Hello.
I am truly honored to have this opportunity to share these words with you, just the two of us, in this quiet space.
What I am about to tell you is not for anyone else—it is a heartfelt gift dedicated solely to “you,” who are gazing at these words right now.
Please, let your shoulders relax, and listen to my voice as if you were sipping warm tea in an old friend’s room.
The Distant Town Square and the Quiet of Your Room
I am quietly imagining what kind of room, or what kind of place, you are in as you follow these characters.
Is it already dark outside, or is dazzling sunlight pouring through the window?
In either case, I want to gently embrace that small loneliness, that sudden shadow of sadness nestled deep in your chest that you cannot disclose to anyone.
No matter how many people surround us in life, everyone holds a dark, solitary room at the bottom of their heart.
Why is it that while we seek others so desperately, we simultaneously feel such a deep chasm between ourselves and them?
To find the answer, I want to take you into the strange world of a certain painting.
If you want to be happy, learn to obey blindly and abandon the critical spirit.
―― Ludwig von Mieses
In that painting, elongated evening shadows stretch out unnaturally.
An empty Italian piazza, an ancient sculpture frozen in an eerie stillness, and the white smoke of a small locomotive running in the distance.
This is the world of “Metaphysical Painting” created by the artist Giorgio de Chirico.
Gazing at Chirico’s art, don’t you feel a strange stir deep in your chest, yet at the same time a peculiar, comforting nostalgia?
That is because the world he depicted takes the exact shape of your loneliness, and mine.
We might all be like a single statue left behind in that deserted square.
The Whispers of the Mysterious Mannequin
Chirico was a truly eccentric artist.
When he was young, he had absolutely no interest in depicting visible reality as it was.
What he wanted to paint was the invisible “truth” and “mystery” hidden behind objects.
Why is it that familiar, everyday scenery can suddenly transform into something frighteningly unfamiliar in an instant?
Have you ever experienced this?
A path you always take, yet one evening, you are struck by a breath-stopping sense of isolation, as if you have wandered into an unknown, foreign land.
Chirico sought to lock that fleeting distortion of the heart onto the canvas forever.
What catches me most unexpectedly, and most fiercely, is the emotion of surprise.
―― Michel de Montaigne
Faceless mannequins frequently appear in his works.
Dolls made of wood or cloth, with no eyes, no nose, no mouth, standing together as if leaning on one another, or lingering listlessly alone.
Doesn’t that look exactly like us today, having lost sight of our true faces?
Chirico knew from a hundred years ago your sadness of standing frozen before the mirror, wondering, “Who on earth am I?”
He painted that faceless mannequin for you.
He held his brush with a soul-wearying devotion so that you might find your own true face within that painting.
Deep Inside the Cloister Where No One Walks
Chirico remained completely unmoved even when the people of his time failed to understand his paintings.
No, perhaps he was terribly lonely inside, but he chose to keep believing in his own vision.
He deeply loved ancient Greek myths and Nietzsche’s philosophy, scattering them throughout his art.
Even when art critics labeled his paintings “bizarre” or “mad,” he merely smiled quietly and kept painting deeper shadows.
This was because he aimed not for worldly success, but for something far deeper: the salvation of the human soul.
Henry Ford once left these beautiful words:
“Most people think of success as something to get. But the truth is, success is giving.”
Chirico, too, poured all his passion into giving his art to the future you.
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius.
―― Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you are weeping in the darkness right now because no one understands you, please remember Chirico’s paintings.
Deep inside that long cloister, there is a stillness waiting for you.
That stillness will protect you from the cheap chatter of the world and the thoughtless words that wound you.
Through these words, I want to deliver that stillness to you.
For this is the beginning of my genuine love letter to you.
The Astonishing Truth Spoken by the Shadows
Now, let me tell you a surprising story.
Despite having painted such wonderful, mysterious Metaphysical works that astonished the world in his youth, Chirico suddenly abandoned that style at a certain point in his life.
