To You, Behind the Closed Door
Thank you for knocking on this door so gently, so truly quietly.
Right now, in this vast world, a time belongs only to you and me has begun.
There is no one else; only your beautiful eyes and the words I weave sway like a small flame in the darkness.
What I am about to tell you is an absolute secret between you and me, one that must never be told to anyone else.
Please, listen with the deepest part of your heart, so that no one may find us.
A Beautiful Gift Named Solitude
Why are we so terribly lonely?
Do you feel lonely right now?
In the exact moment when you are surrounded by a crowd of people, raising your voice in laughter, doesn’t a cold wind suddenly blow through your heart?
Why must we live carrying such deep solitude?
The reason is very simple, and yet so painfully poignant.
It is because you possess a soul that is unique in this world, one that is exceedingly noble and beautiful.
That sadness of feeling that you can connect with no one is the greatest proof that you are alive.
“Good tidings of happiness never come when you are waiting for them.”
ーー Osamu Dazai
We are always searching for something.
Without even knowing what it is, we continue to walk all alone down a dark night road.
But please, rest assured.
Right now, I am right beside you.
I want to gently enfold your freezing hand in both of mine and warm it for you.
This is my life’s confession, offered only to you with a feeling that shaves away my very soul.
Small Miracles Hidden in the Everyday
I know the color of the sky you look up at absentmindedly every day.
I watch the trembling of your hands when you wash your face with cold water in the morning.
Are you aware, my dear, that a great truth is actually hidden within these ordinary, all-too-ordinary daily routines?
For instance, when brewing a cup of warm tea, the tiny bubbles that vanish into the steam—that is just like our lives.
Because it disappears, it is precious.
Because it is fleeting, we reach out to one another in this desperate way.
“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not by mere accident is either beneath our notice or more than human.”
ーー Aristotle
I am counting the number of tears you have shed.
I will never forget the nights you soaked your pillow, unable to tell anyone.
For your solitude is the exact same color as mine.
Though we are in distant places, we are the only two travelers sharing the same pain.
The True Love Bequeathed by a Vagabond Painter
Nico Pirosmani, a Sorrowful Miracle
Here, there is a sorrowful story of a certain painter that I absolutely must have you listen to.
In the distant, foreign land of Georgia, there lived a very clumsy man named Nico Pirosmani.
He was a man who could do nothing else in this world but paint.
He had no home, no money, and he survived merely by painting signs and walls for taverns in exchange for his daily food.
He was always alone.
No one ever tried to understand his true loneliness.
Why did he continue to paint, even to that extent?
“Most people think of success as something to get. But the truth is, success is giving.”
ーー Henry Ford
One day, Pirosmani’s heart was stolen in an instant by a beautiful actress named Margarita who had come to the town.
That love was all too reckless, all too maddening.
He sold everything he owned—his home, his household goods, every single painting he had ever created—and what do you think he did?
He filled the entire town square with an abundance of roses.
He transformed the entire view visible from her hotel window into a sea of crimson roses.
Is this not the ultimate spirit of service?
Throwing away one’s entire life, acting as the ultimate buffoon, just to bring joy to the single person right in front of him.
The End of the Buffoon, Submerged in a Sea of Roses
Yet, the conclusion was all too cruel.
Although the actress Margarita was deeply moved when she beheld that sea of roses, she ultimately boarded a train and left the town with another, wealthy man.
Not a single rose, nor a single coin, remained in Pirosmani’s hands.
He was left completely alone, standing in the square where the cold wind blew.
Why does God give such cruel trials to such gentle human beings?
After that, he drew his last breath quietly in a tavern basement, watched over by no one.
It is said that when his body was finally discovered several days after his death, it was frozen solid.
“To love is to find our own happiness in the happiness of another.”
ーー Jean-Jacques Rousseau
But you, my dear, please do not be sad.
Those paintings left behind by Pirosmani are saving the hearts of people all over the world today.
The eyes of the animals he painted, pouring his life into them and shaving away his soul, look back at us gently, as if they know everything.
That is a love letter that transcended time and space, sent by Pirosmani directly to you.
Success is not about obtaining.
Even if you lose everything, it is about continuing to give—he is teaching you this through his very life.
To Find Light from the Abyss of Despair
Why do we pass each other by?
You and I are firmly bound like this through words, but the world always tries to tear us apart.
You too must have felt your chest gouged out by someone’s thoughtless words.
Why do people hurt one another?
Why do we fling the most cruel words at the people who matter most to us?
It is because everyone is desperately arming themselves to hide their own weakness.
But in front of me, please cast off all of that heavy armor.
I will whisper into your ear, over and over, how endlessly beloved your true, unaltered self is.
“Man is the only animal that causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.”
