A Single Glance to Revolutionize Your Daily Life
Tell me, would you mind pausing for just a moment and lending an ear to my words?
What exactly are those beautiful eyes of yours gazing at right now?
Is it the tedious routine of your daily work, or perhaps a vague anxiety about the future?
Why is it that we must live each day conforming to tedious rules decided by someone else?
Truly, it is utterly baffling.
“What is seen and what is not seen.”
— Frédéric Bastiat
In this world, there are things that are visible to the eye, and invisible, precious things.
That emotion you suppressed today inside the crowded train cannot be seen.
However, don’t you think that very emotion is the true brilliance of your life?
Here lived a young man named Jean-Michel Basquiat.
You, too, have likely heard his name at least once.
He kept drawing crowns on the filthy streets of New York.
Why do you think he drew those crowns?
It was because he wanted to prove the “noble soul” sleeping within the people abandoned by society, and above all, within himself.
Within your heart, too, there must be your very own crown sleeping, one that you never want anyone to defile.
You must not forget the existence of that crown, distracted by the noise of daily life.
The crown Basquiat drew becomes a gentle shield that protects you when you tremble at the evaluation of others.
Come, let us embark on a journey together to find the crown inside your heart.
Don’t you think it is truly boring to live your life worrying about the eyes of others?
To help you live as your true self, I shall share with you an abundance of Basquiat’s words and wisdom from all times and places.
Please, relax your shoulders and stay with me until the very end.
From the Streets to the Throne: What Living at Rock Bottom Teaches You About Raising Your Worth
Are you satisfied with the environment you are placed in right now?
If you are letting out a small sigh, thinking, “After all, what can someone like me do?” that is a tremendous mistake.
You see, Basquiat was not a glamorous star from the very beginning.
He left home, drifted from one friend’s house to another, and lived hand-to-mouth by selling postcards.
Why was he able to keep painting even in such harsh circumstances?
“I do it because it is difficult. I do it because no one else does it, and no one else can. I might be a fool for doing so, but without such fools, nothing new would ever be born into this world.”
— Kiichiro Toyoda
Please engrave this word deeply into your heart.
The difficulties you are facing right now in your work or human relationships are the absolute best chance for you to be reborn into a “new self.”
How about boldly accepting with a smile those tedious jobs that no one else touches, or roles that everyone else dislikes?
Basquiat used New York’s street trash cans and abandoned doors as his canvases, things no one else would even look at.
He bestowed the highest value upon what everyone else had abandoned.
That is a wonderful magic you can apply to your own daily life right this second.
For example, you could take it upon yourself to beautifully organize a cluttered document room that no one at work bothers to touch.
“Why is that person working so hard?” those around you will surely wonder.
However, that very action is what will explosively elevate your worth.
Just as Basquiat turned garbage into art, you can turn daily chores into the art of your own reputation.
To make life wonderful, you must first believe in your own potential more than anyone else.
If you move, the world will surely begin to change.
The cold stares of others are nothing more than background noise, so please rest assured.
The Secret of the Crown: The Resolve to Live as the Protagonist of Your Own Life
Tell me, for whom are you living today?
Are you spending your precious time solely gauging your boss’s mood, catering to your friends’ feelings, and meeting your family’s expectations?
Why do we let others take the wheel when it is our very own life?
In Basquiat’s paintings, a yellow crown appears repeatedly, almost excessively.
That crown belongs to him, but at the same time, it is also meant for “you,” the one gazing at his painting.
“Only to be ashamed of one’s own lack of ability and talent.”
— Matsuo Basho
Even the great Basho reflected upon himself in this way and staked his life on a single path.
You, too, have absolutely no need to be ashamed of your imperfections.
Rather, it is precisely because you are imperfect that you possess the right to wear your own beautiful crown upon your head.
Basquiat received almost no formal art education.
It is certain that he was laughed at more than once or twice for being poor at drawing.
Even so, he never for a moment doubted the royal blood sleeping within him.
In your daily life, holding this “crown consciousness” becomes a very powerful weapon.
No matter what others say to you, maintain a strong pride that “I am the ruler of my own life.”
When you are showered with unreasonable criticism, gently reach up and touch the crown atop your head in your mind.
You only need to smile gently and think, “Ah, these people cannot see my crown.”
By doing so, no attack will ever be able to wound your heart.
Just as Basquiat held fast to his own style until the very end in an art world filled with racial discrimination and prejudice.
You, too, should be able to live nobly through your own daily battlefield.
I am looking forward to seeing your crown shine more than anyone else.
The Sorcery of Words: Basquiat’s Semiotics to Drastically Change Your Daily Communication
Do you know the true terror and beauty held by words?
