It is not that I was asked by anyone or that I am paid to write articles, but I have been writing articles related to my creativity on a whim, so there is no need for me to feel the need to write so urgently, but when there is an interval between updates, my heart starts to stir somehow and I feel the need to write something. I don’t need to feel the need to write so earnestly.
I realize that I haven’t updated in almost a month. It seems like a lie that I used to write an article every day as if it were a hardship.
So what did I do during this period? You may not want to know, but I just wrote novels. Just writing.
Lately, I have been enjoying writing novels. Just writing. It’s not like Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s “samadai” (samadhi for short), but I’m beginning to understand the strangeness of “samadai.
I know that I might be asked what a third-rate writer like you would understand if I told you this, but as I have been writing with all my heart and soul, the thoughts of my predecessors, the traces of their contemplation, which were once too great for me to grasp, have suddenly appeared in front of my eyes,
I’ve come to welcome them with open arms and an open heart, saying, “I’ve finally come this far.” It was not my imagination or anything.
That’s exactly what I was doing with Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Yukio Mishima, Osamu Dazai, Proust, Goethe, Thomas Mann, and so on…. Now I can grasp their thoughts, wishes, attitude toward life, and even their appearance, which I did not understand when I was young.
As if they were my friends in reality.
And it is not enough just to read their books. I had to read through the entire collection, including the trivial miscellaneous writings, follow the traces of their thoughts, and then create my own works. At the end of this creative process, they come to you out of the blue, like a good friend who has unexpectedly visited your house.
They appear in front of you, not as a joke or anything, but as a real “human being. And then they talk to you.
And then you talk with them. Sometimes it takes only a few seconds, sometimes it lasts for tens of minutes. What I have always wanted to hear, what I have always wanted to know. They answer in their own voices.
It is a precious and true conversation that is rarely possible with people in the real world, and one that I have sincerely sought.
Writing novels” used to mean many things to me, and I used to think about its value and social significance on my own,
But for the first time, I began to think of it as “to meet a true friend who transcends fiction and reality and time.
It is not a line from one of Salinger’s movies, but “to just keep writing without asking for anything in return. One of the meanings of this may be to reunite with those who once looked up at you from afar on your own path, transcending time. And I have a feeling that they are looking for that too.
I am sure that this is not limited to the path of literature, but may be the same in baseball (perhaps Otani became friends with Babe Ruth through his samadhi of baseball), soccer, or music. It doesn’t matter what it is, those who are able to have a state of samadhi are happy.
Those who cannot find a friend in reality (though there is no need to force themselves to do so) will find a true friend, an irreplaceable best friend, in the samadhi world that they are striving for. And that is a much more wonderful fortuitous thing than a little money, and I think it will become an asset of your life.
So, I’ve been rambling on about the reasons for the delay in updating, but it seems to have become an excuse, but it is not.
