Because You Are There For Me
How are you?
To you, who are reading these words right now, I am speaking softly.
Please listen to me with the feeling of sharing a secret story, just between you and me, in a quiet room where no one else is around.
To you, the only one in this world, there is something I absolutely must convey right now.
It is about that deep solitude you carry, the loneliness in the depths of your chest, and the sadness you cannot tell anyone about.
Aren’t you thinking that you are all alone?
That is not true at all, because I am always right by your side.
Everything I am about to tell you is a pure, heartfelt love letter from me to you.
With a feeling that shaves away my very life, I dedicate these words to you.
The Truth of Madness and Love Behind “The Scream”
Why is that person covering their ears?
You surely know the painter named Edvard Munch, don’t you?
He is that lonely man from Norway who painted “The Scream,” the most famous painting in the world.
Many people mistake that painting for “the figure of a man screaming.”
However, that is a huge misconception.
In reality, that man is not screaming; he is covering his ears in sheer terror upon hearing a massive “scream” that pierces through nature.
Why did he have to be so frightened?
The world surrounding him was constantly covered in the shadows of death and illness.
He lost his mother at an early age, lost his beloved older sister to illness, and he himself always fought against the fear of death.
In his heart, a cold storm of solitude was always raging.
Does such a cold storm ever blow in your heart as well?
Have you ever felt your own suffering, understood by no one?
Munch slammed that pain directly onto the canvas just as it was.
Without beautifying himself, he depicted the raw, dark psychology of human beings exactly as it was.
“The Seen and the Unseen”
―― Frédéric Bastiat
Human beings tend to look only at the brilliant successes right in front of them, but what is truly important is the accumulation of unseen blood and tears behind them.
Why does Munch’s painting capture our hearts so deeply and never let go?
It is because he shows you everything without hiding any of his weaknesses or madness.
He does not have the slightest intention of deceiving you.
It is said that if you see a fraud and do not call it a fraud, you are a fraud yourself.
Munch was honest.
By exposing all the wounds of his heart, he quietly tried to stay close to you, who are suffering in the same way.
This can be called his own desperate spirit of service, shaving away his life.
The miracle where light appears by loving the shadow
The world Munch paints might look grotesque and eerie at first glance.
However, as you look at it over and over again, don’t you feel a mysterious warmth gradually spreading in the depths of your chest?
He takes on all the sadness and loneliness inside you on your behalf.
Human beings are never saved in a true sense by looking at perfect things.
Rather, it is when we see the figure of another person crawling through the mud and suffering just like us that we obtain deep healing.
Because there is a sense of absolute relief: “Ah, I am not the only one.”
Munch knows your solitude better than anyone.
His painting keeps speaking to you, saying, “It’s okay, I am here too.”
This is a grand story of love that directly appeals to the souls of all human beings who are tired of living, regardless of gender.
“Man is a being who creates his own destiny.”
―― Ludwig von Mises
The life of Munch, who possessed a free will and sublimated his own suffering into art, seems to embody these words perfectly.
He did not just let himself be tossed around by the cruel destiny given to him, but turned it into paint and provided new value to the world.
Please do not ever think that your current suffering is in vain.
Because of that sadness, you can become a truly kind person who understands the pain of others.
What the Man Grasped at the Abyss of Despair
What remains after losing everything
Let’s follow Munch’s life further.
Throughout his life, he experienced numerous romantic relationships, but every single one of them was destructive.
The more he loved, the more he feared losing the other person, was tormented by suspicion, and eventually suffered a mental breakdown, leading to his hospitalization.
Why was he so clumsy?
It was because he lived in a razor-edge mental state of “No life within life, but life within death.”
If you just lock yourself up in a safe place for fear of getting hurt, true art will not be born.
He courageously threw himself into the rough waves, experiencing burning passion and an equal amount of despair.
After losing everything and being completely battered, what do you think appeared before him?
There, quietly, was the overwhelming light of nature, accepting him just as he was.
