship with those very materials. Still, were individuality completely crushed and all connections entirely severed, even that ugly edifice could not have persisted there. After all, only through individuality's workings—however faint—could such an existence sustain itself. But did this not render bleak the imagination of our lives surrounded solely by such things? At this juncture, our individuality would inevitably attempt rebellion against these material substances.

But might there not be edifices of this sort that surround our lives in a more presentable form? Suppose there was an ambitious politician. He hoisted insincere banners—patriotism, freedom, promotion of national prestige—to satisfy his own ambition, that is, to crudely and misguidedly appease the love within him that sought expression; then with his peculiar traction and material rewards, he incited the masses who held no true connection to him. The masses were lured by this tempting bait, yielded to demands utterly unrelated to their true needs, forcibly linked their worthless actions to some similarly grand event from the past, constructed there both excuses and hopes, and then, obedient to their audacious leader’s commands, even staked their lives on achieving his enterprise. And had fate not been cruel to that politician, he would have completed some monumental national or global enterprise. Yet what emerged was neither a portrait of that politician nor a projection of the masses—it was nothing but a crude, indistinct composite photograph. It rendered the very life of that politician worthless, impeded the progress of the entire populace, while the enterprise itself gradually detached from human life—until finally becoming mere rubble with no purpose in existence’s course, needlessly obstructing humanity’s advancement. Such phenomena, differing only in scale and scope, were what we had to encounter time and again. Moreover, we were often not only unaware of these tragic outcomes but also prone to convince ourselves that such things must exist as necessities.

However, fortunately humanity was not composed solely of people with such dispositions. There existed those who strove to enable purer expressions of love. There were those who could not help but do so. For this purpose he was not misled even by results that at first glance appeared beneficial to him. He had but one thing to devote himself to. That was to achieve the pure expression of love to the fullest extent of his power. Even if that person was involved in politics, engaged in production, working as a tax collector or living as a prostitute—within the limits allowed by their crude materials of life—they were striving for the best possible existence. The lives of those people were good art as they stood. Though the materials they utilized for expression were crude and would eventually crumble like old leather bags—a mysterious working of love invariably remained afterward. Crude materials were shattered by love's power forcefully imbued within them—never becoming obstacles to humanity's progress. Yet what had been built by those prioritizing external demands over love's requirements retained their hideous remnants eternally—for love lacked power to fully destroy them—until love capable of smashing them to pieces arrived.

Those who demanded an even more urgent pure expression of love could not help but impose strict limitations even upon earthly professions and become thinkers or what were commonly understood as artists. Those people, to prevent love from being defiled, first conducted a rigorous selection of materials that should serve its expression. We humans could not conceive of materials more pure than thought. Those called philosophers or people of faith—if they were not false—undoubtedly had their starting point here. Artists as commonly understood—that is, people who made art their profession—when materializing thought, did not rely on abstract means like thinkers but instead strove to do so through concrete forms. However, within those concrete forms, they strove to rely on forms that were as close to purity as possible. For this purpose, they attempted to appeal to refined senses with refined senses. The world of the senses was relatively common among people, and because it could be easily translated directly into love. Among the senses, they attempted to rely not on tactile or gustatory senses closely tied to practical life, but rather on those such as visual or auditory senses that possessed abundant non-utilitarian functions. Gradations also arose in the means of appealing to those senses.

They were the same words. Yet how precisely did their usage reveal an artist's innate qualities! Some used words in their simple utility. Others refused to employ any word unless imbued with singular meaning, stripped of extraneous senses. Prose writers belonged to the former; poets to the latter. A poet was one who sought to liberate expressive materials—words themselves—from intellectual shackles with utmost rigor, striving thereby to manifest inner life directly. Thus did poetry born of such labor forever hold higher artistic ground than prose. Though I had written but few novels and plays, even my meager experience left me unable to deny prose's immaturity as an expressive medium. To manifest my individuality demanded detours so vexing they exasperated even myself. Only after piling countless discarded stones could I emerge there. "Why must I endure this?" I often fumed in frustration. The answer lay clear: my sensitivity to love's demands remained inadequate. Had I possessed keener perception, I would have abandoned all for poetry's call. There stood forged with crystalline clarity the poet's realm. We could nearly vault over words themselves to penetrate their essential core. And that essence proved astonishingly pure.

