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But I had no idea where to begin, or how to get started. There was only a void, and how are you supposed to give form to something that does not exist?
Like the objects and events in constant flux, or perhaps in opposition to them, what should have been a fixed yardstick inside the framework of my memory seemed instead to be in perpetual motion.
Look deep enough into any person and you will find something shining within. My job was to uncover this and, if the surface is fogged up (which was more often the case), polish it with a cloth to make it shine again. Otherwise the darker side would naturally reveal itself in the portrait.
As I stared at myself in the mirror, I thought about what it would be like to paint my own portrait. Say I were to try, what sort of self would I end up painting? Would I be able to find even a shred of affection for myself? Would I be able to discover even one thing shining within me?
What I wanted, or needed, was the spark of that positive will. That definite source of warmth needed to live. It was something I knew very well, but that was, most likely, missing in me.
My self in the mirror is just a physical reflection, she’d said. But to me my face in the mirror looked like a virtual fragment of my self that had been split in two. The self there was the one I hadn’t chosen. It wasn’t even a physical reflection.
You can have all the desire and ache inside you want, but what you really need is a concrete starting point.
The courage not to fear a change in one’s lifestyle, the importance of having time on your side. And above all, discovering your own uniquely creative style and themes. Not an easy thing, of course. Though if you make a living creating things, it’s something you have to accomplish no matter what. If possible, before you turn forty …
He must be living a life free of worries. But viewed from his perspective, looking at me from his side of the valley, I might appear to also be living a life of ease and leisure. From a distance, most things look beautiful.
Our lives really do seem strange and mysterious when you look back on them. Filled with unbelievably bizarre coincidences and unpredictable, zigzagging developments. While they are unfolding, it’s hard to see anything weird about them, no matter how closely you pay attention to your surroundings. In the midst of the everyday, these things may strike you as simply ordinary things, a matter of course. They might not be logical, but time has to pass before you can see if something is logical.
That said, the insight there wasn’t the product of reason, but rather something induced by a sort of deviance—perhaps something akin to madness.
“The purer the curiosity is, the stronger it is. And the more money it takes to satisfy it.”
Information is, after all, a product, and if you pay enough you can neatly cover your tracks. Even truer if the person knows a lot about technology.”
for someone who is fairly active in society to completely block any information about themselves and have nothing at all get out on the web—that’s no mean feat. Even information on you, and on me, is out there and available. There’s information on me I didn’t even know. If that’s true for nobodies like us, you can imagine how much harder it is for some big shot to erase their digital presence. Like it or not, that’s the world we live in.
“The way I see it,” Menshiki said, “there’s a point in everybody’s life where they need a major transformation. And when that time comes you have to grab it by the tail. Grab it hard, and never let go. There are some people who are able to, and others who can’t. Tomohiko Amada was one who could.”
“The Meiji Restoration took place in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and along with other aspects of Western culture Western art also was introduced into Japan, but until then the genre of ‘Japanese painting’ didn’t actually exist. The term didn’t even exist. Just like up till then the name of the country, Japan, was hardly ever used. With the appearance of Western art from abroad, the concept of Japanese art was born as a way of asserting something that could be distinguished as standing in opposition to Western art. What had existed up until then in various forms and styles was,
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But one thing I did know was that I needed to do something in order to hold on to an accurate record of my memory. Leave it alone, and it would disappear somewhere. No matter how vivid a memory, the power of time was stronger. I knew this instinctively.
He wasn’t afraid of loving someone. What he feared was growing to hate someone.
Nirvana is found beyond life and death. You could see it as the idea that even if the flesh dies and disappears, the soul goes over to a place beyond life and death. Worldly flesh is nothing more than a temporary dwelling.”
“Curiosity always involves risk. You can’t satisfy your curiosity without accepting some risk. Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat.”
“It’s like an earthquake deep under the sea. In an unseen world, a place where light doesn’t reach, in the realm of the unconscious. In other words, a major transformation is taking place. It reaches the surface, where it sets off a series of reactions and eventually takes form where we can see it with our own eyes. I’m no artist, but I can grasp the basic idea behind that process. Outstanding ideas in the business world, too, emerge through a similar series of stages. The best ideas are thoughts that appear, unbidden, from out of the dark.”
“But the visible is not the only reality. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“That sometimes in life we can’t grasp the boundary between reality and unreality. That boundary always seems to be shifting. As if the border between countries shifts from one day to the next depending on their mood. We need to pay close attention to that movement, otherwise we won’t know which side we’re on. That’s what I meant when I said it might be dangerous for me to remain inside that pit any longer.”
Nothing is painted there yet, but it’s more than a simple blank space. Hidden on that white canvas is what must eventually emerge. As I look more closely, I discover various possibilities, which congeal into a perfect clue as to how to proceed. That’s the moment I really enjoy. The moment when existence and nonexistence coalesce.
