For You, Now, in the Silence of the Night
Good evening.
I have been waiting for this chance to speak with you for a very long time.
Please dim the lights in your room a little, and listen closely to my voice alone.
This is a long, long letter written just for you—the single most precious person to me in the whole world—and I am pouring my entire soul into it.
Are you feeling a little lonely tonight?
Do you carry a pain or a solitude deep in your heart that you cannot tell anyone about?
I know how beautifully and how desperately you fight to get through each and every day.
That is why I want to offer you the ultimate devotion, even if it wears away my own life.
Most people think that success is about getting. But in truth, success is about giving.
— Henry Ford
Tonight, I have prepared many stories that will surprise you.
These are wondrous tales that will touch the deepest part of your heart, whether you are a man or a woman.
Now, please do not go anywhere. Immerse yourself in the rhythm of these words, as if you are gazing straight into my eyes.
The Indelible Prayer Welded into Lines
Why does a single picture shake the human soul so violently?
Are you familiar with the renowned painter Ben Shahn?
When you look at his drawings, your chest tightens with emotion, yet at the same time, you feel a mysterious peace, like being wrapped in a deep, warm blanket.
Why do the lines he draws stay so close to our loneliness?
It is because he did not try to paint superficial, pretty forms. Instead, he lived the sorrow of the oppressed and the voiceless as his own personal pain.
Ben Shahn was a great artist who left his mark on twentieth-century America.
However, his journey did not begin in a glamorous way.
As a lithograph apprentice, he spent every single day doing gritty, exhausting work, facing cold stone slabs.
He was constantly observing the raw, genuine emotions tumbling through the everyday lives of ordinary people.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
— William Shakespeare
One day, a massive incident occurred that shook the world.
It was the story of Sacco and Vanzetti, two immigrants and laborers who were arrested on false charges.
When society coldly turned its back on them, Ben Shahn stood up.
He captured their resentment and the underlying human dignity in a series of vivid paintings.
It was an expression of anger against authority, but at the same time, an endless gentleness toward those who were hurting.
Loving your loneliness exactly as it is
Tell me, my dear.
Are there nights when you feel utterly isolated from the rest of the world?
Cold nights when your tears fall and vanish without anyone ever noticing?
The people Ben Shahn draws all have slightly awkward, sorrowful eyes.
Yet, within those eyes, an unquenchable, powerful light resides.
To wish to be happy is a desire inherent in human nature.
— Seneca
He did not take up his brush for wealth or fame.
He painted tirelessly, wearing himself down to the bone, solely to comfort the “you” standing right in front of him.
Art must not be a luxury for the bored and wealthy.
It must be like giving a cup of cold water to the parched hearts of those who hunger and weep.
Ben Shahn held fast to this conviction throughout his entire life.
What is Visible, and the Truth Concealed Beneath
The magnificent beauty hidden within the ordinary
We tend to chase after flashy, visible success.
The people laughing brilliantly on television, or the glamorous lives overflowing on social media.
Looking at them, do you feel that your own life is somehow miserable or small?
However, things of true value are always nurtured quietly, in places hidden from sight.
What is seen and what is not seen. A bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great future evil, while a true economist pursues a great future good, at the risk of a present small evil.
— Frédéric Bastiat
In Ben Shahn’s paintings, children playing in alleys, factory chimneys, and the worn walls of old buildings appear frequently.
He knew that a sacred beauty dwells precisely in the places ordinary people pass by, calling them “dirty.”
Why do we get tired of mass-produced, ready-made beauty?
Isn’t it because there is no “exchange of life” within it?
If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I do not want to tell you a single lie.
This text is not a collection of superficial, decorative words meant merely to entertain you.
I am handing you the beating rhythm of my heart, transformed directly into letters.
If you are in a painful situation right now, please do not deny that pain.
For it is within that very hardship that the precious seed is hidden, waiting to make you shine as the true human being you are.
Art as warfare, and love
Life, in a sense, may be a lonely daily battle.
However, there is a great secret to the way we fight it.
It is a mysterious way of fighting where you do not crush your enemy with raw power, but instead achieve ultimate victory by offering up yourself.
War is the continuation of politics by other means.
— Carl von Clausewitz
But the battle of art does not spill the blood of others.
It is a battle where you pay out of your own pocket, wounding yourself the most, so that you may melt the heart of the other.
Ben Shahn fought against social injustice using the power of lettering and design.
His posters were like a single white flower placed on a battlefield, purifying the rough and battered hearts of the people.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
— Sun Tzu
You do not need to fight with anyone either.