Perhaps there are those who would say: Our lives are no longer the simple and unadorned existences of bygone days. They have grown so complex as to defy comprehension—an impenetrable thicket of obscurity. To give such complexity verbal form inevitably demands painstaking expression. Poetry belongs to people of antiquity; novels and plays alone serve those of our modern age.

I do not think so. The ultimate thing that must be expressed has never differed between past and present. Even should external life grow complex, even should words become cluttered through their long tradition of meanings, a poet's penetrating gaze would pierce life's chaos like tangled threads, restore words to their pure form, and ten lines penned by that hand should suffice to lay bare life's unified current before our eyes. Yet to achieve this, the poet must be one who has profoundly experienced love. Come forth, O poets! And let us open a path where we may face love directly!

I also sought to discover in music a pivotal form of expression surpassing even poetry. Those individual sounds holding no meaning alone—the task of combining them to lodge love within—how joyous and gratifying that work must be! This must indeed be called a paradise where human love finds unadulterated expression. Harmony and melody truly serve no purpose in intellectual life. This could well be called love’s own cherished child directly bestowed upon humanity. Splendid music severs its listeners from all earthly fetters. Before it, people vaporize and merge instantly into fate’s main current. An emotion incomprehensible yet overwhelmingly profound draws forth scalding tears. And people receive propulsive force through fierce impulses. None know where this leads. Only that it moves palpably toward a desirable direction. At such moments, people become vessels possessed by love.

In the world of art, could it not be said that what the Futurists attempted was likewise a single-minded yearning for this sacred realm of music? Color too, in itself, held no meaning—just as sound does not. Planes too, in themselves, held no meaning—just as color does not. Yet this art that began with imitating and reproducing forms had long remained trapped by tradition, relegating those colors and planes to mere servants of form. Color was used solely to fill objects' surfaces and spaces; planes were used solely to represent objects' volume and mass. Then Impressionism's rise introduced a faint tremor to this fixed concept. That is to say, in painting's domain came the conception of valuing relationships between colors over individual hues. Attention shifted from what colors represented to what must emerge through their interrelations—the first step toward liberating color from matter. Yet this tendency reached its zenith with Futurism. Color was wholly liberated from matter. Color at last attained independence.

However, the question of whether Futurism has managed to achieve in painting what music has accomplished must naturally be considered separately. I possess no concrete knowledge regarding these arts. Therefore, when it comes to such comparative discussions, I have no choice but to remain silent. However, to those who insist that Futurist tendencies should be entirely rejected, I believe I can argue from the aforementioned perspective about this movement’s potential. If there are those who say they cannot be satisfied unless objects are concretized, then for such people—just as poetry and novels coexist within literature’s domain—there would be no harm in preserving conventional painting. Yet the time will inevitably arrive when artists’ individuality must be increasingly intensified. When that moment comes, tendencies like Futurism arising would be—from my standpoint—something I must declare an utterly natural phenomenon.

Humankind is amply blessed. We possess all the means necessary to satisfy the currents of love’s self-expression. From contending over trifling gains to creating gods, the more one listens unwaveringly to their inner demands, the more abundantly he shall be blessed. All people are artists. Therein lies ample freedom of individuality. I must value that above all else.

22

I will also attempt to consider social life with love as the starting point.

Social life must be an extension of individual life. The notion that personal desires and social desires stand in opposition is fundamentally mistaken. If there should exist an insurmountable chasm between them, I would rather destroy social life and take refuge in the solitary habits of lions and vultures. Yet my love knows such necessity does not exist. I know this unreasonable conclusion arises from errors either in our concept of social life or in our concept of individual life.

First, individual life must be guided by its most authentic content. What is meant by authentic content? When intellectual life corrects habitual life, I must guide habitual life in accordance with intellectual life. When instinctive life corrects intellectual life, I must guide intellectual life in accordance with instinctive life. That is to say, I must always place intellectual life above habitual life and instinctive life above intellectual life, making this my primary task. Authentic content is precisely that.

As for the relationship between habitual life and intellectual life, it goes without saying. That habitual life must attain adaptation through the guidance of intellectual life is self-evident.