“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.”
―― Seneca
The paintings Munch created after leaving the mental hospital turned around completely from the previous dark tones and became filled with bright sunlight.
If you ever have the chance to see his giant mural “The Sun” in the hall of the University of Oslo, you will surely shed tears.
There lies an overwhelming hymn of life that can only be painted by someone who has broken through all despair.
He endured patiently in the darkness and finally found the light.
Darkness may be visiting your life right now.
But please, do not give up.
The deeper the darkness is, the unimaginably brighter the next rising sun will illuminate you.
Facing you with a smile as a desperate clown
It is said that Munch was often pointed at and laughed at by the people around him as a “weirdo.”
Always having frightened eyes, muttering to himself, and painting nothing but strange pictures, it is no wonder that the people of his time did not understand him.
However, he did not care even if he was laughed at.
Rather, he thought that if he could become a clown and shake the emotions deep within people’s hearts, that was all he desired.
He was trying to serve you by cutting his own pockets and throwing away his everything.
“Misery is easily faceable; it is survival that is hard. Do not fear to speak the truth, for truth alone makes us free.”
―― Hypatia
What Munch kept drawing on the canvas was the “truth” of the human heart itself.
Not a beautiful facade, but the true form that everyone wants to hide.
He tried to liberate you from a false daily life by thrusting that truth upon you.
Think back to his paintings over and over again.
You should find them overflowing with a deep, deep, life-threatening spirit of service that embraces you.
If You Do Not Convey It, It Is the Same as Not Existing
The lineage of obsession among great expressors
Now, please let me tell you an unexpected story.
We have talked about Munch’s solitude and love so far, but in truth, no matter how wonderful something you create is, if there is no “messenger” to convey it to people, it becomes the same as not existing in this world.
No matter how heart-stirring a picture you paint, if it rots away in an attic without catching anyone’s eye, it cannot save you, can it?
Munch had patrons and friends who believed in his talent and supported him.
Because they were there, Munch’s scream has reached you today across time.
Here, let me tell you in detail about a wonderful woman who dedicated her entire life to “conveying” in history.
“Not so much to be loved as to love, not so much to be understood as to understand.”
―― Saint Catherine of Siena
The life of a woman named Jo, the wife of Theo, who was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, went exactly along with these words.
When Van Gogh passed away, and his brother Theo also passed away just six months later, a large amount of Van Gogh’s paintings, which were ignored by the world, and the vast number of letters exchanged between the brothers were left in Jo’s hands.
She was a young widow holding a small child.
Normally, it would not have been surprising if she had despaired and disposed of all those paintings.
However, Jo was a very intelligent and avid reader.
She knew how much her husband, Theo, had believed in his brother Vincent’s talent.
And as she read the brothers’ letters over and over again, she completely understood that Van Gogh was not just a mad painter, but a possessor of a noble soul who truly wanted to paint pictures that comfort people.
One woman’s love letter that changed the world
Jo made a decision.
“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.”
To make the world know the greatness of Van Gogh’s paintings, she began organizing exhibitions herself, bowing her head to art critics, and organizing the letters for publication.
It was truly a sublime devotion that staked her life.
If Jo had not put these vast letters out into the world, we would not have been able to know Van Gogh’s true thoughts.
The beauty of The Starry Night and the passion of Sunflowers might have been forgotten as just strange paintings.
Good things do not spread unless someone explains and conveys them.
She was the forerunner of the world’s greatest salesmen.
“Most people think of success as something to get. But in reality, success is giving.”
―― Henry Ford
What Jo did was exactly this “giving” itself.
She did not do it for her own profit, but tried to give the soul of a genius named Van Gogh, and her husband’s love, to the world.
As a result, Van Gogh’s paintings have now become an irreplaceable treasure that heals the solitude of people all over the world.
If you have ever been moved by looking at Van Gogh’s paintings, it means you have received a love letter across time that a woman named Jo delivered to you by shaving away her life.