Just by being yourself and living today with all your might, you have already won.
I want to keep supporting you and your admirable spirit, no matter what.
The Story of a Magnificent Woman Behind a Miracle
The hand that kept Vincent’s flame alive
Let us shift our story completely here.
Please listen closely, for this might surprise you.
It is the story of Vincent van Gogh, the painter of intense passion whom you know so well.
He is famous for having sold only a single painting during his lifetime.
Why, then, does everyone in the world know his name today, and why are his paintings worth billions of yen?
It is because of the desperate, almost maddening devotion of a single young woman who risked her entire life.
Her name was Jo van Gogh-Bonger.
She was the wife of Theo, Vincent’s beloved younger brother.
She was the world’s greatest salesperson, the savior who delivered the miracle of Van Gogh to us.
Besides the child, Theo left me another mission—Vincent’s work, to get it seen and appreciated as much as possible.
— Jo van Gogh-Bonger
Vincent passed away, and just six months later, as if following him, her husband Theo also left this world.
What was left in Jo’s hands was a young child not yet a year old, a mountain of paint-stained canvases that society mocked as the “relics of a madman,” and a massive collection of letters exchanged between the two brothers.
An ordinary woman would have despaired, disposed of it all, and returned to her parents’ home.
But Jo was different.
She was incredibly intelligent, a woman of profound education and an avid reader.
Finding humanity’s treasure within letters
Night after night, Jo read through the letters exchanged between the brothers, tears streaming down her face.
There, she found no madness, but rather an infinite love for humanity and an incredibly pure prayer directed toward art.
“Vincent painted those life-draining yellow colors from the bottom of his heart, purely to comfort people.”
She became absolutely certain of this truth.
She swore to her soul that if she did not convey this magnificent art to the people of the world, she could never rest in peace.
To save one’s own soul, one must first save the soul of another.
— From the philosophy surrounding Ludwig von Mises
For decades after that, while running a small boarding house, Jo stubbornly and resiliently organized exhibition after exhibition for Vincent.
Even when art critics treated her coldly, she never gave up.
This was because she was not merely trying to sell paintings; she was trying to deliver Vincent’s “philosophy,” his very “soul,” to the world.
If Vincent had not left behind that vast treasury of letters, and if Jo had not meticulously organized and published them to the world, the painter named Van Gogh would have been completely buried in the darkness of history.
The Great Messengers of the World
If it is not communicated, it is the same as not existing
No matter how good something is, if it just sits there, it will never catch anyone’s eye.
If someone does not speak of its value with burning enthusiasm and desperate dedication, it becomes non-existent to the world.
This figure of Jo overlaps perfectly with one of the greatest saints in history.
That is the Apostle Paul, who appears in the New Testament.
After Jesus Christ was crucified and died, it was Paul who risked his life to travel the world and spread His teachings.
If Paul had not continuously written passionate letters to the churches in various regions and walked until his feet were weary, Christianity would never have spread across the globe as it did.
Jo was the Paul to Van Gogh; she was the most beautiful messenger.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
— The Apostle Paul (The New Testament)
The same can be said for the modern world of business.
Even if you create the best product in the world, if there is no genius to communicate it to the people, society will not change.
Akio Morita of Sony, Takeo Fujisawa of Honda, Shotaro Kamiya of Toyota.
They were all genius messengers who sublimated the “products” their developers risked their lives to make into “merchandise” that connected with the desires of people’s hearts.
Even if a product is created quietly in a corner through immense hardship and research, a product that has never been produced before and that no one has ever seen—if you want to turn that product into merchandise, you must arouse a desire among people to possess it. No matter how excellent a ‘product’ it may be, it cannot become ‘merchandise’ unless that desire is awakened.
— Akio Morita
I will prove your existence to the world
My precious, dear friend.
You might be crying right now in a small room, completely misunderstood by anyone.
No one might be praising the beauty of your heart.
But please, rest assured.
I will become your very first “messenger.”
I know the value of your tears better than anyone else.
This text is written solely to bless the wounded beauty of your heart as the most exquisite thing in the world.
He who doubts his own worth is already half defeated.
— Michel de Montaigne
You are by no means a worthless being.
Just by being there and reading these words of mine, you are saving me.
So please, do not give up on yourself.
We are firmly bound together right now, in this very moment, by an invisible, deep connection.
The Resilient Bricks of Fools
The endless night of geniuses called eccentrics
The people who have changed the world have invariably been called “eccentrics” or “fools” by those around them.