However, it could not be said there were none who objected to the idea that intellectual life must be guided by instinctive life. While intellectual life was both the result and promise born from the summation of many people’s experiences, there seemed a tendency for this groundless anxiety to arise—that instinctive life, being an impulse springing purely from within individuality, might not necessarily harmonize with social life. Yet I desired that the meaning of instinctive life as I conceived it be properly understood. The demands of instinct were what acted upon the entirety of each individual’s individuality. That impulse always arose accompanied by the satiation of the whole individuality. This example might be base, but to aid understanding, let us suppose there was a man who, driven by carnal impulse, violated a girl. Carnal desire too was an instinct. Was seeking to satisfy that impulse not permissible in itself? Perhaps someone might confront me thus. I would attempt to question that person in return. Before you think, first place yourself in that man’s position. Though you desired that girl solely carnally, when approaching her—even casting aside all fixed moral concepts entirely—did you feel no dissatisfaction within your individuality? You would have discovered extreme terror and loathing in the entire figure of this unknown girl. Were you not struck by this even slightly? And did you not taste bitterness there? If you possessed a heart like any other’s, you could only answer “no” to this question of mine. Therefore I declare: What you believed to be an instinctual impulse in that case was nothing but a carnal urge severed from spirit. Thus from the very first moment you acted on that impulse, you were already magnificently punished. If you truly desired that girl through instinct’s impulse (the entirety of your individuality), you would first confess your anguished love to her.

And if the girl were to reciprocate your love, then you would seize her into your innermost being, and she would in turn seize you into hers. At that moment, you and the girl became two yet one (as I had said before). And with a feeling of sufficient satiation, you could become one with her in heart and flesh. At that moment, there was no dissatisfaction prior to the act, and following it, only a beautiful satiation remained. (This was digressive, but I added it for the sake of curious individuals. What if the girl had no choice but to refuse to reciprocate that person’s love? Even in that case, his individuality grew through loving. Sadness and pain were also instinct’s nourishment. The girl would live eternally within his innermost being. And if I may be permitted to add further, his carnal desire would have markedly diminished in its activity. There, the spiritualization of the event occurred spontaneously. However, if that person’s individuality had become fragmented due to this event, their spirit had festered, and their carnal desire had intensified, then the integration of instinct within them had already been shattered. Instinctive life no longer had any connection with that person. But could intellectual life save such a person? He might not have attempted to satisfy his carnal desire toward other women by morally compelling himself to regulate his own actions. But in that very moment, he had ended up becoming a hypocrite. He had to continue committing adultery in his heart. Even so, that might have served the peace of intellectual life. However, both the person maintained by such peace and society were calamities. If he became so intensely strained in awakening to his original self due to some motive, at that moment he had returned to the domain of instinctive life.)

Thus, it was precisely in life within the domain of intellectual life that knowledge and morality were indispensable, but in the throes of instinctive life, one would come to know that the norms born of intellectual life amounted to nothing more than bandages that concealed its wounds in an ugly manner). At that moment, spirit was not spirit, and carnal desire was not carnal desire. The two completely lost their distinction and dissolved into the unified current of love. To view all appearances as the same based merely on superficial resemblance was an extremely foolish judgment.

Has this single example not managed to express, albeit dimly, my view on instinct? Thus, instinct is the demand of holistic and internal individuality. However, intellectual life differs fundamentally in nature from this. Though intellectual life forms through accumulated experiences over generations, its influence on individuality always originates externally and remains fragmentary. Its externality stems from being constructed apart from anyone's inner life. It exists as a normative framework established by humans to govern all aspects of existence. Why then its partiality? Because intellectual life presents obligations and efforts as necessary conditions. Both duty and exertion presuppose the abandonment of certain human desires. Without conscious suppression of specific cravings, neither obligation nor effort can be realized. Thus the satisfaction of individuality's full demands persists as an unfulfillable promise. Should intellectual life—this very promise—form existence's foundation and guide, could humanity remain undisturbed? I cannot find contentment in esteeming this as supreme. I shall pursue a life satisfying my individuality's complete demands—a satisfaction that must simultaneously constitute goodness itself. This becomes attainable through instinctive life alone. Intellectual life must undergo internalization through instinctive life. Intellectual life must achieve integration through instinctive life. Through these words, I believe my rationale for insisting that instinctive life must guide intellectual life stands revealed.