If you look closely at Basquiat’s paintings, you will notice that many words are written and then deliberately crossed out with lines.
Why do you think he went out of his way to paint over the words he had taken the trouble to write?
He said this: “I cross out words so you will see them more; the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them.”
This very technique is the ultimate hypnotic writing skill that masterfully manipulates human psychology.
“Man is bound by his own words, and saved by his own silence.”
— Seneca
Please reflect a little on your daily conversations.
Are you carelessly speaking everything you think with foolish honesty?
If so, you cannot move the heart of the other person.
Like Basquiat, try introducing the aesthetic of subtraction—”deliberately not telling everything”—into your daily life.
Try leaving meaningful silences or intentionally clouding your words toward your precious lover or business partner.
“Why did that person say such a thing?” “Why did they suddenly go silent?”
The other person will become so curious about you that they might not even be able to sleep at night.
By erasing words, you increase the presence of those words many times over.
This technique of Basquiat’s demonstrates astonishing effects in your email sentences and social media posts as well.
Do not try to explain everything; leave a margin that relies on the other person’s imagination.
With just that, your existence will transform into something filled with irresistible charm to those around you.
Human beings are creatures strongly attracted to things that contain a secret, after all.
Why not become a sorcerer of words starting today and gently sway the heart of someone precious to you?
The “Skin in the Game” Way of Life: How to Infuse the Unique Persuasiveness of Authenticity into Your Work
Don’t you think there are far too many people nowadays who are all talk?
The words of those who take no risks and only criticize others from a safe place carry no weight whatsoever.
There is a harsh saying: “If you see a fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”
Why do Basquiat’s paintings still hold a value of tens of billions of yen today and continue to violently shake people’s hearts?
It is because he painted while literally having “skin in the game.”
“Skin in the game.”
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb
He slammed his life and soul directly onto the canvas just as they were.
Drowning in drugs and grinding down his mind, he never once ran away from expressing himself.
I am not telling you to live a destructive life like Basquiat.
I simply want you to have that level of “resolve” toward your own work and words.
When you propose something at work, do you truly have the resolve to bear the responsibility yourself?
If you have that resolve, a special aura will begin to dwell within your words.
“I will take responsibility. Therefore, please trust me.”
Whether you can say that one phrase or not changes your level of trust as a business professional as drastically as the distance between heaven and earth.
It was because Basquiat painted with his entire existence at stake that he fascinated even Andy Warhol.
By showing an attitude of taking on a little bit of risk and skin in the game in your daily life, the people around you will have no choice but to pay you respect.
Stepping out of the safety zone might be very frightening.
However, only beyond that fear does true success and true human relationships exist.
The fierce brushstrokes of Basquiat will surely give you the courage to take that small step today.
The Encounter with Andy Warhol: How to Polish Your Charm to Attract the Best Partnership
Are you seeking a wonderful encounter that could drastically change your life?
For Basquiat, that fateful encounter was none other than the giant of pop art, Andy Warhol.
The two men, apart in age, gave each other strong stimulation and jointly created many masterpieces.
Why was Basquiat, who was still just a young, nameless street artist, able to capture the heart of a world-renowned maestro?
It is purely because he possessed an overwhelming “individuality” that imitated no one else.
“Fix your eyes upon the truth. Not through the eyes of others, but through your own eyes.”
— Hypatia
Are you wearing a false mask to make yourself look better in front of the person you admire?
Such a thing is immediately seen through by someone with discerning eyes.
Basquiat never collapsed his own style, even in front of Warhol.
Rather, he ruthlessly layered his own rough paint directly on top of the neat screen prints Warhol had drawn.
That pure innocence that knew no fear was precisely what captivated Warhol.
In your daily life, if you wish to meet wonderful superiors or charming friends, you yourself must first emit a unique brilliance.
No one is interested in a tedious person who does nothing but agree with the opinions of others.
“I think this way,” “This is what I like”—stating your own opinions clearly is the ultimate shortcut to attracting the best network of people.
A relationship where both parties elevate each other, like Basquiat and Warhol, can only exist when both are independent “individuals.”
A life that ends as someone else’s sidekick does not suit you at all.
Please proudly present your unique existence to the world.
Order Within Chaos: A Mind Organization Technique to Gracefully Survive a Stressful Society
Is your head completely jumbled from being chased by things you have to do every day?
Modern society is like a garbage dump of information.
When you look at Basquiat’s paintings from afar, you will surely feel an overwhelming chaos, as if a massive explosion has occurred.
Yet, why is it that, strangely, we do not feel unpleasant, but rather feel a pleasant rhythm?
