The Flowers of Buffoonery

by Osamu Dazai

The next morning was peaceful and clear. The sea was calm. White smoke from the volcano on Oshima, just above the horizon, drifted up into the sky. Never mind. I hate describing scenery.

And it should come as no surprise that they loved making other people laugh as well, even if they had to hurt themselves to do so. Another instance of their nihilism, to be sure. But should you scratch below the surface, I think you’ll find a personal imperative to serve. Call it a sense of sacrifice. An aimless sense of sacrifice, lacking a clear objective. Any acts of heroism they had managed to achieve, as we define such things in terms of moral law, could be explained away as the byproduct of this latent need to serve.

The things we say without a thought are often how the truth comes out.

If only you could understand the sadness of the ones who grow the delicate flowers of buffoonery, protecting them from but the slightest gust of wind and always on the verge of despair!