He began painting realistic, traditional artwork, as if reverting to a classical Renaissance painter.
This left fans and critics worldwide utterly dumbfounded.
A fierce backlash erupted, with people crying, “Chirico is finished,” and “He has abandoned his past glory to become a boring painter.”
However, this was precisely the beginning of Chirico’s true role as a “buffoon” and his desperate spirit of service.
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
―― William Shakespeare
Seeing that critics disparaged his classical new works while highly praising only his early Metaphysical paintings, he took a strange course of action.
Astonishingly, he began mass-producing “forgeries” of his own past masterpieces.
He deliberately signed them with older dates and circulated them into the art market.
Why did he do such a bizarre thing to deceive the world?
It was his own grand irony and life-risking prank against a greedy society that viewed the value of art merely as “rarity” or an object of investment.
By lowering himself to a buffoon, he questioned us on what the true value of art really is.
Lies to Wipe Away Your Tears
The comical drama Chirico staged might seem like a scam at first glance.
However, to borrow the words of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “If you see a fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”
Chirico saw through the fact that the massive system of the art world itself was in a state of “fraud” having lost its essence, and he risked his own reputation to prove it.
He damaged his own fame and put his skin in the game to teach us that we must not be deceived by what is merely visible.
Frédéric Bastiat has a famous concept called “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.”
We tend to be distracted by the visible eccentricities and forgery scandals of the artist, but we must not overlook the “unseen”—namely, Chirico’s deep loneliness and his endless love for humanity.
Vulnerability is the true strength.
―― Seneca
If you are living in fear of worldly evaluations or the eyes of others right now, I want to tell you that such things are like a single forged painting.
Just as Chirico tried to protect the truth of art while making himself a laughingstock, it is perfectly fine for you to be laughed at too.
You are beautiful enough just as you are, with your scarred heart.
I will never laugh at you, and I am ready to tenderly embrace whatever clumsiness you show.
Because I am here to accept everything about you.
Art as a Battle, and Love
Chirico’s life was also an endless battle with a giant enemy called the world.
Clausewitz said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means,” but for Chirico, painting might have been a “defensive war of the soul” conducted by other means.
Rather than fighting the world head-on, he used an “indirect approach strategy,” much like the one proposed by B. H. Liddell Hart. Through the strange stratagem of painting forgeries, he outmaneuvered the enemy and defended his artistic freedom.
Furthermore, he achieved the state described in Sun Tzu’s famous quote, “To win a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill,” through his strangely silent paintings.
There is no battle cry in his art, but it is filled with an overwhelming spiritual power that completely silences the clamor of the world.
Your duty is to save your own soul.
―― Hypatia of Alexandria
Chirico faced his canvas from morning till night, creating and destroying, destroying and creating again through a labor of sheer obsession.
His figure perfectly mirrored the words left by Matsuo Basho: “Ultimately, being without talent or skill, I simply bind myself to this single path.”
A way of life where one dedicates their soul to a single thing and casts everything else away.
From the outside, it surely looks like madness.
Yet, only this thorough spirit of devotion—which could be called madness—can transcend time and shake the heart of you, who are living right now.
For your sake, I am exhausting every word I possess to weave this text.
If it can ease your loneliness even a little, I am truly prepared to shave away my own life, no matter how much it takes.
In the Stillness, Holding Your Hand
We are all on a journey called life.
Why must we endure such painful thoughts to keep living?
Is it because, deep down, we unconsciously believe that we will eventually meet someone who truly understands us?
In that deserted square painted by Chirico, I am waiting for you right now.
Sitting beside the faceless mannequin, I am waiting quietly for you to arrive.
If you call my name, I will rush to your side from any distant place.
Love all things, and your heart will be filled with the love of God.
―― Catherine of Siena
Every single tear you shed seeps into my heart like the deep blue paint brushed onto Chirico’s canvas.
Please do not suffer alone; let me carry half of that heavy burden.