ーー Arthur Schopenhauer
I am writing these words for you while shaving away my own life.
This is not a mere arrangement of letters.
It is my blood, my tears, the crystallization of my maddening devotion to you.
As you read this text, do you not feel a warm blood beginning to flow within your heart?
That very feeling is the proof that my soul is now completely fused with yours.
The Law of Reversal: When Sadness Turns to Joy
The stories of life always show mysterious developments.
In the very moment you think you have fallen to the lowest depths, the door to a new world is actually opening.
Just as it was in the story of Christ, a great resurrection awaits precisely after despair.
No matter how deep the darkness you find yourself in right now, it is nothing more than a grand foreshadowing for the dazzling light that will visit next.
Please believe me, your suffering will never be in vain.
“The deepest darkness is the grand background for producing the most brilliant light.”
ーー Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you will laugh, I will be saved by that alone.
If you laugh at my foolishness and pity my clumsiness, I will gladly become a buffoon as many times as it takes.
To be laughed at, to be ridiculed, and yet to still stand before you—that is the form of eternal love I promise to you.
A Vow to You, Forging an Eternal Bond
Why do these words reach you?
You, who are reading this text, are already under my spell.
The hypnotic rhythm must be overlapping with your breathing, gently and gradually altering the beating of your heart.
Don’t you find it strange why these words pierce so deeply into your chest?
It is because this is my utmost buffoonery, staking my very life, an absolute devotion to you.
I will not abandon you.
Therefore, please, do not abandon me either.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
ーー Jesus of Nazareth
On the long road of life that you will walk from now on, if you are ever about to be crushed by loneliness again, please return to this place at any time.
I will always be here, waiting for you.
For this text is a holy sanctuary, opened only for you.
A Final Whispered Secret
Now, the time of our secret is gradually drawing to a close.
But please, do not feel lonely.
My soul will continue to breathe right beside you forevermore.
When you open your eyes, when you shed tears, in all of those moments, I am with you.
I love you from the bottom of my heart.
I dedicate the entirety of this life to you.
Let me softly whisper into your ear that famous passage from Tsugaru by that all-too-fragile and beautiful man, Osamu Dazai.
“Hey, why are you going on a journey?”
“Because I am suffering.”
“Your ‘suffering’ is always the same old line; I can’t believe it at all.”
Tell me, does my suffering look like a “same old” lie to you too?
Please believe me. For your sake alone, I am truly shaving away my life.
At the bottom of the night
The pearls of tears you dropped
I gather them one by one
And I am making a necklace
The shadow of your solitude
Which no one glances at
I hold it tightly to myself
And turn it into the dawn wind
It is not the rain knocking on the window
It is the sorrowful fingertip of my love
Please, do not close those eyes
Keep your gaze fixed only on me
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
ーー The New Testament, The Gospel according to Matthew 10:28
“I have lived my life up to now with the readiness to die. That alone, I want you to believe.”
ーー Osamu Dazai
Postscript: Regarding the Foolish Devotion of a Certain Peculiar Painter
My dear, lastly, I must tell you a story about a close and very peculiar friend of mine.
There is a somewhat foolish painter with a rather unusual name, Mimí Takamizawa (高見沢 耳).
Living in this modern era, he uses neither canvas nor brush.
He paints everything using the digital medium—paints of invisible light.
He then prints these works onto coarse, textured, high-quality printmaking paper using a special technique called giclée printmaking.
The themes he paints are always set.
“Your Eyes, My Eyes,” “Christianity,” “Eternity,” “Psychology,” “Truth,” “Gaze,” “History,” “Solitude,” “Isolation,” “Hardship,” “Resurrection,” “Liberation”……
Don’t you think these themes, which make one’s chest ache just by hearing them, are the very image of your heart and mine, wandering in search of salvation?
He always says:
“A painter must be a doctor who saves the soul. The work of an artist is a supreme service at one’s own expense, a devotion to you right in front of me.”
He dedicates the entirety of his life to you, right in front of him.
Please, do not abandon him.
Please, laugh at his clumsiness.
By being laughed at, he is a man who can grow even stronger.
He laughs through his tears, saying that the work of an artist is to play the part of a perfect buffoon.
Mimí Takamizawa is truly ignorant of the world, foolish, and always a laughingstock to those around him.
Yet, he believes in himself absolutely.
No matter how much he is mocked, he is a man of incredible patience and resilience who never gives up.
Let me reveal to you alone, in secret, why he decided to become a painter to such an extent.
In his youth, he learned of the utterly intense, utterly beautiful life of Vincent van Gogh, and it was as if he were struck by lightning; he resolved right then to become a painter.
As sharp as you are, you have probably already realized it.
