How Do You Live?

by Genzaburo Yoshino

there may be nothing more deep-rooted and stubborn than the human tendency to look at and think of things with themselves at the center.

In the world at large, people who are able to free themselves from this self-centered way of thinking are truly uncommon. Above all, when one stands to gain or lose, it is exceptionally difficult to step outside of oneself and make correct judgments, and thus one could say that people who are able to think Copernicus-style even about these things are exceptionally great people. Most people slip into a self-interested way of thinking, become unable to understand the facts of the matter, and end up seeing only that which betters their own circumstances.

Still, as long as we held fast to the thought that our own planet was at the center of the universe, humanity was unable to understand the true nature of the universe—and likewise, when people judge their own affairs with only themselves at the center, they end up unable to know the true nature of society. The larger truth never reveals itself to them.

If it means anything at all to live in this world, it’s that you must live your life like a true human being and feel just what you feel. This is not something that anyone can teach from the sidelines, no matter how great a person they may be.

That is why I think the first, most basic step in these matters is to start with the moments of real feeling in your life, when your heart is truly moved, and to think about the meaning of those. The things that you feel most deeply, from the very bottom of your heart, will never deceive you in the slightest. And so at all times, in all things, whatever feelings you may have, consider these carefully.

you must make a habit of thinking honestly, with your own experience as a foundation, and—Copper, this is very important!—if someone fakes this part, no matter what kind of great-sounding things they think or say, they are all lies in the end.

The most important thing—more than what other people think, more than anything—is that you should first know for yourself, truly and deeply, where human greatness lies.

There are lots of people in the world who act just for appearance’s sake—in order to seem great in the eyes of others. That type of person worries first about how they are reflected in other people’s eyes, and they inadvertently end up neglecting their true selves, as they really are. I hope you don’t become that sort of person. And that is why you absolutely must attend to the things you feel in your own heart, the things that move you deeply. That is what is most important, now and always. Do not forget this, and think carefully about what it means.

There are many things that people need to live. To do so, they take various materials from the natural world and make what they need. Some things they can take from the world to wear or eat just as they are, but even so, people end up having to do all sorts of work, such as hunting, fishing, excavating mountains, and so on. From primitive times, people have always worked. Along the way, they learned how to cooperate and to divide the work between themselves into specialties, because they had no other choice. It is this kind of cooperation and division of work between people that scholars call “relations of production.”

So we must pursue our studies as far as we are able and learn from the experiences of the people who came before us. Otherwise, all their labor will have been in vain. And since they worked so hard, it would be a mistake not to apply our efforts to problems that they didn’t manage to solve. It’s only through that work, which builds on all that came before, that a discovery can be considered to belong to the human race. And what’s more, it’s only those discoveries that we can call great.

There is nothing more beautiful than people nurturing goodwill toward their fellow beings. And those are the human relations that humans truly deserve.

So in theory, then, saying that someone is poor shouldn’t make them feel small. It should go without saying that the true worth of a person doesn’t depend on that person’s clothes or house or food. No matter what kind of magnificent garments they wear or grand mansion they inhabit, fools are fools, boors are boorish, and their value as people shouldn’t be elevated for those reasons. Furthermore, if someone has a noble mind and great insight, then we owe it to them to respect them as great, even if they are impoverished. Therefore, someone with true confidence in their value as a human being should be able to live unaffected, even if their circumstances shift a bit this way or that.

If nobody made anything, there would be no tastes, no pleasures—consumption would be impossible. The work of making things itself makes it possible for people to be truly human. This is not just a matter of food and clothing. In the academic world, in the art world, the producers are needed far more than the consumers.

“Oh boy. You just don’t get it, do you? Win or lose, heroes are heroes! Actually, real heroes are great even when they lose.

“Make no mistake,” they insisted, “once they enter society, students with no love of school will surely become citizens with no love of country. People who don’t love their country are traitors. Therefore, we can say that students who don’t love their school are traitors in training. We must discipline any such fledgling traitors.”

The people that we call great or heroic are all of them extraordinary people. They have abilities that everyday people do not, and can accomplish things that everyday people can’t. Being extraordinary means that they all have something about them to make us bow down. But more than humbling ourselves to these people, we must be bold enough to ask questions. Such as “What did they accomplish using these extraordinary abilities?” Or “Of what use are their extraordinary accomplishments?” And with extraordinary abilities, isn’t it possible that one might just as easily accomplish extraordinarily bad things?

When you, too, become an adult, you will eventually come to know how many small, virtuous people there are who have the best intentions but who cannot realize them, all because of weakness.

The world is full of people who are not bad, but weak, people who bring unnecessary misfortune upon themselves and others for no reason but weakness. A heroic spirit that’s not devoted to human progress may be empty and meaningless, but goodness that is lacking in the spirit of heroism is often empty as well.

“If you humbly admit your mistake, that may help you make amends with Kitami and the others, and perhaps you can all be friends as before. Or else they may remain resentful and continue to turn their backs on you. That is something you can’t know here and now, no matter how much you try to think it through. However, even if they do reject your friendship, you can’t complain.

“You must not repeat this mistake again. Gather your courage, Copper, and do what you must do. No matter what you do, you can’t change the past. Think of the present instead. Go and do what you have to do now, and be brave. When it comes to this sort of thing—Copper, when it comes to this sort of thing, you simply must not give in.

“The older we get, the bigger the things are, the harder they are to take back, and the more we feel this way, compared to when we were children.

Human beings are so great that they demonstrate their greatness by recognizing their own misery. A tree does not recognize that it is miserable.

Even if our bodies have not been injured or starved, people can feel wounded, starving, and thirsty. If our dreams are cruelly dashed, then our hearts are wounded and invisible blood flows. If we must live without kindness and affection, our hearts develop an unquenchable thirst.

That’s it. It’s truly painful to admit one’s own mistakes. Most people think up any excuse they can to avoid it. However, Copper, when you have made a mistake, to recognize it bravely and to suffer for it is something that in all of heaven and earth, only humans can do.

“Error has the same relationship to truth as sleeping does to waking. I have seen that when one wakes from error, one turns to truth again as if revived.”

“Originally, Buddhism started in India. About twenty-five hundred years ago, a prince named Siddhārtha Gautama, born in central India, wanted with all his heart to rescue humanity from suffering. For many years, he led a life of hard study and meditation and then began to preach his teachings. He came to be called the Buddha, and his teachings were known as Buddhism.

What moved me the most, naturally, were my father’s words. I will never, ever forget that my father’s last wish was for me to be a great example of a human being. I think I have to try to be a truly good person. As you said, I am an expert consumer, and I don’t produce anything. Unlike Uragawa, I couldn’t produce anything even if I wanted to. Still, I can become a good person. I can become a good person and create one good person for the world. And I think that if I can just do that, then I might become a person who can create even more than that.

I think there has to come a time when everyone in the world treats each other as if they were good friends. Since humanity has come so far, I think now we will definitely be able to make it to such a place. So I think I want to become a person who can help that happen.

The initial plan was that Yoshino’s friend, the novelist and playwright Yamamoto Yūzō(1887–1974), would be the author of the volume, but when he became ill, it fell to Yoshino to write it himself.