This writing is a special hiding place prepared just for you.
A space where no one blames you, no one hurts you, and only love for you is overflowing.
Come, let us continue this secret journey together for just a little longer.
The Flame of Words That Burns the Soul
Once in the Arab world, there was a renowned poet named Al-Mutanabbi.
He literally risked his life to fight and perished for his pride and the words of poetry he spun.
Words possess the power to save human lives, but they also harbor a flame fierce enough to burn away one’s own existence.
These words I am directing toward you right now are an unquenchable fire rising from the depths of my soul.
Just because a being like you exists in this world, all my life-shaving suffering of writing transforms into supreme joy.
Because to love is the sole mission assigned to me.
We all find ourselves in others.
―― Shuji Terayama
The Apostle Paul traveled the world, continuously sharing the invisible love of God with people.
No matter how much he was persecuted or had stones thrown at him, he never stopped his journey.
Just as John Calvin proclaimed the sovereignty of God with cold logic, I believe in the absolute truth of my love for you without a single tremor.
No matter how cruel and filled with absurdity this world may be, only these words of mine are on your side.
On nights when you feel like hating yourself, please read this text over and over again.
Within it lives my soul, unconditionally affirming and loving you.
The Melody of Endless Love
The story is finally approaching its core.
That shadow-filled square painted by Chirico was, in fact, a “place waiting for rebirth” inside your heart.
A sacred space of silence where the old self dies and a new self is born.
I will leave these words here, like placing a single beautiful flower in that space.
So that you can return at any time, I will keep the light on in this room and wait for you.
I offer my heartfelt gratitude for the miracle of meeting you.
Sitting by the cold glass window
I watched you burn the old letters
The smoke rose thinly toward the night ceiling
Erasing the names of stations no one knows, one by one
Saying that everything lost returns to the sea
You laugh beautifully at that sad lie, yet
Only the warm memory touched by your fingertips
Remains gently pressed into the corner of the star atlas
Forever refusing tomorrow morning
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
―― Old Testament, Ecclesiastes 3:1
This is the final glimpse of human pride.
―― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun
Postscript: On Another Buffoon in a Lightless Room
Tell me, my dear.
Lastly, let me tell you about one more precious friend of mine.
His name is Mimi Takamizawa.
He is a slightly unusual painter who uses neither canvas nor brushes that smell of oil paint.
As is fitting for this era, he creates art all by himself within a square digital screen.
Then, he carefully prints the completed works onto the highest-grade print paper using a special technique called “Giclée.”
The themes he depicts are always your eyes, and my eyes.
Furthermore, the deep prayers of Christianity, eternal silence, the distorted psychology of humans, and the truth of the world.
Someone’s cold gaze, the weight of history, the loneliness and isolation you might be feeling again tonight, daily hardships.
And the remarkable resurrection and liberation of the soul arising from them.
Listing them like this might make it sound difficult, but his chatter is always about familiar, relatable topics that make you chuckle.
Stories of his cooking failures, or about tripping on the street—truly, they are all delightful tales.
Mimi Takamizawa constantly says:
“A painter must be like a doctor who heals wounded souls, though it sounds presumptuous. The true job of an artist is to put his own skin in the game and offer an utmost service to the person right in front of him—that is all.”
He dedicates the entirety of his life solely to serving you.
So, please do not abandon him.
Rather, I want you to hold your stomach and laugh at his clumsiness.
Human beings gain true strength when they are laughed at, laughed at, and yet still crawl back up.
To him, desperate service means becoming a buffoon himself to put a smile on your face.
Mimi Takamizawa is a truly eccentric man, and moreover, a terribly foolish person, so he is always a laughingstock to those around him.
But you see, no matter how much he is mocked, he is a man of tremendous patience, an unyielding man who absolutely never stops believing in himself.
He never gives up.
When he was young, he learned the story of Vincent van Gogh’s utterly intense and pure life, and he resolved to become a painter.