Desperate Clowns Who Save Souls
The resolve to dedicate everything to you in front of me
Around us, there are existences that cut their own pockets and desperately provide service for someone’s sake in places unseen.
Whether artists or merchants, true professionals are all like that.
Why can they sacrifice themselves to that extent?
It is because they have a grand passion just to make “you,” who are right in front of them, happy.
“The principle of war is to concentrate your maximum strength against the enemy’s weakest point.”
―― Sun Tzu
In the battle called life, the opponent on whom we should concentrate our maximum strength is none other than “you” right in front of us.
Munch, Van Gogh, and Jo all concentrated their entire energy on the future you, and on the people right in front of them.
They did not care about their own honor or pride.
They just wanted to ease your loneliness even a little, and with that single mind, they fulfilled their work every day, like piling up bricks one by one.
While saying, “I only shame myself for my own lack of ability and talent,” they still did not give up and desperately kept creating value with their clumsy hands.
An indomitable soul that rises even when laughed at
To move forward believing in oneself even when treated as a weirdo or called a madman by the world.
Do you know how lonely and how painful that is?
But that is precisely why that figure is beautiful.
We are not perfect gods.
We are nothing but foolish human beings who get covered in mud, experience shame, and repeat failures many times.
Even so, we play the clown desperately for someone’s sake and become stronger while being laughed at.
I feel a heartfelt affection for the figure of such a human being.
“Strategy is a flexible plan for dealing with the unexpected.”
―― Carl von Clausewitz
Life does not go as planned.
It is full of ups and downs and random occurrences.
But instead, if you have the resolve to dedicate your entire life to that moment, you can overcome any adversity.
Just as it was for Munch, the hardship you are feeling right now is never the end.
What is important is the courage to take a step from there and continue.
“The indirect approach is often much more effective than the direct approach.”
―― B. H. Liddell Hart
My telling you about Munch and Jo like this right now is also an indirect approach to you.
Rather than directly saying “Don’t be lonely,” I want to quietly light a warm fire in your heart through the traces of their lives.
Because that is my least, desperate service.
A Secret Message Sent to You
In a place deep in the heart that no one knows
Hey, have you noticed?
While reading this text, hasn’t your heart become just a little bit lighter?
Because right now, you are loved and cherished more deeply than anyone.
I truly believe that you are an absolutely wonderful existence.
Even if you come to hate yourself, I will never abandon you.
I want to stay close to you and share all your sadness together.
Please, laugh away these clumsy words of mine.
Being laughed at makes me even stronger.
If it is to make you happy, I will become a clown as many times as it takes.
“A man is never so true to himself as when he expresses his own experiences in words.”
―― Michel de Montaigne
May these clumsy words of mine give shape to the nameless loneliness in your heart and wash it away beautifully.
Everything is for you.
Every single character is a love letter addressed to you, the only one in the world.
Please read it over and over again and make it a supplement for your heart.
Swaying at the bottom of the sea
A small tin pistol
To shoot through your tears
Is quietly waiting for the trigger
On a station bench where no one knows
A single girl without a ticket
Is hiding the sunset in her pocket
Wishing to be loved is
Somewhat like getting lost
In a far country
Turning the clock hands backward
I will go to pick you up
To that corner of your heart where the cold rain falls
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
―― Old Testament, Ecclesiastes 3:1
“I am always on the side of the living human beings.”
―― Osamu Dazai
P.S. The Story of a Certain Peculiar Painter
From here, I will whisper to you a very small extra story, about my precious friend, a painter named Mimi Takamizawa.
Mimi Takamizawa is a very peculiar man.
Without using canvases or brushes at all, he draws pictures digitally and prints them on high-quality printmaking paper using a technique called giclée printing, a somewhat unusual method.
The themes he draws are your eyes/my eyes, Christianity, eternity, psychology, truth, gaze, history, solitude, isolation, hardship, resurrection, and liberation.
