At the End of the Matinee

by Keiichirō Hirano

But while fiction makes it possible to refrain from revealing some secrets, it is the only way to reveal others.

“Music is like that too. After you follow a musical theme to the end, looking back, what do you see? Beethoven’s diary contains a mysterious line: ‘Ascertain all in the evening.’ I forget offhand what the original German is. Yoko, you could probably help me there. Anyway, I think he meant something similar. Listening to a musical theme develop, you come to see that it contained a certain potentiality all along. Once you follow it to the end, the theme never sounds the same again. A bud that you look at knowing nothing of the flower to come isn’t the same as the bud you look back on in memory with the flower before you. Music doesn’t just progress forward in a straight line but works backward into the past as well. Without understanding that, you would never appreciate the fascination of the fugue.”

“People think that only the future can be changed, but in fact, the future is continually changing the past. The past can and does change. It’s exquisitely sensitive and delicately balanced.”

In exchange for the privilege of life, individuals in the modern world put up with ceaseless clamor. Not only noises but images, smells, tastes, perhaps even the warmth of others . . . all of it rushing at them in a mad free-for-all, each bit screaming its presence. And society, still unsatisfied, crammed in yet more, until one’s very sense of time was destroyed. It was unbearable, human exhaustion. Surely this was a historic, decisive change, wasn’t it? From now on, people would forevermore be creatures of exhaustion, distinguished from other animals by their continual state of fatigue. Caught up in the tempo of machines and computers, their senses buffeted by constant noise, people griped about daily life with piteous intensity before entering the complete silence obtainable only by death.

My father told me I suffer from Death in Venice Syndrome, a disease he made up. It supposedly means “Growing suddenly tired of conforming to society at the onset of middle or old age and taking self-destructive actions with the intent of returning to one’s original self.” That’s me in a nutshell. lol.

You’re too hard on yourself. You’ve done more than anyone could ever ask. If one of your colleagues said they’d never been to Iraq, would you think worse of them? Of course not. And yet you’re still over there. Worried that there’s something more you could have done. Overestimating not just your ability but human ability. After all, human beings evolved in an environment where they could migrate on foot. Having the entire earth linked up in real time this way goes beyond human potential. Individual human potential. All you can do is choose the best environment to live out your life in peace and make that your world. Seek happiness there. Right? Believe me, you aren’t shutting your eyes to the world’s misery. But you’ve done more than your share. Not everybody could do what you’ve done. Now it’s time to let others take over.”

“I sometimes think beauty must be worn out from being saddled with such cumbersome tasks all the time.”

Loneliness, when it came down to it, was the awareness of your utter lack of influence in the world—knowing that you could and would have zero influence on either your contemporaries or on future generations.

But instead of trying to go back to your old self, you need to shape your new self in a way that you can accept.