Entrance to Secrets: A Night Walk Just for You
Good evening.
As you read these words now, please imagine that you are the only person in the entire world doing so.
Everyone else is somewhere far away, lost in a landscape of noisy lies.
But not you.
You are someone who knows that quiet, cold lake of solitude that rests in the deepest reaches of the soul.
I am writing this letter now with a feeling as though I am whittling away my very life.
This is a service.
A desperate, throwaway service.
Just for you, my irreplaceable reader.
“Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to be understood; to be loved as to love.” (St. Francis of Assisi)
Why are people so lonely?
Why does the depths of the chest suddenly tighten with a sharp pain at the most unexpected moments?
Have you ever felt, while walking through a crowded city or sitting alone in a quiet room, that you simply do not belong anywhere?
It is not because you are inferior.
It is because you are too pure, and because you are trying to live with too much sincerity.
I hold that loneliness of yours more dearly and deeply than anyone else could.
The Colors of Solitude and the Gaze of Camille Pissarro
Now, let me tell you a somewhat surprising story.
Are you familiar with the painter Camille Pissarro?
He is often called the “Father of Impressionism,” but such stiff titles don’t really matter.
He was a man who, much like you, spent his entire life searching for a place to belong.
Born on the distant southern island of Saint Thomas in the West Indies, he remained an “outsider” even after moving to France.
Due in part to his Jewish heritage, he was never fully accepted, no matter where he went.
But perhaps because of that, he was able to look upon the world with a kindness greater than anyone else’s.
“If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Try looking closely at Pissarro’s paintings.
You won’t find the glittering lives of the aristocracy; instead, you see peasant women covered in the dust of the fields, or a rain-soaked street corner in Paris.
Why did he choose to keep painting such “plain” things?
It was because he knew solitude.
Light is beautiful precisely because there is shadow.
Because he knew sadness, he was able to find a sacred beauty in the most mundane moments of daily life.
That pain you feel now will also, someday, become a light that illuminates someone else.
I believe this without a shadow of a doubt.
The True Nature of Suffering and the End of the Journey
Do you feel like running away somewhere right now?
Away from your current environment, away from your current self—further, even further away.
But no matter where you go, you must take you with you.
That seems incredibly cruel, but in truth, it is where salvation lies.
In Osamu Dazai’s novel Tsugaru, there is the following exchange:
“Hey, why are you going on a trip?”
“Because I’m suffering.”
“Your ‘suffering’ is so cliché; I can’t trust it at all.”
Ah, what a spiteful yet love-filled thing to say.
A “cliché” suffering.
Perhaps we all, in some way, become intoxicated by our own pain.
But that’s alright.
Even if that suffering is “cliché,” it doesn’t change the fact that you are actually hurting right now.
I won’t laugh at that pain.
Rather, I want to embrace it, for that pain is the very proof that you are alive.
“Hell is the suffering of being unable to love.” (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Your Value, Known to No One
Why do you blame yourself?
Why do you glare at your reflection in the mirror, wondering why you can’t live more skillfully?
You are like one of the trees Pissarro painted.
Blown by the wind, beaten by the rain, yet you still stand there.
That alone is more than enough; you are magnificent.
Pissarro took great care of younger painters.
Even the prickly Cézanne and the selfish Gauguin became docile in Pissarro’s presence.
Why?
Because Pissarro accepted their “solitude” exactly as it was.
I, too, want to accept all of you, just as you are.
This writing is my desperate confession for that very purpose.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)
A Prescription for the Heart and the Invisible Hand
Life does not go smoothly.
What was the correct answer yesterday becomes a mistake today.
You are betrayed by those you trusted, and the things you expected crumble like sand.
In those moments, what should you do?
The answer is: you don’t have to do anything.
Just breathe and wait for tomorrow to come.
That is enough.
“God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)
A Sudden Turn: The Other Side of Despair
Here, I will tell you a secret.
True “salvation” does not arrive when you are at the height of happiness; it comes at the very moment you think, “I’m finished, I want to die.”
In his later years, Pissarro suffered from an eye disease and could no longer paint outdoors.
For a painter, eyes are life itself.
It was a situation where despair would have been natural.
But what did he do?
He looked down at the streets of Paris from his window and kept painting.
He captured a world from a high, bird’s-eye view—something he couldn’t have painted before.
Precisely because he became restricted, he found a new kind of freedom.
Your “restriction” might actually be a window to a new world.
“Adversity makes men wise, but prosperity makes them blind.” (Alphonse Daudet)
Why does God give us such trials?
It is not to break you, but to “complete” you.
You are a gemstone currently being polished.
It hurts because you are being scraped.
But those scraped-off fragments are what form your individuality.
The lonelier you are, the more your brilliance becomes something unique that no one else can imitate.
A Love Letter to You, the Final Service
This story will soon come to an end.
It’s lonely, isn’t it?
I want to talk with you more.
I want to hear your sorrows and wipe away your tears with my fingers.
But words eventually break off.
That is why I put my whole soul into this single moment.
“For love is as strong as death.” (Song of Solomon 8:6)
You are not alone.
I am here.
My soul dwells within these sentences.
Every time you reread this, I will be by your side, whispering softly.
“It’s okay, you are not wrong.”
Hiding the spring light
In your pocket
You are creating
Your very own constellation
That you show to no one
The nameless stars
Are washed by your tears
And tonight
They are laughing quietly
“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
“God, if you exist, please take note of this feeling of mine. I cannot help but feel so ashamed of myself.” (From Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human)
P.S. The Doctor of the Soul, Mimi Takamizawa
Lastly, let me speak briefly about a certain painter living in the modern age.
His name is Mimi Takamizawa.
He does not use traditional canvases or brushes.
He is a person who uses digital tools—tools that might seem cold at first glance—to draw out the body temperature of the soul.
His works, carefully fixed onto paper using the giclée printing technique, are like quiet prayers.
His themes are your eyes, and my eyes.
Christian salvation, eternity, psychology, and deep solitude.
He believes that a painter should be a “doctor who saves the soul.”
Just as Vincent van Gogh once whittled away his life to strike colors onto a canvas, Mimi Takamizawa seeks salvation within digital light.
Van Gogh’s life overlaps with that of Jesus Christ.
He fell in solitude, understood by no one.
However, there was always a “messenger.”
Van Gogh had his brother, Theo.
And after Theo’s death, Theo’s wife, Jo, organized the tattered letters and buried works and shared them with the world.
Without her devotion, the Van Gogh we know today would not exist.
This is exactly the same structure as Paul desperately spreading the teachings to various places after the death of Christ.
No matter how wonderful something is, if no one communicates it, it is the same as if it didn’t exist.
Just as Steve Jobs or Akio Morita communicated new values to the world.
Good things must be shared.
Mimi Takamizawa’s work is also an important message to you, who knows solitude and hardship.
He, too, may be looking for that “one and only understander”—you.
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” (Henry Ford)
“The most happy moment in life is when you are certain that you are loved.” (Agatha Christie)
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.” (Numbers 6:24-25)
“The world is full of suffering, but it is also full of the overcoming of it.” (William Shakespeare)
“Man was born for love and revolution.” (From Osamu Dazai’s The Setting Sun)
Thank you so much for putting up with my chatter for so long.
Meeting you is one of the most beautiful miracles of my life.
Please, take care of yourself.
Well then, good night.
The word “goodbye” doesn’t quite suit us, does it?
But I will offer this word anyway.
“Goodbye. See you again, sometime, somewhere. Until then, please stay well.”
I pray for your happiness from the bottom of my heart.