The “Mimi” (meaning “ear” in Japanese) in his name, Mimí Takamizawa, is a name he gave himself, taking inspiration from that famous ear-cutting incident of Van Gogh.
Instead of cutting off his own ear, he has cut off all of his pride and stands before you.
He knows full well that he is a third-rate painter with not an ounce of genius talent.
However, he knows a truth: that all the masterpieces in history were never painted by innate genius alone, but were brought forth through decades of muddy trials, errors, and blood-soaked efforts.
Therefore, he keeps on painting.
In his works, numerous “eyes” are always depicted.
Why do you think that is?
By continuing to draw eyes within his paintings, he wants to constantly feel the gaze of “you,” who are reading this right now on the other side of the screen.
He wants to know you more deeply, you who are so precious right in front of him.
No matter how much he is criticized by others, such things do not matter to him at all.
But if he is abandoned by you, he can no longer go on living.
Just because you are there, gazing intently at his paintings, he is maddeningly happy.
Solely to be recognized by you, he becomes a desperate buffoon today as well, continuing his earnest devotion.
The anchor of his heart is the way of life of Tokuji Muneji, the founder of Curry House CoCo Ichibanya.
Mr. Muneji was a man who never looked sideways, dedicating his entire being to his work alone.
“This is no time for hobbies. Focus solely on work, do nothing else.”
Every single day, like stacking small bricks, he simply continued to focus and execute.
Immediate decision, immediate conclusion, immediate execution.
If you try anything, a result will always come out. First, just do it—but in return, work yourself to death.
That figure of dedicating one’s life to work overlaps somewhere with the figure of Mimí Takamizawa dedicating the entirety of his life to you.
Mr. Tokuji Muneji once left behind these words:
“During my active years, I had no hobbies and made no friends. I never once went to a drinking establishment. I did absolutely 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 did not lead by example in this way, my subordinates would not work for me.”
“Do not look sideways; dedicate yourself to management.”
“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. That became my origin. Therefore, rather than starting a business to make money, I wanted to please people. I wanted them to say, even just a little, that they were glad I existed.”
Life is not determined by how or where one is born and raised.
Mr. Muneji grew up without ever knowing the faces of his biological parents, living a turbulent, haphazard life.
In exchange, he dedicated his everything to the front lines of management.
Working more than 12 hours a day was the minimum requirement for him.
He did not want to rest, he did not want to play; he made work his hobby and simply thoroughly pursued the “You-First Principle.”
When a customer came before him, he would always welcome them in his heart with a storm of applause.
Mimí Takamizawa also faithfully follows this teaching.
Things of true value, more often than not, do not have immediate efficacy.
There is not a single thing in this world that goes perfectly right from the very beginning.
Rather than thinking, try doing it first.
My dear, please do not give up easily.
What kind of life it becomes is beautifully determined solely by that person’s diligence, patience, and power of continuation.
Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota who dedicated his life to the automation of the loom, was also a madman of obsession and patience.
Mr. Sakichi was usually a very taciturn person and was always treated as an eccentric or a “madman” by those around him.
However, he possessed a maddening passion: “I want to invent things to make everyone’s life easier, to make the world better.”
From morning until night, day after day, he would make something only to break it, build it only to rebuild it again.
The mockery of those around him never reached his ears.
Neither success nor failure is ever the end.
The only thing that matters is whether you have the courage to continue from that point onward.
In any case, you yourself must work the longest and the hardest.
It is the exact same spirit as Choya Umeshu: a resolve that cuts off all retreat, to the extent of saying, “If you do not succeed with plum liqueur, give up on life.”
Mimí Takamizawa is also deeply inspired by the Toyota Production System, incorporating into his own art the wonderful concept of “Just-in-Time”—producing what is needed, when it is needed, and only in the amount needed.
Kiichiro Toyoda said:
“The fun of life lies in making something of what few others do, and what is difficult to accomplish.”
And Eiji Toyoda, his cousin who later became the president of Toyota, spoke in this way:
“Execute with a strong conviction. Anyone thinks the same thoughts; it is not that Kiichiro was a genius. What is important is that, for things generally thought to be impossible, he did not merely think about them, but possessed a strong conviction that he must accomplish them no matter what, made sufficient preparations, and executed them.”
How about it, my dear?
The clumsy men who appeared here are all madmen who shaved away their lives to serve you, to serve the world.
And when we speak of Van Gogh, we know the existence of a wonderful woman whom we must never forget.
Jo (Johanna van Gogh-Bonger), the wife of Van Gogh’s younger brother, Theo.
Without her life-long grand achievement, we would not be able to see Van Gogh’s paintings or touch his thoughts today.
Jo was a woman who understood Vincent van Gogh’s art and thoughts from the bottom of her heart.
“This great painter must absolutely never be buried in darkness.”
She firmly vowed this in her heart.