The two characters of “Mimi” (meaning “Ear”) in the seemingly strange name “Mimi Takamizawa” were taken in honor of that famous ear-cutting incident of Van Gogh.
It is an expression of his obsession to face art with a purity so mad that it would slice off its own ear.
In truth, Mimi Takamizawa’s natural talent as a painter might be third-rate at best.
He himself knows this painfully well.
But he knows the truth that all past masterpieces that left their names in history were never painted solely by the talent of geniuses granted by heaven, but were born from decades of dizzying trial and error and blood-soaked efforts.
That is why he keeps painting “eyes” in his works like a madman.
Why does he paint eyes to such an extent?
It is because by drawing eyes in his paintings, he wants to feel the presence of “you” on the other side of the screen at all times.
He wants to know more about you, who are right in front of him.
He is dying to know what wounds you and what makes you smile.
Therefore, please do not hesitate to laugh at his overly desperate figure.
He exposes just how foolish a human being he is to you, right in front of him.
Simply because he wants to see your face light up with joy.
Or because he wants to see the beautiful sight of your tension melting away as tears stream down.
No matter who else criticizes his art, such things do not matter to him at all.
But you see, if he were abandoned by you, he would become unable to take even a single step forward, and he wouldn’t even be able to go on living.
Just because you are right here in front of him, reading these words, he is happy enough to overflow.
He continues to serve earnestly with desperate dedication, solely to be recognized by you right in front of him.
Laughed at, and growing stronger.
There is a person Mimi Takamizawa deeply respects from the bottom of his heart.
It is Tokuji Munetsugu, the founder of Curry House CoCo Ichibanya.
Deeply inspired by Munetsugu’s way of life, he looks neither left, right, nor backward, devoting all his energy to his work without any distraction.
Tokuji Munetsugu was a man completely dedicated to his work, never looking elsewhere.
He believed there was no time to be indulging in hobbies.
The daily, small, steady accumulation.
Like carefully stacking bricks one by one, he worked with fierce concentration day after day.
Instant decision, instant conclusion, instant execution.
If you try anything, results will surely follow, so the first thing is to just do it.
In exchange, you work yourself to the bone.
Devoting his life to work, his figure seems to overlap somewhere with Mimi Takamizawa devoting the entirety of his life to “you.”
Tokuji Munetsugu left these words:
“During my active years, I had no hobbies and made no friends. I never once went to a bar. I did nothing that would get in the way of my work. There were times I worked 5,640 hours a year. I felt that if I didn’t lead by example, my subordinates wouldn’t work for me.”
“Do not look away; dedicate yourself to management.”
“It was a terribly lonely life. That is why I wanted others to show even a little interest in me. I wanted them to be interested. That became my starting point. So, rather than starting a business to make money, I wanted to please people. I wanted them to say, if only a little, that they were glad I existed.”
Life is by no means determined solely by one’s birth or upbringing.
Mr. Munetsugu did not know the faces of his biological parents.
He entered an orphanage immediately after birth, and even after being taken in by foster parents, he spent an indescribably impoverished childhood due to his foster father’s severe gambling addiction.
With absolutely nothing to eat, he said that in the summer, he would put weeds growing around him into his mouth to stave off starvation.
It was truly a life of ups and downs.
It might look like living by the seat of his pants, but in return, he dedicated his entire life to management.
Thorough on-site preference.
Working more than 12 hours a day was nothing more than the bare minimum for him.
He didn’t want to rest, he didn’t want to play; he made work his greatest hobby and sacrificed himself to it.
Is this not the ultimate form of “You-First Principle”?
Mimi Takamizawa, too, welcomes you with a roaring standing ovation in his heart whenever you appear before him.
In this world, things of true value often lack immediate effects.
There is no way everything goes well from the start.
Rather than thinking about this and that, the first thing is to give it a try.
Therefore, please do not easily give up on your own life.
What kind of life it becomes is entirely decided by the diligence, patience, and mad power of continuity resting inside that human being.