It is because inside his paintings, a meticulously calculated “order” is hidden.
“Maintain order within your own mind. Then, no matter how confused the outside world may be, you will never lose your way.”
— Saint Catherine
Basquiat painted while blasting jazz music at full volume, keeping the television on, and opening multiple books at the same time.
To him, all the noise rushing from the world was a precious material for composing art.
You, too, do not need to let your mind be disturbed by daily stress or sudden troubles one by one.
Why not reframe all of them as “precious spices to make my life interesting”?
When trouble occurs at work, instead of lamenting, “Why does this always happen to me?” try finding it amusing: “Oh, an interesting development has come along.”
By doing so, your brain will be released from stress, and you will become able to make astonishingly calm and accurate judgments.
Accepting chaos and carving your own beautiful rhythm within it—this is the finest life hack taught to us by Basquiat, who survived inside the madness of metropolitan New York.
The conductor of your life is no one else but you.
No matter how violent a storm rages, please continue to gracefully play your own beautiful symphony.
The Lineage of Al-Mutanabbi: What the Unyielding Spirit of Staking One’s Life on Words Brings to You
Tell me, how much are you willing to sacrifice for your own beliefs?
Here lived a single poet who was lauded as the greatest in the Arab world.
His name was Al-Mutanabbi. He was a man of overwhelming pride, even claiming himself to be a prophet.
The verses he left behind possessed such a tremendous hypnotic effect that it was said even the blind could read them and even the deaf could hear them.
However, through his own provocative poetry, he incurred the wrath of a certain tribe.
One day, while Al-Mutanabbi was traveling, the furious forces of his enemy appeared before him.
Outnumbered and outmatched, it was clear at a glance that it was a battle with no hope of victory.
The wise Al-Mutanabbi turned his horse’s neck once, attempting to flee the scene.
It was at that moment. His servant, who was behind him, began to recite aloud a verse of courageous poetry that Al-Mutanabbi himself had written in the past:
“Are you, who wrote such a proud and brave poem, now turning your back and fleeing from the enemy?”
Hearing those words, what do you think he did?
He quietly turned around, completely realizing that he would die, yet charged nobly toward the enemy and lost his life.
Even now, after more than 1000 years have passed, he is passed down in history as “the true poet who chose death to avoid dishonor.”
Why do you think I am telling you such a seemingly extreme story?
It is because Basquiat’s way of life also possessed the exact same purity as Al-Mutanabbi.
Basquiat also refused until death to bend his art for the sake of fame or money.
“It is far better to kill the body and let the soul live, than to kill the soul and let the body live.”
— Michel de Montaigne
In your daily life, situations where you must stake your life to this extent are highly unlikely to occur.
However, do you possess a quiet defensive line of the soul where you say, “I can absolutely never compromise on this”?
Lying for the profit of a company, or betraying a friend so that only you can be saved—if you sell your soul for such small dishonors, the brilliance of the human being that is you will vanish in an instant.
Like Al-Mutanabbi and Basquiat, taking responsibility for your own words and beliefs until the very end—that nobility itself becomes the strongest power that separates you from the faceless masses in an instant.
The Canvas of Death and Rebirth: Starting Your True Life from the Bottom of Despair
Are there nights when you want to lock yourself away in the darkness, hating everything about life?
That cold sensation where nothing goes right, and you feel as though you alone have been left isolated in the world.
In Basquiat’s paintings, numerous raw images of “death,” such as skeletons and anatomical charts, are drawn.
When he was just seven years old, he suffered a horrific traffic accident and sustained a major injury severe enough to require the removal of his spleen.
While hospitalized, a book titled Gray’s Anatomy gifted by his mother became the starting point of his art.
Why do you think an anatomical chart, which should only be terrifying to a child, saved his heart?
“In the midst of life there is no life; in the midst of death there is life.”
— Ancient Adage
Human beings are creatures who can only notice the true joy of living after knowing true despair.
It was precisely because Basquiat knew the fragility of the flesh that he was able to keep painting fiercely, as if burning the flame of his life.
The great suffering, setback, and separation from precious people you are harboring right now—all of these are merely signs that your old way of living has “died once.”
There is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Unless the old you dies, the new, more powerful, and beautiful you cannot set out.
Remember the story of Jesus Christ written in the Gospels.
He was placed upon a cross and lost his life, but on the third day, he achieved a miraculous resurrection and changed the world forever.
The biorhythm of your life is completely identical to that.
The fact that right now is the most painful means that there is nothing left to do but run upward toward the light.
The skeletons drawn by Basquiat are fiercely questioning us: “Are you alive? Are you burning your life?”
