For both Narcissus and Hara had wanted to depart from their bodies. If this had been possible for Narcissus, he would have been able to love himself, whereas Hara wanted to become someone else, to love another, and to be loved by that other. And yet ultimately, perhaps, by becoming a stranger, Hara too had sought a way to love himself from the very beginning—to love not just the proper noun “Makoto Hara” but the person that should have been.