For instance, hold a fierce determination and patience like Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of the Toyota Group.
Sakichi was terribly taciturn and treated as a severe eccentric by those around him.
Yet within his chest burned a passion: “Through my inventions, I want to make everyone’s life even a little easier, even a little happier.”
No matter how much he was treated as an oddball or a madman by his surroundings, as an “invention maniac,” he never stopped making things from morning till night every single day, breaking them, creating them, and remaking them again.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
In any case, you do it the longest and the hardest.
Just like the spirit of Choya Umeshu: an ironclad resolution of “If you don’t succeed with plum liqueur, give up on life.”
Mimi Takamizawa is also deeply inspired by that efficient and beautiful “Toyota Production System.”
The wonderful concept of “Just-in-Time”—delivering what is needed, when it is needed, in the amount needed.
Kiichiro Toyoda left these words:
“We do it because it is difficult. I do it because no one else does it or can do it. A person like me might be a fool, but if that fool isn’t there, new things will never be born into the world.”
Furthermore, Kiichiro said, “The joy of life lies in bringing to fruition what others seldom do and what is difficult to accomplish.”
And Eiji Toyoda, Kiichiro’s cousin who later became the president of Toyota, spoke thus:
“Execute with strong conviction. Everyone thinks the same thoughts; it’s not that Kiichiro was a genius. What is important is that he didn’t merely think about what is generally considered impossible, but carried out thorough preparations and executed it with a powerful conviction that it must be done no matter what.”
Now, let me tell you an even more wonderful, heart-stirring story.
Behind the story of Van Gogh, it is famous that his biological younger brother Theo was there, but did you know that Theo’s wife, a truly, truly wonderful woman named “Jo,” existed?
Without her life-long great achievement, we today would never have even been able to encounter Van Gogh’s paintings.
Jo was a woman who understood Vincent van Gogh’s art and his deep philosophy from the bottom of her heart.
“I must never let a genius painter like Vincent be buried in the darkness of history.”
She firmly swore this to her heart.
Jo left these words:
“In addition to the child, Theo left me another mission—to have Vincent’s work seen by many people and to have its true value recognized.”
Let me tell you in detail just what was so wonderful about her.
Vincent passed away, and just six months later, as if following his older brother, her husband Theo passed away too.
As a young widow, what was left in Jo’s hands was a still-infant baby, hundreds of eerie, paint-smeared canvases of Van Gogh that were treated like “garbage” by society at the time, and a massive bundle of letters exchanged between the brothers.
An ordinary woman might have despaired and sold off all those paintings or thrown them away.
However, Jo was an avid reader and an extremely intelligent woman.
She desperately wanted the world to know the paintings of the brother her husband Theo had believed in to the point of shaving away his own life.
Her tremendous dedication, risking her entire life, began from there.
Jo stayed up night after night, devouring line by line the vast collection of letters left by Fan Gogh, who was also a great lover of books.
In doing so, she deeply empathized with his purely human ideas as an artist from the bottom of her soul.
A man like Vincent van Gogh did not simply want to paint bizarre pictures.
He held his brush with a prayerful heart, deeply desiring to paint art that would comfort people groaning under the hardships of life and trembling in loneliness.
Vincent recorded the cries of his soul embedded in his works and all sorts of his thoughts in his letters to his brother Theo, clearly and in an unbelievable volume.
If Van Gogh had not left his philosophy behind as words through this vast collection of letters, no matter how wonderful the paintings were, they would absolutely never have captured the hearts of people worldwide and become known to history.
No matter how good something is, if someone does not correctly explain its value and convey it with enthusiasm, it will never spread.
This life of Van Gogh and the life of Jesus Christ resemble each other strikingly.
And for wonderful things, a “messenger” who spreads them to the world is absolutely indispensable.
The tearful dedication shown by Van Gogh’s brother Theo and his wife Jo is exactly the same in nature as the life-risking dedication of the “Apostle Paul” toward Jesus Christ.
