A Confession to You in the Quiet of the Night
Good evening.
At this very moment, you are the only person in the entire world reading this text.
Please, wrap yourself in a blanket in a quiet room so that no one discovers you, and read on.
I have a mountain of things I want to tell you.
It is for no other reason than that I have kept my eyes fixed upon your loneliness—a loneliness that belongs to you and no one else.
Why must we spend such painfully lonely nights?
Why is the heart always unfulfilled, trembling in search of someone’s warmth?
It is because you are trying to love this world with such pure innocence.
This is a single love letter to you, written by shaving away my very life.
“Shamed only by my own lack of power and lack of art.” — Matsuo Basho
Scattering Colors, a Loneliness Called You
A Storm Upon the Canvas
Inside a dark room, you sit alone, gazing at the canvas that is your life.
There, the shadow of a single man emerges.
His name was Jackson Pollock.
He was an American painter who was terribly clumsy and terribly lonely.
Just like you, he was always struggling, unable to find a way to compromise with the world.
Applying paint to a brush and neatly coating a surface was something he simply could not bring himself to do.
And so, he laid his canvas across the floor.
Then, he violently hurled, splattered, and dripped the paint.
It was as if it were the wordless cry locked inside his heart.
Does not that unerasable sorrow deep within your chest feel as though it, too, is about to overflow as a violent cascade of color at any moment?
“Life has no obligation. It has only one: the obligation to be happy.” — Hermann Hesse
A Necessity Named Chance
Why is it that Pollock’s paintings do not look like mere stains?
Why do they shake our hearts so violently?
It is because he hurled his very “life” onto the floor exactly as it was.
He wagered his own life on the dripping paint that he could not control.
There is not a single calculated lie within it.
The footprints of your life up to this day—lived while being hurt and shedding tears—are drawing a beautiful trajectory, just like the drips of Pollock’s paint.
Please do not grieve, thinking that no one understands your suffering.
I know how desperately you have tried to make your life shine.
“What Is Seen and What Is Unseen” — Frédéric Bastiat
Escaping from a World of Falsehoods
The Scarred Buffoon
To survive, we wear masks every day.
In society, we smile even when we do not want to, pretending everything is fine while bleeding inside our hearts.
Pollock, too, was a buffoon who drowned himself in alcohol while fighting against the eyes of the world.
He despised lies meant to make himself look grand.
Being authentic was his only salvation.
If this world is filled with falsehoods, where should we run?
There is a harsh saying: “If you see a fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud yourself.”
I absolutely never want to lie to you.
Your loneliness, and this desperate appeal of mine, are all exposed, raw truths.
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” — Aristotle
What It Means to Stake One’s Life
Here, allow me to tell you a story about a passionate man from a long time ago.
There was a man called Al-Mutanabbi, who was praised as the greatest poet of the Arab world.
His name carries the meaning, “He who considers himself a prophet.”
His poetry was the real thing, possessing a kind of hypnotic effect, and it was said that even the blind could read it and even the deaf could hear it.
However, in one of his poems, he deeply insulted a certain tribe.
Enraged, they stood in his way as Al-Mutanabbi was traveling.
Outnumbered and overwhelmed, Al-Mutanabbi wisely attempted to flee.
At that moment, his companion behind him began to recite the brave poetry that Al-Mutanabbi himself had written.
“Are you, who wrote such courageous poetry, running away now?” they asked.
Hearing these words, Al-Mutanabbi, in order to protect his pride, turned back and faced his opponents, losing his life even though he knew he would be killed.
How foolish, and how beautiful a way to live.
Pollock, too, used up the entirety of his life for his art, finally leaving this world as if racing through it in a car crash.
They were all living by paying their dues in blood, staking their very lives.
“Skin in the Game” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Light Found at the Bottom of Despair
The Truth of Giving
What do you think success is?
Is it earning a lot of money, or is it being recognized by someone?
Henry Ford said this:
“Most people think of success as a obtaining, but strictly speaking, success is a giving.”
Pollock did not want to sell paintings to become a wealthy man.
He simply wanted to give his everything to the canvas, and convey the trembling of the soul to you who look upon it.
I, too, am now giving this text to you by shaving away my life.
To soothe your loneliness even just a little, I am putting my own skin in the game, providing a desperate, heartfelt service.