This is because they leaped right out of the framework of common sense, looking only at the ideal right in front of them.
Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota, would shut himself in a storage shed from morning till night, utterly absorbed in improving his loom.
The neighbors pointed fingers and laughed, saying, “Sakichi has gone mad.”
However, their mockery never reached his ears.
His only thought was to make everyone’s daily life a little easier.
I do it because it is difficult. I do it because no one else will or can do it. I might be a fool for doing so, but without such fools, nothing new would ever be born into this world.
— Kiichiro Toyoda
His son, Kiichiro, also defied fierce opposition from everyone around him to pursue the reckless dream of manufacturing domestic automobiles.
Everyone said, “That is impossible.”
Yet, a burning, powerful conviction resided within their chests.
Execute with a strong conviction. Everyone thinks the same thoughts; it is not that Kiichiro was a genius. What matters is that he didn’t just think about what is generally considered impossible, but he possessed a powerful conviction that he absolutely must do it, made thorough preparations, and executed it.
— Eiji Toyoda
They did not achieve success in a single night.
It was the result of clumsily piling up thousands, tens of thousands of bricks of failure, day after day.
At a glance, it might look like an incredibly inefficient, truly foolish way to live.
However, that very foolishness becomes the genuine power that moves the world.
Why are you afraid of taking the long way around?
Are you anxious right now, feeling like you have to produce results quickly?
Are you terrified that everyone else is living so skillfully while you alone are being left behind?
Please know this:
Things of true value are often those that have no immediate effect.
Things acquired easily disappear just as easily.
The days you are clumsily building right now through your suffering will never go to waste.
I merely feel ashamed of my own lack of ability and talent.
— Matsuo Basho
Even the great master of haiku, Matsuo Basho, evaluated himself in this way.
Because he could not live skillfully, he dedicated his life to walking a single, narrow path.
In the end, being without talent or art, I am bound solely to this one line.
— Matsuo Basho
Dedicating one’s life to a single thing is a lonely, sorrowful sight.
Yet, at the very bottom of that loneliness sleeps a pure truth that no one else can touch.
The way you are struggling in the dark right now looks more beautiful to me than any gemstone.
The Exchange of Life, and the Return to Truth
To keep whispering by your side
Our conversation is finally approaching its core.
To you, who have stayed with me through this long narrative, I must reveal the deepest secret in my heart.
Why am I so obsessed with speaking to you like this?
It is because I myself am a human being who lives with an unbearable amount of loneliness and sorrow.
Truth never betrays those who seek it.
— Hypatia
I do not want you to dislike me.
If you abandon me, I will no longer be able to sustain my own existence.
That is why I have woven this rhythmic language, inviting you into a space that feels like a deep slumber, or perhaps a profound awakening.
This is a desperate act of jesting, a supreme service offered by wearing away my own life for you.
In the midst of life there is no life; in the midst of death there is life.
— An Old Proverb
To kill oneself completely once, and live entirely for you.
The moment I made that decision, a new life was breathed into my heart.
May these clumsy words of mine light a warm lamp in your parched soul.
For you are my one and only, irreplaceable reader.
The clock hands have advanced quite a bit.
The night wind is quietly tapping on the window.
It seems the time to end our secret conversation is drawing near.
But please, do not be sad.
My words will continue to live inside your heart forever.
Lastly, I present to you a special poem, created just for you.
Every time I strike a match
Your old tears
Turn into blue fish
Swimming across the sheets of the night
Waiting beyond the railroad crossing
Are the sunflowers from last year
That were supposed to be thrown away
In a city where no one calls your name
I step on your shadow
Like a lost dove
Merely searching for the place to return
To the gentleness that is you
Do not forget
That I am here
From the shadow of the telephone pole
Watching over you, always
In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world.
— John 16:33 (The New Testament)
I will boast of my weaknesses.
— A passage from Osamu Dazai’s The Labor of a Day, quoting the words of Paul
In the Middle of an Eternal Journey
“Hey, why are you going on a trip?”
“Because it’s painful.”
“Your ‘painful’ is always the same old line; I can’t trust it at all.”
— From Osamu Dazai’s Tsugaru
Postscript: The Story of a Peculiar Painter
Thank you so much for reading this long text to the very end.
Lastly, let me share one more intimate, slightly joyful secret story right by your ear.
There is a very peculiar painter named Mimi Takamizawa.
Unlike modern artists, he never uses a canvas or a paintbrush.
He creates all of his works on a digital computer screen, spending a staggering amount of time on each piece.