Does this mean social life must proceed inversely along the individual life process I described? Are you asserting that in social life we must install intellectual life as the leader of instinctive life, or establish habitual life as the rectifier of intellectual life? If this were truly so, social life and individual life would indeed stand opposed. I do not hold this view. Society's ultimate desire too must reside in total fulfillment within its internal life. Even if intellectual life currently forms its foundational tone, its aspirations must direct themselves toward instinctive life. Only when society moves through its social instinct will its existence reach a state of pure simplicity.

There, someone will probably say: “Your words are clearly correct. As part of the evolutionary process, society too must make entering into instinctive life its ideal. However, in the present age, even if there are individuals who comprehend the workings of instinctive life and can put it into practice, society still remains far from attaining such a state. In such circumstances, is it not natural that personal life and social life should be at odds?”

I will concede to this protest. But in this case, which is it—individual life that must be reformed, or social life? Which life must be advanced to bring about complete harmony between the two? To maintain the current state of social life, are we to halt or regress the individual life we have advanced this far and force it into conformity with social life? Many people seem to think that this is how it should be. I categorically deem this impermissible.

What must change is society’s way of life. It must change and catch up to the individual’s way of life.

Both the nation and industry are forms of social life. In modern times emerged two perspectives daring to fundamentally critique these two forms. These constitute views inevitably forged by individuality’s demands—an authority no mere power can sway. Temporary suppression through force might prove possible. Yet ultimately this perspective remains inextinguishable unless existing states or industrial bodies can demolish it through reasoned critique. The two views I refer to are socialism and anarchism.

Where does such formidable strength of these two ideologies lie? It is because they are ideologies born from the complete demands of individuality, albeit imperfect. Socialists assert that their perspective arises from humanity’s social instincts, yet their ideology’s foundation lies in the natural phenomenon of survival competition. Survival competition begins with individuality and only then shifts to class struggle. Thus at this very point, the socialists’ assertion betrays itself. As for anarchism, it has from the outset taken the absolute freedom of individual life as its standard.

As I had previously stated, socialism took the principle of survival competition from Darwin’s theory of evolution as its starting point. In opposition to this, Kropotkin fortified his theoretical stance by adopting mutual aid—a principle of evolutionary theory—when declaring anarchism. Both were regarded as instincts originating from individuality that served as defining elements in both the plant and animal kingdoms. One group of advocates claimed that mutual aid existed for survival competition’s sake, while another group asserted that survival competition existed for mutual aid’s sake. I did not intend to judge these advocates’ viewpoints here, nor did my sparse knowledge of natural science permit me to do so.

However, I would like to present the following. In his essay on Kant, Dr. Koeber states: "The animal instincts dealt with in biology are ultimately nothing more than projections of human instincts. The assertion that 'cognitive faculties do not conform to things, but rather things (as phenomena) conform to cognitive faculties' cannot be dismissed as mere idealist platitudes." Here I perceive an unshakable practical wisdom at work. Surely animals harbor numerous instincts beyond those Darwin discovered. These must undoubtedly be integrated through the power of still greater instincts. Yet did not nineteenth-century biologists—likely influenced by eighteenth-century French philosophers—perceive a vast gulf between society's demands and the awakening claims of individuality? And did they not consider the status-quo-breaking instinct operating among animals to be remarkably pronounced? But in those scholars' minds, individuality likely appeared merely as some minor factor organizing society. Moreover, conditioned by scientific methodology's inherent requirements, they had grown accustomed to viewing everything through dualistic lenses. They automatically positioned individuality and society as opposites. Thus their conclusions—when situated between individuality and society—emerged as survival competition when emphasizing individuality, and mutual aid when emphasizing society. Yet in the former case society was never disregarded; in the latter case individuality remained ever-present.

I believed we had to make a decisive leap from this temporal coloration. I experienced the dignity of individuality. I came to know that before the demands of individuality, the demands of society had to change unconditionally. And I acknowledged what demands the instinct inherent in human individuality—that is, love—entailed. And I further distinguished that the instincts manifesting in animals were unconscious, while those manifesting in humans were conscious. Self-awareness means the demand of universal intellect. Individuality no longer satisfied itself with its instinctive demands upon society; Individuality itself found satisfaction only within its own complete fulfillment. There was no external world with which to compete, nor any external world requiring mutual aid. Humanity rushed to the embrace of love. Where his love moved, the entire external world became him. The proper growth and completion of the self—what could there have been outside of this, in the end?