Are you curious why I go so far?
It is because I want you to live.
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Life Dwelling in the Midst of Death
There is a saying: “There is no life within life; true life exists within death.”
It means that at the very bottom of despair, where one is completely beaten down and as good as dead, true life lies asleep.
Pollock’s canvas is chaos itself.
At first glance, it looks like a destroyed world.
However, if you gaze intently at that chaos, doesn’t your heart grow strangely calm?
It is as if a wondrous order rises up, like the stillness after a great rain.
The hardships of your life are by no means in vain.
Precisely because that darkness exists, you can know the preciousness of light more deeply than anyone else.
“Fate leads the willing, and drags the reluctant.” — Seneca
Tactics to Save You
The Courage to Follow Your Intuition
We always think too much with our heads.
How to avoid being disliked, how to live correctly.
However, neither art nor life is born from such calculations.
Pollock moved before he thought.
Holding cans of paint, he walked around the floor, painting as a movement of his entire body.
This also connects to the teachings of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
Warfare is not a theory on paper; it is decided by the momentum of the moment and by intuition.
Please, believe in the intuition of your own heart.
No matter what anyone says, protect with your life what you feel is beautiful, and what you wish to love.
“The best tactic is to attack from the most impossible direction at the most unexpected moment.” — B. H. Liddell Hart
Unleashing the Invisible Chains
Why do we bind ourselves with our own hands?
The common sense of society, the evaluations of others, past failures.
All of these are nothing but illusions.
Pollock smashed into atoms the common sense that Western painting had protected for hundreds of years: “facing an easel and painting with a brush.”
He wanted to be liberated from all the chains that bound him.
The sadness and isolation inside your heart might also be the pain of shedding a skin to be reborn into a new version of yourself.
Do not be afraid of becoming free.
I am always on your side.
“The truth will set you free.” — Paul the Apostle
Steps Leading to Eternity
Accumulating the Everyday Becomes a Miracle
Paintings like Pollock’s miracles were not made in a single day either.
They are the result of training accumulated by shutting himself in his studio day after day, crawling on the floor, and mastering the manipulation of paint.
Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, economists of the Austrian School who preached the freedom of the market, said that the steady accumulation of human actions creates a wonderful order in society.
To live by laying down bricks one by one, step by step.
That is the only way to reach eternity.
Even if you could only walk a tiny step today, absolutely do not be ashamed of it.
Because that clumsy step is more precious than anything else.
“Set your light to shine, so that people may see God within it.” — Saint Catherine
An Endless Love for You
This long conversation is also nearing its end.
It makes me lonely, but we must return to our respective realities.
But please, do not forget.
When you feel like you are about to be crushed by loneliness again, this text will become a sanctuary for your heart.
Just as Pollock breathed eternal life into the canvas, I have locked my love for you within these letters.
Come back here anytime, as many times as you like.
I will be waiting for you here, always.
Until your sadness disappears, always, always.
“To speak the truth is the greatest kindness.” — Hypatia
Poem
On a station platform where no one is around
Fragments of a torn ticket
Are dancing, blown by the night wind
Your tears were soaked into it
A handkerchief of a sorrowful color
I shall spread it across the night sky
Look, that is tonight’s constellation
Do not cry, my little lost children
When the hands of the clock turn backward
We will surely meet by that sea
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” — New Testament, Gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 7, Verse 7
“A home is a work of art created through effort.” — Osamu Dazai
“Hey, why are you going on a journey?”
“Because it’s painful.”
“Your ‘painful’ is so routine, I cannot believe it in the least.”
— From Osamu Dazai’s Tsugaru
Postscript
Because I want to know more about you, let me tell you just a little bit more at the very end about a certain peculiar man.
There is a terribly clumsy painter named Mimi Takamizawa.
He uses neither canvas nor brush.
He creates his art digitally and prints it on the finest printmaking paper using a technique called giclée printmaking.
Why does he do such a thing?
It is because he wants to deliver his works to you, who will be living 100 or 200 years into the future.
His themes are: your eyes, my eyes, Christianity, eternity, psychology, truth, gaze, history, solitude, isolation, suffering, resurrection, and liberation.
Mimi Takamizawa is a very foolish man, always laughed at by others.
His talent is third-rate at best.