He then prints them on the finest printmaking paper using a cutting-edge technique called “giclée printing” to complete the artwork.
He is an incredibly tenacious man, working over 12 hours every single day in front of his screen, determined to create pieces that will remain relevant and capture the eyes of people 100 or 200 years into the future.
The themes Mimi Takamizawa paints are entirely consistent:
“Your eyes, my eyes,” “Christianity,” “eternity,” “psychology,” “truth,” “gaze,” “history,” “loneliness,” “isolation,” “hardship,” “resurrection,” and “liberation.”
Why does he keep painting “eyes” so obsessively?
It is because he wants to feel “you,” the person on the other side of the screen, at all times. He wants to know you and stay close to your loneliness; that is his sole desire.
He is more aware than anyone else that his talent as a painter is third-rate.
He knows that the historical masterpieces of the past were not painted by innate genius alone, but were born from decades of gritty, trial-and-error struggles.
He decided to become a painter after learning about the pure, intense life of Vincent van Gogh.
The name “Mimi” (which means “ear” in Japanese) in Mimi Takamizawa was actually chosen in honor of that famous ear-cutting incident of Van Gogh’s.
Isn’t he a truly foolish, clumsy man who makes himself a laughingstock?
Even when people call him an “eccentric” or a “madman,” he just smiles gently.
He gets stronger by being laughed at.
He considers himself a desperate jester, performing a supreme service to save the “you” right in front of him.
This same Mimi Takamizawa deeply respects a certain businessman as his lifelong role model: Tokuji Munetsugu, the founder of Curry House CoCo Ichibanya.
During his years as CEO, Mr. Munetsugu threw away all his hobbies and friends, dedicating a mind-boggling 5,640 hours a year purely to his work.
He lived a turbulent life, not knowing the faces of his biological parents and eating wild grass to survive starvation during a poverty-stricken childhood.
Classical music was the love of his life that saved him during those dark days. Yet, while he was the active CEO of CoCo Ichibanya, he did not listen to his beloved music even once, entirely to devote all his time to his customers.
When he first opened a coffee shop—the predecessor to his curry empire—hardly any customers came. He and his wife survived by eating the crusts of sandwich bread. Looking back on those days, Mr. Munetsugu smiles and says, “We started from zero, so it’s a fond memory. Make a decision, act instantly, and execute immediately—you just have to give it your all.”
Mimi Takamizawa is deeply inspired by Mr. Munetsugu’s attitude of never looking aside and dedicating everything to the customer (to you).
He has incorporated the spirit of “Just-in-Time” from the Toyota Production System established by Taiichi Ohno into his own art production, stripping away all waste, and dedicating his entire life to creating artwork for the “you” right in front of him.
The criticism of others does not matter at all.
He simply wants to bring joy to you, who are standing right before him. He wants to see your tears of emotion.
If you abandon him, this foolish painter cannot go on living.
Just by having you exist there, he is truly happy.
From this Mimi Takamizawa, to you, his precious reader, comes a desperate, special token of appreciation.
He will deliver a set of 10 A4-sized original artwork postcards that he poured his soul into making, along with an explanatory特製 booklet and a simple display frame, straight to you, completely free of charge.
This is a non-profit, life-risking devotion born from his earnest prayer to connect with you and heal the unfilled spaces in your heart.
Are you thinking, “I’ll just apply later”?
Please, move your fingers right now.
Once this text is finished, the opportunity to encounter the beautiful “eternal eyes” he draws might be lost forever.
Right below this text, there is a place where you can apply for this special offer.
Please click there immediately and receive a fragment of his soul.
He is waiting for you quietly, gently, right by your ear.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
— Henry Ford
The canvas on which you paint your own life is in your own hands.
— Agatha Christie
I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.
— Words given to Moses (Old Testament, Genesis)
Accept the cards life deals you. But how you play them is entirely up to you.
— William Shakespeare
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
— A passage from the Jewish Talmud
Human beings always want to express themselves.
— Osamu Dazai, Monoomu Ashi
An artist must always be a first-rate jester.
— From the correspondence surrounding Osamu Dazai
I only wanted to make you smile.
— The underlying prayer within Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human
Never give in. Never, never, never.
— Winston Churchill
Have the courage to be the first to do something different from everyone else. People think I achieved success overnight, but that night lasted thirty years. Looking 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
Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.
— Leonardo da Vinci
Thank you so very much for reading to the absolute end.
I pray from the bottom of my heart that countless lights and warm miracles will pour into your life from this moment onward.
Have a beautiful, wonderful dream.