‘Satisfaction’ when I’m forty-five.” But now he’s over sixty and still singing “Satisfaction.” Some
people might find this funny, but not me. When he was young, Mick Jagger couldn’t imagine himself
at forty-five. When I was young, I was the same. Can I laugh at Mick Jagger? No way. I just happen
not to be a young rock singer. Nobody remembers what stupid things I might have said back then, so
they’re not about to quote them back at me. That’s the only difference.
And now here I am living in this unimaginable world. It feels really strange, and I can’t tell if I’m
fortunate or not. Maybe it doesn’t matter. For me—and for everybody else, probably—this is my first
experience growing old, and the emotions I’m having, too, are all first-time feelings. If it were
something I’d experienced before, then I’d be able to understand it more clearly, but this is the first
time, so I can’t. For now all I can do is put off making any detailed judgments and accept things as
they are. Just like I accept the sky, the clouds, and the river. And there’s also something kind of
comical about it all, something you don’t want to discard completely.
As I mentioned before, competing against other people, whether in daily life or in my field of work, is
just not the sort of lifestyle I’m after. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of
all kinds of people. Other people have their own values to live by, and the same holds true with me.
These differences give rise to disagreements, and the combination of these disagreements can give
rise to even greater misunderstandings. As a result, sometimes people are unfairly criticized. This
goes without saying. It’s not much fun to be misunderstood or criticized, but rather a painful
experience that hurts people deeply.
As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve gradually come to the realization that this kind of pain and hurt is
a necessary part of life. If you think about it, it’s precisely because people are different from others
that they’re able to create their own independent selves. Take me as an example. It’s precisely my
ability to detect some aspects of a scene that other people can’t, to feel differently than others and
choose words that differ from theirs, that’s allowed me to write stories that are mine alone. And
because of this we have the extraordinary situation in which quite a few people read what I’ve written.
So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a
person has to pay in order to be independent.
That’s what I basically believe, and I’ve lived my life accordingly. In certain areas of my life, I
actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an
inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle,
can unconsciously eat away at a person’s heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-
edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside. I think in my
own way I’m aware of this danger—probably through experience—and that’s why I’ve had to
constantly keep my body in motion, in some cases pushing myself to the limit, in order to heal the
loneliness I feel inside and to put it in perspective. Not so much as an intentional act, but as an instinctive
reaction.
Let me be more specific.