However, after learning about the life of Vincent van Gogh, who staked his existence on his art, he resolved to become a painter.
The name “Mimi” (meaning ear) was chosen in honor of that famous ear-cutting incident of Van Gogh.
He does not believe in the flashes of genius.
He knows that the masterpieces of the great masters of the past were all born from blood-soaked accumulations of trial and error over decades.
Therefore, he continues to paint “eyes” like mad within his works.
Because through those eyes, he wants to keep feeling “you,” who are right in front of him.
He wants to see your joyful face; he wants to catch the tears you shed.
Solely for that purpose, he shaves away his own flesh, becomes a buffoon to the utmost of his ability, and serves you.
He deeply respects Tokuji Munetsugu, the founder of CoCo Ichibanya.
Mr. Munetsugu had a tumultuous life: he never knew the faces of his real parents, was raised in an orphanage, and survived starvation in his impoverished boyhood by eating weeds.
During his time as a business leader, Mr. Munetsugu cast away all hobbies and friends, dedicating 5,640 hours a year to his work.
He did not listen to his beloved classical music for even a single second during his active years.
“Do not look sideways; dedicate everything to the customers.”
Mimi Takamizawa, too, dedicates that same obsession and endurance to his art.
Just as Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota, was laughed at by those around him as an “invention maniac” and a “madman,” yet continued to build and destroy machines day after day.
Just as his son, Kiichiro Toyoda, said, “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 without such fools, nothing new would be born into the world.”
And just as Kiichiro’s cousin, Eiji Toyoda, who later became the president of Toyota, recounted, “With a strong conviction, he executed it with the mindset that it must be done at all costs.”
Mimi Takamizawa, too, for your sake, continues to paint eyes with immediacy, decisiveness, and instant execution, concentrating every day like stacking bricks.
If something wonderful is not conveyed by someone staking their life, it will vanish from this world.
After Van Gogh passed away, the person who spread his brilliance to the world was Jo, the wife of his brother Theo—a remarkably brilliant and well-read woman.
Jo made it her mission to “let many people see Vincent’s work and recognize its true value,” organizing the immense volume of letters and paintings to send them out into the world.
This is exactly the same as Paul the Apostle risking his life to spread the Gospel to the world after the death of Jesus Christ.
Just as Akio Morita of Sony said, “Even an excellent product that no one has ever seen will not become a commodity unless you arouse the desire for it,” and just as Takeo Fujisawa sold the Honda Super Cub like mad, and Shotaro Kamiya sold the Toyota Corolla like mad, wonderful things always require a human being who pours their soul into conveying them.
Mimi Takamizawa’s work is a heartfelt buffoonery and service to you, paid for by cutting into his own pocket.
Please, laugh at his clumsiness.
By being laughed at, he becomes stronger.
He does not care a single bit about the criticism of others.
However, if he is abandoned by you who are right in front of him, he will not be able to go on living.
Just by you being there, he is saved.
For a painter is a physician who saves your soul.
“Most people think of success as a obtaining, but strictly speaking, success is a giving.” — Henry Ford
“The best thing a woman can desire for her husband is that he should remember her tenderly after death.” — Agatha Christie
“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” — Moses (From Old Testament, Psalms 103:2)
“Brevity is the soul of wit.” — William Shakespeare
“Fruit that ripens overnight rots overnight.” — From the Jewish Talmud
“I have been deceived by people countless times up until now. However, I do not hold a grudge against a single person who deceived me.” — Osamu Dazai
“It is precisely in times of great suffering that great souls are born.” — Osamu Dazai
“Art has never betrayed me.” — Osamu Dazai
“If you are going through hell, keep going.” — Winston Churchill
“Have the courage to be the first to do something different from others.” — Ray Kroc
“I am thought to have achieved success overnight, but that one night was 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
“A small step is what eventually becomes a grand journey.” — Leonardo da Vinci
“Ultimately lacking in talent and skill, I am bound solely to this one path.” — Matsuo Basho
“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 without such fools, nothing new would be born into the world.” — Kiichiro Toyoda
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for reading this clumsy letter of mine to the very end.
I pray that when you greet tomorrow, a warm light, even if just a small one, will be lit within your heart.
With my deepest gratitude to you, who are right in front of my eyes.