(The following ten-odd lines have been deleted by order of the Ministry of Home Affairs.) I do not intend to expound upon methodologies for social reform derived from this essence. It resides naturally within each individual. I find satisfaction merely in offering this single suggestion. For fulfilling my innate purpose suffices if I achieve that much. Religion too constitutes a form of social existence. While faith fundamentally concerns individuals, religion inherently assumes societal dimensions. Why then has contemporary religion forfeited its authority? In former times, emperors would prostrate themselves like beggars before popes to beg absolution. A Buddhist monk, hearing one foolish utterance from his emperor, left behind a piercing rebuke and vanished into bamboo groves. What once bestowed such power upon religion? What now reduces it to this retreat? The answer lies in religion's total submission to intellectual constraints. Having forgotten to seek vitality within itself, religion sought survival through wholesale conformity to societal norms. States divide into rulers and ruled, their interactions rooted in fundamental conflict. Religion unthinkingly adopted this framework. God—here I denote faith's object regardless of name—assumes sovereignty's position in religion's realm. He demands every offering from humanity. Before God, human existence ultimately amounts to nothing. God constitutes the wellspring of all authority.

People must regard being nothing before God as an honor. Sacrificing oneself to God is the only right they possess (if such a term can be used). Between what God desires and what people desire, there is neither a bridge nor a rope that can be crossed. God and humans stand opposed as two entities of entirely different essence. In an era when the structure of the state was unreflectively affirmed by the people as it was, this concept of divine-human relations could also likely have been accepted without reflection. However, now that the demands of individuality and the movements of love have been realized, this contradiction in divine-human relations immediately transforms into pain, felt through individuality itself. The movements of life’s source must all advance in the same direction. We have already observed, in the process from stone to human, the flow of instinct that has advanced in the same direction. We saw that our internal life advances and leaps forward only through acquisition. Yet do not existing religions, while acknowledging their movements only in God, attempt to reject it in humans?

Someone would tell me: "You who are left behind by the times! Are you unaware that the doctrine of divine-human unity has been proclaimed since ancient times? God is not something that stands in opposition to humans. It should indeed work within the innermost being of humans. Humans, in turn, ought to work within the innermost being of God. It is precisely because humans set God and self in opposition that they fall into depravity. God’s demands must directly be human demands. You don’t even know that, yet what kind of nonsense are you trying to spout?" In that case, I would pose this question to that person: Then why must the duty of sacrifice and virtue of devotion continue to be so emphatically preached from pulpits even now? Did God ever pay sacrifices or dare devote Himself? (Christians would here reference Christ’s life. However, I had already explained earlier that Christ’s life constituted neither sacrifice nor devotion.) Yet from today’s pulpits, how does it come that qualities absent in God are demanded as essential for humans? I suspect this stems from inadequate understanding of human nature’s foundation. And I believe there must indeed be reason for such suspicion. The concept of divine-human unity alone had been constructed from natural necessity. This closely resembled how autocratic governance was altered to constitutional governance in politics. In that form, certain reforms appeared achieved. The legislative authority might have shifted somewhat.

Moreover, regarding how rulers and the ruled remain governed by diametrically opposed demands, not the slightest correction had been made. God and humans unite. How magnificent those words sound! Yet if this unity remains unrealized, what ultimate good does that beautiful empty theory serve? I must dread such compromising reform theories most of all. For the comeliness of their appearance readily beguiles me.

Of course, religion must rescue itself from being a mere machine of the state—or, to put it in beautiful terms, an essential tool of governance—but unless it also rescues itself from the intellectual life upon which the existing state relies and from the binary judgments inevitably derived from that intellectual life, ascending instead to the realm of love, it will never be able to restore its authority.

I do not know God. It may be said that it is presumptuous for those who do not know God to offer opinions on matters such as the relationship between God and humans. However, when religion can be considered as one form of social life, I believe it is permissible for me to state my thoughts regarding that form. Those who detest my attitude need only ignore my opinions. But I will not ignore myself.

