It has been half a year since I started writing essays on Note, and I have gradually come to realize how difficult and hard it is to write. Simply, I have run out of material, but as Haruki Murakami once wrote in one of his books, “If you write too many essays, you will not be able to write novels anymore.
This is because when I write as it happens and feels around me on a daily basis, I gradually feel as if I am selling out my own life. (omission) I think that a novelist should really keep every little detail “to himself” inside himself, silently storing it away. （I don’t live my life to write essays.
On the other hand, I have to admit that I am not a good essayist, and I am not a good writer.
On the other hand, I feel that after I start writing essays, I can sort out feelings that I was not aware of and faltering feelings, so I am not quite sure if I should quit writing at all.
In that sense, I am simply amazed at the essayists of the world. When an amateur like me runs out of material, I tend to look for topics outside of the field.
By the way, Montaigne, who wrote “Essais,” the origin of the word “essay,” resigned from public office at a young age and spent his life in the tower of his castle in the countryside, reading, contemplating, and writing.
Instead of wandering the world or experiencing war, as he did, he did not go outside to look for material, but simply engaged in inner contemplation to capture the human condition today and examine the way we live.
Recently, I hear that many famous YouTubers are going out of business. Some of this may be due to increased competition, but it may also be because they have run out of material. The increased competition combined with running out of material has caused some YouTubers to attempt something extreme, causing them to be socially inflamed and forced to exit the business.
Of course, the world of essays and the world of YouTube are different fields, but creating a piece of work is the same, and I think the difficulty is the same. And I think it is still somewhat an act of selling yourself short. Continuing to do it certainly brings a great deal of weariness and exhaustion. Hemingway’s later years as an experiential writer may be a good example.
Some people may say that an essay is the same as an essay, but I think that an essay is more like a diary in which one expresses one’s personal feelings and emotions.
Essays are intended to be read by others, but diaries are more about the impersonal world. A typical example is Nagai Kafu’s “Danjotei Nippori,” but there is a rumor that even before his death, he actually had a diary in which he wrote only his true feelings in anticipation that it would one day be published and read by others.
Perhaps from the moment he realized that people would read his diary, he began to control his feelings in his writing, making it somewhat like an essay, even though it was his own personal diary. That is why I feel that this Note has been accepted by the world, even though it is a personal diary.
In the future, I would like to make this Note less essay-like and more like a combination of Nagai Kafu’s “Danjotei Nippori”, Taneda Santoka’s “Kichu Nikki”, and Nishimura Kenta’s “Nippori of a Private Novelist” (I will think again if I fail). Of course, I am far behind these great predecessors in terms of both interest and depth of content.
See you soon.