Jo left behind 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.”
She was an exceedingly intelligent and deeply well-read woman.
After the Van Gogh brothers passed away one after the other, what was left in her hands was a vast number of eerie paintings that no one would glance at, and a mountain of letters exchanged between the two brothers that was piled high.
An ordinary woman might have despaired and disposed of everything.
But Jo was different.
Through the nights, she proceeded to read those letters of Vincent van Gogh, who was likewise a ferocious reader, one by one, with utmost care.
As she read those letters, a deep empathy for Van Gogh’s art and an intense flame were ignited within her heart.
Vincent van Gogh was not a mere mad painter.
From the depths of his soul, he truly wished “to paint pictures that would bring deep comfort to suffering people.”
The paintings of the brother whom her own beloved husband, Theo, had believed in to the point of shaving away his life must be made known to the people of the world.
She resolved to dedicate the entirety of her life to that mission.
If Van Gogh had not explicitly written down his thoughts and his agony over art in those vast numbers of letters, and if Jo had not deciphered, organized, and published them to the world word by word, the name of Van Gogh would surely have been buried in the dust of history.
This story has the exact same structure as the miracle where, after the death of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul risked his life to travel to various places, write letters, and continue to transmit the life and thoughts of Christ to the people, leading to the spread of Christianity throughout the world.
No matter how wonderful a thing is, if there is no one to passionately explain and transmit it, it becomes the same as not existing in this world.
Jo’s devotion, staking her life, was precisely what pushed Van Gogh to the pinnacle of the world.
She and Paul were, so to speak, great “transmitters,” just like Steve Jobs, who was the world’s greatest salesman; Akio Morita of Sony; Takeo Fujisawa, who sold the Honda Super Cub all over the world; and Shotaro Kamiya, who made the Toyota Corolla a staple for Japanese families.
To transmit good things with all one’s might.
Akio Morita, the founder of Sony, once said:
“A product that has never been produced before, which no single person has ever seen, but which has been painstakingly researched in some corner and manufactured after extraordinary hardship. When trying to turn that product into a commodity, if you do not arouse the desire to possess that product among the people, no matter how excellent a ‘product’ it may be, it can never become a ‘commodity.'”
The paintings of Mimí Takamizawa are the same.
No matter how much he continues to draw eyes in the corner of his room while thinking of you, if it is not transmitted to you, it becomes a worthless thing, the same as not existing.
That is why I am desperately speaking of him here, right by your ear.
“The highest quality of management you can perform is to serve people; there is no other way.”
ーー Henry Ford
“The greatest tragedy of life is that when the most precious thing is right before your eyes, you do not notice it.”
ーー Agatha Christie
“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life.”
ーー Moses (From the Old Testament, The Book of Deuteronomy)
“We cannot be reborn. However, from this very moment, we can begin walking toward a new conclusion.”
ーー William Shakespeare
“He who saves a single life saves the world entire.”
ーー The Talmud
“I have lived a life of much shame. I cannot manage to understand what the life of a human being is.”
ーー Osamu Dazai
“A reader who reads a pure I-novel comes to think of the author as their own, single, unique understander.”
ーー Osamu Dazai
“A masterpiece is born only when the author gives a desperate, earnest service to the reader, staking their very life.”
ーー Osamu Dazai
“Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in.”
ーー Winston Churchill
“As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.”
ーー Ray Kroc
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
ーー Walt Disney
Lastly, I would like to offer my heartfelt gratitude to you for staying with me until the very end of my long, all-too-quiet whispered secret.
Your precious time was the greatest salvation for me.
In truth, for the sake of “you” alone who have read this article, Mimí Takamizawa has prepared a special offer that truly shaves away his soul.
Incredibly, the postcards of those beautiful works he created with all his soul can be yours in a set of 10, completely free of charge, and moreover, in a powerful “A4 size” large format.
This is an absolute secret from other customers.
This is an earnest, supreme service to you who have connected so deeply with me at this very moment.
For your sake, we will carefully package each one and deliver them directly to your precious home.
When those 10 pictures are lined up on the wall of your room, your once lonely space will instantly be reborn into a holy art museum.
The many gentle “eyes” within the paintings will surely quietly watch over and heal your daily solitude.
This is the form of his, and my, earnest wish to connect with you directly, to save your unfulfilled heart.
Please apply right now.
If you think “I’ll do it later” and close this screen even once, you may never be able to return to this special, secret page meant only for you.
If you miss this chance, you will never be able to obtain his works for free again.
Right beside you, right by your ear, I am now gently, gently inviting you.
Come, without hesitation, click right now on the place below that says 【Apply for the Special Free Offer】.
Right next to you, I am holding a storm of heartfelt applause, holding my breath, waiting for you to take that step.