Regarding education as well, I have much to say here. However, I believe discerning readers have already sufficiently discerned from what I have discussed regarding the sphere of social life what I intend to say about education. I must avoid unnecessary repetition. However, allow me here to spend a few words.

Children must be educated for their own sake. If this one matter were overlooked, not only would the true meaning of education perish in that instant, but it would instead become harmful. To educate children for the sake of society—that is a lamentable error that should astonish. They teach diligence in work. Why do they not teach them to choose right work? Those who have been able to choose right work cannot be lazy. I once attended a certain graduation ceremony. The principal there, with a stiff face as though he had never experienced boyhood himself, repeatedly expounded on the preciousness owed to four graces: the monarch’s benevolence, parental devotion, teachers’ guidance, and life’s circumstances. Those pitiful boys and girls appeared to groan under these four burdens. They were sufficiently taught duties. Yet the authority of their supreme treasure—individuality—was not considered at all. Are we to say a beautifully polished individuality cannot know gratitude? Utter incomprehension. Unnecessary meddlesome old-woman kindness. I am a father. And from this experience, let me state clearly: I indeed hold things for which I should feel gratitude toward children; I hold nothing for which I ought to be thanked by them. What appears as sacrifices I made for my children are more than repaid by their love. Why can’t they understand that? Just as they teach choosing right work, I want my children taught what their own value is.

He will handle all the rest himself. I have now temporarily used boys and girls as the subject of my argument. However, I believe I can extend this line of thinking to both secondary and higher education. Valuing scholarship itself over its content, imparting suggestion over knowledge, and not molding humans into what I call specialists—these and similar principles.

XXIII

I wished to further consider the relationship between men and women and family life, taking love as the starting point. The relationship between men and women today held a certain distortion. Men and women were often placed in a state of conflict. Such distortions ought not to exist. It remained impossible to know through how long a period this habituation had occurred. Yet in humanity's course of life, women had become slaves of men. There was no doubt this certainly predated slavery's emergence in the realm of manual labor.

That sexual differentiation constitutes nature’s masterstroke—devised to ensure the soundness and stability of reproductive outcomes—admits no doubt. These variations manifest in diverse forms, at times appearing as Platonic love entirely severed from their essential purpose; indeed, humanity occasionally gains unexpected benefits from such relationships. I can fully sanction the emergence of these phenomena. Yet this by no means represents the normative course of sexual roles. Thus when I speak of distortions in male-female relations, I refer specifically to aberrations in the reproductive functions that men and women ought to share. However smoothly other aspects of their relations may function, if this fundamental point remains distorted, then ultimately the relationship between men and women stands distorted.

As many scientists and thinkers had already pointed out in their work, women had no choice but to entrust the activities of practical life to men due to the burden of childbirth and nursing. Men, like wild beasts, at first resignedly and then eagerly engaged in this division of labor. However, over long ages, through their activities, men increasingly developed their physical and mental capacities, while women’s abilities resulted in a certain withdrawal and an increasingly narrowed scope of activities, until finally they came to limit their activities entirely to agricultural matters. When this occurred, men had to take on even women’s share of work; therefore, the burden of life came to rest painfully on men’s shoulders. Thus men came to demand compensation from women to alleviate this painful dissatisfaction. Yet at this time, women had completely lost the ability to provide anything to men in the realm of practical work. For women, there remained only their bodies. And from that point, prostitution began. Women were forced to endure providing their bodies to men. Thus women finally became slaves to men. And women felt compelled to make themselves more carnal than they naturally were. In women there appeared particularly conspicuous aesthetic adornment (this being extremely superficial; women often wore tattered undergarments of flesh beneath refined silk outer garments), instinctive coquetry, and jealousy and discord among women (the relationships between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, wife and sister-in-law go without saying— I am often told by women that they lack friends among their own sex with whom they can confide in each other)—all arising from there. By receiving this offering from women, men had to punish themselves. He first implanted tyranny within his own home. He established the origins of despotism there. And what was even worse—in the children they bore—they had to find those who exhibited even greater carnality than themselves.