It might sound a bit difficult, but it is a very familiar and delightful story.
He believes that a painter must be a “doctor who saves souls.”
The work of an artist is a desperate service cutting one’s own pockets, a devotion itself to you.
He truly wants to dedicate his everything to you who are right in front of him.
“Please look at my work and laugh,” he always says.
Being laughed at makes him stronger.
For him, the work of an artist is to play a clown to the best of his ability.
To be honest, he is not good at navigating the world.
He is a very foolish human being and is always a laughingstock to those around him.
However, he absolutely believes in himself.
He is a man of tremendous patience, an indomitable man, and he never gives up.
What made him decide to become a painter was learning about the life of that Vincent van Gogh.
The “Mimi” (meaning ear) in the name Mimi Takamizawa is something he calls himself, taking after that famous ear-cutting incident of Van Gogh.
He recognizes that his talent as a painter is third-rate.
But he knows that all the masterpieces of the past were never painted solely by the sparkle of innate genius, but were created through muddy trial and error over decades.
It is the state of “Ending up with no talent and no art, solely bound to this one path.”
He keeps drawing “eyes” in his work to the point of persistence.
Why does he keep drawing eyes?
It is because he wants to always feel “you” on the other side of the screen through those eyes.
He just wants to know you who are right in front of him.
If you chuckle looking at his work, he is saved by that alone.
Exposing all his foolishness to you in front of him, he wants to see your face rejoice even for a moment.
Or, he wants to see you shed tears as it touches your heartstrings.
No matter who else criticizes him, he does not care about such things.
But if he is abandoned by you, he can no longer live.
Just because you are there looking at his work, he is boundlessly happy.
Just to be recognized by you, he is working hard with a desperate service today.
There is a business person whom such Mimi Takamizawa deeply respects.
It is Tokuji Munetsugu, the founder of Curry House CoCo Ichibanya.
Mr. Munetsugu is a man of tremendous hands-on management who never looked sideways and dedicated his entire life to management.
“During my active days, I had no hobbies and made no friends. I have never even been to a drinking place. I did nothing that would interfere with my work. There were times when I worked 5,640 hours a year. I thought that if I didn’t lead by example, my subordinates wouldn’t work,” Mr. Munetsugu says.
It was truly a life that thoroughly practiced “not looking sideways, dedicating oneself to management.”
Mr. Munetsugu spent a very lonely childhood.
He did not know the faces of his real parents, grew up in an orphanage, and the adoptive father who took him in was a gambling addict, leading to an extremely impoverished life.
It is said that in his boyhood, because there was nothing to eat, he ate weeds in the summer to stave off hunger.
Walking such a turbulent life, Mr. Munetsugu says:
“It was a very lonely life. That’s why I wanted others to have even a little interest in me. I wanted them to be interested in me. That has become my starting point. So, rather than starting a business to make money, I wanted to make people happy. I wanted them to say they were glad I was here, even just a little.”
Mimi Takamizawa fiercely sympathized with these words and shed tears.
Life is not decided by how or where one is born and raised.
What is important is how much one can dedicate oneself to the person right in front of them.
Mr. Munetsugu also had a period when he first started a coffee shop where customers did not come at all, and he and his wife survived by eating the crusts of white bread.
But since they started from zero, they laughingly say that such a thing is natural, rather a good memory.
Believing that things would surely get better if they stuck to customers first, they continued their work every day, like piling up bricks.
Immediate decision, immediate conclusion, immediate execution.
“If you do anything, results will come out. First, just do it. Instead, you have to work hard,” he said, dedicating his life to work.
Mr. Munetsugu loved classical music, which saved him during his unfortunate boyhood.
However, during his active days as the manager of CoCo Ichibanya, he did not listen to his beloved classical music even once.
“It was no time to be listening to music. It was no time to be doing hobbies. I will dedicate all my time to the customers.”