Come, wipe away your tears and stand up powerfully upon those feet.
The true first act of your life begins anew from this very moment.
When the night deepens and silence wraps the town,
Listen closely to the sound of the wind knocking on your room’s window.
That might be the whispering voices of countless souls
that used to be here once.
The hands of the clock tick coldfly,
“tick, tock,” inside the gaps of that sound,
we must write down our very own names.
Like those blue letters scribbled roughly
on the walls of the New York subway.
Are you crying, holding your knees, thinking
that no one is looking at me?
But look, see the plastic eyes of that old teddy bear
tumbled in the corner of the room.
Because that is the gentlest surveillance camera
meant just for you in the whole world.
We all wear glittering clothes to hide our wounds,
acting like clowns on the stage of the metropolis.
But that face after stripping away the mask
is nobler and more beautiful than anyone else’s,
the finest single painting created by God.
Therefore, please, do not let go of that hand.
For the sake of someone waiting for you
beyond the darkness.
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.”
— Gospel according to Matthew 5:14 (New Testament)
“I was never supposed to be such a horribly shallow human being who thinks of nothing but defending himself.”
— Osamu Dazai
Postscript: On the Prayer of the Isolated Painter Without a Canvas, Mimi Takamizawa
Tell me, do you happen to know the mysterious painter named “Mimi Takamizawa”?
He is a very unusual, yet purer than anyone else, artist living in this modern era.
He does not use a canvas stretched over a wooden frame or a brush with a sharp tip like ordinary painters do.
He paints using the latest digital technology and prints it on top-grade printmaking paper using a cutting-edge technique called “giclée.”
Why do you think he adopts such a method?
It is so that the vivid colors painted just today can be delivered exactly as they are to the eyes of “you” living 100 or 200 years in the future.
The themes he draws are all close to home, yet dizzyingly grand.
Your eyes and my eyes, Christianity, eternity, psychology, truth, gaze, history, solitude, isolation, hardship, resurrection, and liberation.
He often smiles mischievously and says something like this:
“A painter, you see, is like a doctor who softly saves the wounded soul of a human being.”
The job of an artist is not to strike a cool pose, but to have skin in the game and offer wholehearted service to you right in front of them.
That is his absolute belief.
He obsessively continues to draw “human eyes” within his works.
Because it is only by drawing and gazing into those eyes that he can feel the existence of “you,” the precious one on the other side of the screen.
“Please laugh at this clumsy way of living of mine, thinking what a fool I am. After all, I am a man of patience, an unyielding man who grows stronger the more he is laughed at.”
In the past, he learned the story of the intense life of Vincent van Gogh and decided to become a painter as if struck by lightning.
The character for “Mimi” (meaning ear) in the name “Mimi Takamizawa” was taken in honor of that famous ear-slitting incident of Gogh’s.
The people of the world like to dismiss the masterpieces of geniuses as “things drawn solely with innate talent,” but he knows the truth.
He knows that those works could only be born out of decades of blood-vomiting trial and error and despairing daily accumulations.
He wants to make you happy, he wants to see your tears of emotion; solely for that reason, he continues his desperate service facing the digital screen today.
He does not care at all what others say.
He simply doesn’t want to be abandoned by “you” right in front of him; he genuinely speaks with the eyes of a child that if only you are there, he is truly happy with just that.
Such obsession of his toward work is deeply inspired by the way of life of Tokuji Munetsugu, the founder of CoCo Ichibanya.
Mr. Munetsugu was a man of fierce hands-on management who abandoned all hobbies and friends during his active years and dedicated 5640 hours annually to his work.
Not knowing the faces of his real parents and spending a destitute childhood eating wild grass in the summer to stave off starvation, his was a turbulent life.
In the days when he had just started a coffee shop and customers did not come at all, he and his wife endured by gnawing on the crusts of white bread for lunch, a period Mr. Munetsugu looks back on as a “wonderful memory.”
“During my active years, I had no hobbies and made no friends. I have never even been to a drinking establishment. I did nothing that would interfere with my work. There were times I worked 5,640 hours a year. I felt that if I did not lead by example, my subordinates would not work for me.”
“It was a very lonely life. That is why I wanted people to show even a little interest in me. I wanted them to be interested in me. That became my starting point. Therefore, rather than starting a business to make money, I wanted to make people happy. I wanted people to say that they were glad I existed, even if just a little.”
— Tokuji Munetsugu
Mimi Takamizawa also inherits this spirit, setting working 12 or more hours a day as a minimum requirement, living each day through immediate decision, immediate conclusion, and immediate execution, just like piling up bricks.