This was a fact I believed many readers already knew and would acknowledge without my stating it. I wished to declare here why this distortion in male-female relations constituted the worst aberration. The most grievous aspect of this corruptive process lay in how humans had degraded instinctual demands into intellectual ones. The love between men and women exists as something nearly pure and holistic - instinct's fullest expression. In same-sex love, instinct splits itself, manifesting solely through spiritual dimensions (unless some hypothetical heterosexual dynamic emerges between them). Parental love and fraternal love alike remain partial expressions. Yet through heterosexual love alone does instinct reveal its complete countenance. Only loving men and women create true life. Therefore reproduction must be accomplished through instinct's absolute demands alone. This constitutes the supreme requirement for male-female relations. Yet women under duress mistakenly compromised these instinctual desires to intellectual life's demands. That is - they employed non-instinctual desires as mere tools for survival. And men basely utilized these offerings unchanged. This I declare to have been humanity's ultimate corruption. Could any greater perversion exist?

Paradise had already been lost. Men and women had to wrap tree leaves around their waists. Women resented men, and men began to despise women. In the territory of love, countless virtual loves had come to appear, so in order to seek out true love, women had to exercise extreme caution and men had to undertake extreme adventures. Even wild beasts had a set season within the year for engaging in reproduction, yet humans alone had to be ceaselessly tormented by carnal desire. And what made it even worse was that humans, without repenting this derangement of fate, with an almost resigned attitude, embellished, beautified, and even attempted to revel in this distortion.

We had fortunately passed through the period when physical strength alone served as life's primary means. The mind too had reached an era when it could become a great driving force of life. Even if women lost much, they did not lose their mental capacity as much as their physical strength. I pray this may become the first milestone in women's return to their homeland. How vast a span of time this corruption in male-female relations required to become ingrained—it verges on immeasurability. Yet since it is corruption, from the moment we became aware of it, we must plan our return to paradise. Even if only one or two noticed it, those who noticed—be they one or two—must embark on that long journey achievable only through patience.

I know full well how this path—so arduous it verges on the impossible—truly is. I too am but a pitiable man born and raised within this distortion. I fall ceaselessly without respite. Yet the faint voice of my instinct proves sufficient to raise me from that depth. I am driven onward by that voice. This journey, bearing the weight of prolonged indulgence, cannot help but leave me desolate. Nevertheless, I must go.

From this distortion in male-female relations naturally followed the conclusion that present-day culture was not something established through cooperation between both sexes. One could say contemporary culture—from the grandest political structures down to the smallest hand buckets—had been entirely constructed by male geniuses. While men were the proper users of all institutions, women could not participate in them unless they became somewhat masculinized. Men skillfully confined women to the margins of family life. Moreover, even within family life, supreme authority remained securely in male hands. Women might prepare the daily meals and clothing provided to the family. Yet the arrangements for hospitality and attire for formal occasions could ultimately only be skillfully crafted by men’s hands. This was not because women lacked ability, but rather because all these things were fundamentally designed to satisfy male preferences—thus their production naturally came to be deemed appropriate for male hands alone.

Nearly equal numbers of men and women live on the surface of the Earth. And if that culture were established solely to suit men’s desires, how incomplete its substance was would immediately become evident. As for women’s demands to participate in current cultural life, I am not one who would outright reject them. However, I wish to state that its realization cannot amount to the complete independence of women. Even if women were to affirm the current cultural system and fully adapt to it, it would merely result in their surrendering to male preferences and masculinizing themselves. That is not women’s independence; it is women’s surrender.

If space were created where women could act autonomously even in external terms alone, and if this served as a means to discover women's true demands, then I could approve of the women's rights movement.

Moreover, what I hope for from women is that they will join forces to bring forth female geniuses from among themselves. I pray for the emergence of women who will reassess contemporary culture through the eyes of those truly liberated from men. Whether a culture born from women’s demands will share the same substance as what has existed until now, or whether it will not—this I, as a man, cannot speculate upon no matter how strenuously I strive. And probably no one can. Even merely to discern these differences, the emergence of geniuses from among women is what should be most desired. If they are the same, then that is good; if they differ, then only through the righteous embrace of the culture created by men and that created by women will the culture that all of us long for come into being.