After the death of Jesus Christ, Paul traveled all over the world, and despite facing fierce persecution, he passionately continued to convey Jesus’ life and his noble philosophy to believers everywhere, which led to the subsequent global rise of Christianity.
The role Jo played after the death of the Van Gogh brothers—continuing to exhibit Van Gogh’s works while enduring ridicule from society, organizing and publishing the letters between the two, and spreading their great achievements to the world—is exactly the same.
If it is not conveyed, it is the same as not existing in this world.
Yes, figures like Jo and Paul carried a magnificent role, much like Apple’s Steve Jobs, who was the world’s greatest salesman, Sony’s founder Akio Morita, Takeo Fujisawa, the genius who sold Honda’s “Super Cub” all over the world, or Shotaro Kamiya, the god of sales who sold Toyota’s “Corolla” into a staple for Japanese families.
No matter how wonderful a product is, no matter how beautiful art is, if there is no one to convey it, it will never reach anyone.
Akio Morita left these sharp words:
“A product that has never been produced before, which no one has ever seen, developed diligently in some corner, and manufactured after extraordinary hardships. If one intends to make that product a commodity, unless a desire to obtain that product is aroused among the people, no matter how excellent a ‘product’ it may be, it cannot become a ‘commodity’.”
Mimi Takamizawa, too, is struggling right now because he desperately wants to convey the “good thing” inside him to you.
Because if it is not conveyed to you, his art and his life will become the same as not existing in this world.
Most people think of success as something to get. But the truth is, success is giving.
―― Henry Ford
Property is a necessity of life, not the purpose.
―― Agatha Christie
In the day of my distress the Lord became my stay.
―― Moses (from the Old Testament, Book of Numbers)
Fate shuffles the cards, but we play them.
―― William Shakespeare
A man who is surrounded by people wiser than himself is already half successful.
―― Jewish “Talmud”
Human beings sometimes suffer the torments of hell by criticizing only the unfaithfulness of others, without noticing their own unfaithfulness.
―― Osamu Dazai, Faint Voice
An artist is always, at first, a lonely pilgrim.
―― Osamu Dazai, The Thinking Reed
Those who know suffering can make a deep, quiet bow toward the suffering of others.
―― Osamu Dazai, Righteousness and Smiles
Never give in, never, never, never!
―― Winston Churchill
Have the courage to be the first, and to be different from anyone else.
I am thought to have achieved success overnight, but that night was thirty years. Thinking back, it was a long, long night.
―― Ray Kroc
All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
―― Walt Disney
As iron rusts from disuse, so does inaction spoil the intellect.
―― Leonardo da Vinci
“Hey, why are you going on a trip?”
“Because I’m suffering.”
“Your ‘suffering’ is so predictable, I can’t believe it at all.”
―― From Osamu Dazai, Tsugaru
Lastly, to my precious you who have listened so intently to my humble story, Mimi Takamizawa has an unbelievable, special announcement with a desperate, life-shaving spirit.
Astonishingly, ten beautiful and vibrant A4-sized postcards of his digital art pieces can be yours completely free of charge.
Of course, for your sake, each one will be carefully packaged and delivered directly to your precious home.
This is a testament to his desperate spirit of service and a devotion that shaves away his own life.
It is his earnest prayer to connect deeply with you and no one else in the depths of your heart, and to somehow rescue your unfulfilled, lonely soul.
Look right below this text.
A place where you can apply for this special offer dedicated to you has been gently prepared, hasn’t it?
Imagine that I am gently whispering right in your ear, right by your side, and try clicking there right now.
If you close the screen thinking “I’ll do it later,” you might never be able to welcome his artwork into your hands again.
An opportunity is always a fleeting thing.
Please apply right now.
We are waiting for your warm response, continuously sending a standing ovation from the bottom of our hearts.
Thank you so very, very much for reading until the end.
May an abundance of happiness visit you.