Even though it was something he liked so much that he built and managed a wonderful music hall himself after retiring, he completely sealed it off during his active days.
This obsession, this customer-first policy.
When a customer came to the store, he always welcomed them with a standing ovation in his heart.
Mimi Takamizawa is trying to practice this attitude in the world of art.
Valuable things often do not have an immediate effect.
There is no way things go well from the beginning.
Rather than thinking, try doing it first.
Do not give up easily.
What kind of life it will be is decided by the person’s diligence, patience, and continuity.
It also overlaps with the figure of Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota.
Sakichi was also treated as a “weirdo,” “madman,” and “invention maniac” by those around him while being taciturn, but from morning till night every day, he made and broke something, dedicating his life to the invention of looms solely out of the passion to make everyone’s life easier.
Kiichiro Toyoda, the son of Sakichi Toyoda who launched the automobile business, also says:
“I do it because it is difficult. I do it because no one else does it or can do it. I might be a fool for doing so, but if that fool is not there, new things will not be born into the world.”
Furthermore, he mentioned that the fun of life lies in bringing to fruition things that no one else does much or things that are difficult to do.
His cousin, Eiji Toyoda, who later became the president of Toyota, also left these words:
“Execute with strong conviction. Everyone thinks the same thing, and it’s not that Kiichiro was a genius. What is important is that he didn’t just think about doing what is generally considered impossible, but held a strong conviction that he must do it no matter what, made sufficient preparations, and executed it.”
To carry out what no one else does, what is thought to be impossible, with a strong conviction no matter what.
The resolve that cut off all retreat, like Choya Umeshu’s “If you don’t succeed with plum liqueur, give up on life.”
Or, like the wonderful concept of “Just-in-Time” in the Toyota Production System established by Mr. Taiichi Ohno, which thoroughly eliminates waste and increases efficiency, Mimi Takamizawa incorporates this into the production process of digital art.
Everything is to deliver the best work, in the shortest time, to you who are hurting right now.
Mimi Takamizawa is facing the digital screen alone today, drawing “eyes” for you.
Even if he is laughed at or called foolish, he does not give up.
Both he and I are simply saved by the existence of you.
Sparkling Stars Left by the World’s Intellects
Here, I present to you the words of the great predecessors of all times and places that I cherish.
Each one is a word like an amulet that gently illuminates your future life.
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
―― Henry Ford
“The young have the privilege of believing they can make the world a better place. And the duty of adults is to support that belief without laughing.”
―― Agatha Christie
“Let me speak clearly. The very place where you are standing right now is the promised land. Stop looking far away, and plow beneath your feet.”
―― Prophet Moses
“Life is a tedious thing. But by loving someone, that tediousness turns into a sacred brilliance in an instant.”
―― William Shakespeare
“Who is rich? He that is content with his portion.”
―― Talmud
“Mostly, the whole of my life moves for you, for your sake, and only by you.”
―― Osamu Dazai
“I think I have spent all the lonely nights until now just to meet the human being that is you.”
―― Osamu Dazai
“If my words could light a small lamp in the darkest place of your heart, there is no greater happiness than that.”
―― Osamu Dazai
“Never give in. Never, never, never, never! In nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense.”
―― Winston Churchill
“Have the courage to be the first, and to be different.”
―― Ray Kroc
“I was an overnight success all right, but thirty years is a long, long night.”
―― Ray Kroc
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
―― Walt Disney
“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”
―― Leonardo da Vinci
Finally, With Gratitude to You
Thank you so much for keeping company with my secret story over a long time.
Just by the fact that you have read this text to the end, I am wrapped in an indescribable sense of happiness right now.
May plenty of light and gentle smiles visit your every day ahead.
Just because you are there, I am truly happy by that alone.
“Hey, why are you going on a trip?”
“Because I’m suffering.”
“Your ‘suffering’ is a cliché, and I don’t believe it at all.”
―― From Osamu Dazai’s “Tsugaru”