There are things people are better off not knowing, Masahiko had said. Maybe so. There are probably things people are better off not hearing, as well. But they can’t go forever without hearing them. When the time comes, even if they stop their ears up tight, the air will vibrate and invade a person’s heart. You can’t prevent it. If you don’t like it, then the only solution is to live in a vacuum.
What is important is not creating something out of nothing. What my friends need to do is discover the right thing from what is already there.”
“That highly efficient cerebral cortex might seem wasted at first, but without it we wouldn’t be able to think abstract thoughts, or enter the realm of the metaphysical. Even though we use but a small part of it, the cerebral cortex has that capacity. If we could use all the rest of it, what would we be capable of, I wonder. Isn’t it fascinating to consider?”
“When you’re locked up alone in a cramped, dark place, the most frightening thing isn’t death. The most terrifying thought is that I might have to live here forever. Once you think that, the terror makes it hard to breathe. The walls close in on you and the delusion grabs you that you’re going to be crushed. In order to survive, a person has to overcome that fear. Which means conquering yourself. And in order to do that, you need to get as close to death as you possibly can.”
Instead of a stable truth, I choose unstable possibilities. I choose to surrender myself to that instability.
“There are plenty of things in history that are best left in the shadows. Accurate knowledge does not improve people’s lives. The objective does not necessarily surpass the subjective, you know. Reality does not necessarily extinguish fantasy.”
“The truth is a symbol, and symbols are the truth. It is best to grasp symbols the way they are. There’s no logic or facts, no pig’s belly button or ant’s balls. When people try to use a method other than the truth to follow along the path of understanding, it is like trying to use a sieve to hold water.
“It’s all practice. The more you practice the better you get.” “I think there are a lot of people,” she said, “who don’t improve, no matter how much they practice.” She sure hit that one on the head. I had attended art school, but loads of my classmates couldn’t paint their way out of a paper bag. However we thrash about, we are all thrown in one direction or another by our natural talent, or lack of it. That’s a basic truth we all have to learn to live with.
We’re all born with different abilities. Being linked to someone by blood doesn’t mean you have similar gifts.”
People can become accustomed to almost anything, especially when they’re pushed to the limit. It may become surprisingly easy then.”
“We all have ordeals we must face,” Menshiki said. “It’s through them that we find a new direction in our lives. The more grueling the ordeal, the more it can help us down the road.”
As I continued on my solitary journey, this “real” erotic dream provided me with a provisional kind of happiness. You might say it buoyed me up. By recalling it, I could feel that I was a living creature organically connected to the world. Linked to my surroundings not through logical or conceptual thought, but carnally, through my body.
People can accomplish anything, I thought, if they want it badly enough. There are channels through which reality can become unreal. Or unreality can enter the realm of the real. If we desire it that strongly. Deep in our heart. But that didn’t mean that we were free. It might demonstrate quite the opposite.
“You have the strength to wish for what you cannot have. While I have only wished for those things I can possess.”
“You know, I’ve always believed myself to be a totally normal sort of guy.” “That could be a dangerous belief.” “To believe that I’m normal?” “I think it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote that one should never trust people who claim they’re normal. It’s in one of his novels.”
“Isn’t there a danger that the world itself will be altered when an Idea is killed?” “How could it be otherwise?” the Commendatore said. Again, he raised one eyebrow, Lee Marvin–style. “What would be the meaning of a world that did not change when an Idea was extinguished? Can an Idea be so insignificant?”
Just as a great poet can use one scene to bring another new, unknown vista into view. It should be obvious, but the best metaphors make the best poems. Take good care not to avert your eyes from the new, unknown vistas you will encounter.”
The darkness blotted out the line between sleep and wakefulness as well. Where did one end and the other begin, and which side was I on?
“There are some things that can’t be explained in this life,” Menshiki went on, “and some others that probably shouldn’t be explained. Especially when putting them into words ignores what is most crucial.”
Just because it looked like the real world at first glance, however, didn’t mean that was necessarily the case. It might be no more than my assumption. I might well have descended through one hole in Izu and traveled the underworld only to be spit out three days later through the wrong hole in the mountains of Odawara. There was no guarantee that the world I had left and the world I had returned to were one and the same.
When it came down to it, though, could anything be completely correct, or completely incorrect? We lived in a world where rain might fall thirty percent, or seventy percent, of the time. Truth was probably no different. There could be thirty percent or seventy percent truth.
“None of us are ever finished. Everyone is always a work in progress.”
“This is my life, sure, but in the end almost all that happens in it may be decided arbitrarily, quite apart from me. In other words, although I may presume I have free will, in fact I may not be making any of the major decisions that affect me.
“Perhaps nothing can be certain in this world,” I said. “But at least we can believe in something.”