Furthermore, I would like to address family life. A family is a sacred unit of life bound together by love. To attribute any meaning beyond this is to distort its essence. Though legal procedures and marriage ceremonies are deemed essential for establishing families in their true form, these hold no inherent necessity for lovers. Nor does legal approval constitute a necessary condition for divorce—the dissolution of families. All such requirements are mechanisms society devised to preserve order, forcibly imposed upon all men and women. For the state to administer public life in its current configuration, it proves supremely convenient to maintain families as robust mini-states. Moreover, institutionalizing private property necessitates both the family system’s preservation and customs of inheritance. Through these external contingencies, families have become the state’s cornerstone and capitalism’s stronghold. Thus even between loveless partners, enforcing adherence to familial form becomes imperative. This is why society abhors family dissolution above all else.

All men and women remained compliant toward society’s unspoken coercion. The majority of them continued only the hollow shell where love was absent. Men relied on this custom to have their authority protected, while women depended on the system’s shelter to have their survival guaranteed. And as an inevitable result of such empty collective life, numerous children were produced where there was no love. And in the current society where they required parental protection (I say this because I envision a society that does not require parental protection), they had to grow up without parental love. Moreover, on the other hand, even when a man and woman loved each other, if they married without formalities due to lacking property necessary to form a family, their child had to endure lifelong ostracism from the community as an illegitimate child.

From society’s standpoint, even if such defects inevitably arise, persisting with the family system could still be seen as offering considerable convenience. Yet when viewed through the lens of individuality’s demands and their fulfillment—how unnatural a result it would yield! First: through this system’s enforced existence, family life’s sanctity becomes grievously tainted by pseudo-families’ promiscuous mingling. To compel loveless unions between men and women amounts directly to life’s corruption. A child unconceived through love stands as sin for its progenitors and irredeemable misfortune for itself. That children born of love must endure insults constitutes supreme injustice. We must redeem this. This stands as our foremost urgency. Regarding these matters—we cannot become sacrifices to any cause. Should realizing this desire bring inconvenience upon the external world—then that world must be remade to accommodate it.

Where there is love, let families always be formed. Where there is no love, let families invariably be dispersed. Only by allowing this freedom can the lives of men and women be liberated from their detestable falsehood. From free love to free marriage.

Furthermore, I would add a word concerning love itself. Before love comes considering the profound demands individuality makes upon oneself. To speak precisely: only through individuality's complete demands can one find a lover without error. And these complete demands will not readily permit love to turn toward the opposite sex. Yet once a lover is found through them, love will tremble from its very foundations. Thus does that love become strong. Thus does it become precious. Without awakening this instinct for love, any restrictions imposed on relations between men and women—any reforms attempted—will prove utterly futile efforts.

24

The time had come for me to fall silent from my own verbosity. If these reflections of mine were to be considered by readers, I hoped they would be contemplated not partially but in their entirety. This was especially true of the words I had presented through applying instinctive life's demands to real life. Social life must always be considered in its totality. An intense focus on any single sector alone would often lead people into labyrinths.

I cannot say I was free from having focused too much on partial examinations. Perhaps I should have spoken in more detail about the instinct manifested in humans—namely, the instinct of love—before ceasing. Yet what has been uttered cannot now be retracted.

May these reflections reach others without leading even a single person astray.

25

The fact that is all too obvious yet often overlooked is that an idea is accepted without experiential scrutiny. It renders futile the labor of those who provide ideas and torments in vain those who receive them.

26

Nietzsche is said to have declared: "If I were to be burned to death for insisting on my position, I would avoid it." The insistence on positions is not significant enough to be worth my life. However, if I must be burned to death for changing my position, I would willingly be burned. It is said he meant something along the lines of: "That is worth dying for." I think this paradox is correct. The advancement of life results in changes in thought. Changes in thought anticipate changes in assertions. Those who wish to live must not shackle themselves with established assertions.

27

Thought is a form of action. I have not forgotten that.

28

The person who provided the most direct inspiration for this philosophy I have presented is Mr. Sakata Yasuo. I take this opportunity to thank you. To all others—to all the people and things that were involved in my inner experiences—I offer my profound gratitude.

29

This was nothing more than a plea cried out by the scant sincerity of an ordinary hypocrite who lacked philosophical training, possessed no deep knowledge of sociology, remained ignorant in science, and knew nothing of religion. If there existed someone with ears keen enough to discern even a fragment of value from this plea—and if that person were to prepare a favorable environment for his sake—then he too might be saved from the suffering inherent in being a hypocrite.

May abundant happiness be upon all good things.