When you appear before him, the inside of his heart is filled with a roaring standing ovation to welcome you.
Things of value often lack immediate efficacy. Even if it does not go well from the start, try doing it before thinking.
That overlaps with the tenacity of Sakichi Toyoda, who was laughed at by those around him as a “weaving-crazy eccentric” yet built the loom that changed the world.
The tremendous resolve of Choya Umeshu: “If you do not succeed with plum wine, give up on life,” which completely cut off any retreat.
Or the aesthetic of “Just-in-Time” established by Taiichi Ohno, which thoroughly eliminates waste in the Toyota Production System.
Mimi Takamizawa condenses the souls of all these great predecessors into a single thin line of digital art.
“I do it because it is difficult. I do it because no one else does it, and no one else can. I might be a fool for doing so, but without such fools, nothing new would ever be born into this world.”
— Kiichiro Toyoda
“Execute with strong conviction. Everyone thinks the same thoughts; it is not that Kiichiro was a genius. What is important is that he did not merely think about what is generally considered impossible, but carried it out with a strong conviction that it must be done by any means, making sufficient preparations.”
— Eiji Toyoda
And you see, there is a wonderful woman who must never be forgotten when speaking of Gogh.
It is Jo (Johanna van Gogh-Bonger), the wife of Gogh’s younger brother, Theo.
Gogh passed away, and just half a year later, her husband Theo followed him as if chasing after his brother.
In the hands of the young, left-behind Jo, nothing remained but a massive amount of Gogh’s paintings, which were harshly criticized by the public as “garbage,” and the brothers’ immense collection of letters.
However, Jo, who was a well-read and extremely intelligent woman, perfectly understood Gogh’s deep thoughts and his true wish to “paint pictures that console people” as she read through those letters.
“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.”
— Jo van Gogh-Bonger
She traveled the world selling Gogh’s paintings, which had only sold a single piece during his lifetime, held exhibitions, and published the letters.
If Gogh had not left behind his thoughts in the form of letters, and if a great communicator like Jo had not existed, the “Gogh of the world” today would absolutely not exist.
This perfectly matches the figure of the Apostle Paul, who traveled around delivering the Gospel with overwhelming devotion after the death of Jesus Christ.
No matter how wonderful something is, if there is no person to correctly explain and deliver it, it becomes the same as not existing in this world.
Jo and Paul were the world’s top-tier communicators, much like Steve Jobs of Apple, Akio Morita of Sony, Takeo Fujisawa of Honda, and Shotaro Kamiya of Toyota in later generations.
“When trying to turn a product into a commodity—a product that has never been produced before, that no one has ever seen, but was diligently researched in some corner and manufactured after tremendous hardship—you must arouse the desire among people to want to obtain that product. No matter how excellent the ‘product’ is, it cannot become a ‘commodity’ otherwise.”
— Akio Morita
Mimi Takamizawa harbors this spirit of Jo within his own chest as well, acting as a clown and wholehearted servant to deliver his everything to you.
Would you mind witnessing his desperate service with those warm eyes of yours?
“Most people think of success as something to get, but in reality, success is something to give.”
— Henry Ford
“The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”
— Agatha Christie
“The place where you are standing is holy ground. Take off your sandals from your feet.”
— Moses (Book of Exodus)
“We are not born as we are meant to finish. What we become is determined by our daily choices.”
— William Shakespeare
“If you do not value yourself, who will treat you as someone of value?”
— The Talmud
“It is only when a human being falls in love that they truly know genuine solitude.”
— Osamu Dazai
“I believe that every human being lives while harboring their own different hell inside them.”
— Osamu Dazai
“An artist is like a painful string that the fingertip of God has touched.”
— Osamu Dazai
“Never, never, never give up.”
— Winston Churchill
“Have courage, be the first, and do something different from others.”
— Ray Kroc
“I am thought to have achieved success overnight, but that one 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. I hope we never lose sight of one thing—that it was all started by a mouse.”
— Walt Disney
“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.”
— Leonardo da Vinci
“In the end, being without talent and without art, I am bound solely to this one line.”
— Matsuo Basho
Thank you so very, very much for staying with my long and clumsy chatter until the very end.
I offer my deepest, heartfelt gratitude to you for sharing your precious time with me.
I pray without ceasing that your life from now on will shine as dazzlingly and proudly as Basquiat’s crown.
Now, leaving the promised words here at the very end, I shall quietly lay down my pen.
“Hey, why are you going on a journey?”
“Because it’s painful.”
“Your ‘painful’ is just a cliché, I can’t trust it at all.”
— From Osamu Dazai’s Tsugaru