Darkness. Everywhere. Imagine running into a forest at midnight without knowing where you’re going—moving forward with a narrow sense of direction, unaware of when to go right or left, forward or backward. I felt this way over the summer, running in Tokyo.
The calm Sunday morning was creeping into a humid and uncomfortable summer day. Running around, I could feel mosquitos buzzing around me, even with the odd stench of bug spray enveloping my body. With sweat beading down my neck, I couldn’t wait to drink my salty-sweet Pocari Sweat. In my left hand, I held a rag of a towel, and in my right, a thick rope. This rope was my only guide in the dark, held by a colleague and me. It was light out, yet I could not see. No, I was not running into a dark forest—I was running with a blindfold.
We were volunteers for Achilles International, an athletic organization to assist those with disabilities. We first ran with a blindfold so we could attempt to understand how it was to run blind. Later, I paired up with Shigeta Masatoshi, the chairman of Achilles Japan, and we ran around Yoyogi Park. In the short span of our run, I developed heightened respect and empathy for him and his fellow blind runners. He was blind, yet he knew exactly when to turn and stop and could paint a picture of upcoming scenery. There is a pond 100m to your left. Let’s slow down here, as there are usually many cyclists. Let’s take this route up the hill; I’ll tell you when to turn. His clarity amazed me, and we had an insightful conversation as we ran 8km around the park. There is one phrase that I will never forget; he said,「間違える方が良い」(“It’s better to be wrong/make mistakes”) with a soft laugh.
Since childhood, we’ve been trained not to make mistakes. We lose points when we overlook the negative sign or screw up grammar. If we forget the words to our presentation, we feel embarrassed and disheartened—aversion to messing up leads to a lack of confidence and guts to try something new. Stop protecting your shaky self-esteem. When’s the last time you explored learning a new skill, went outside your bubble—tried something new?
You have no idea what you’re doing when you are a beginner, and that humility is beautiful. There are no expectations, and we learn very quickly. We become a sponge, asking all the questions. We don’t even know what “dumb” questions are because we aren’t self-conscious of what is “right” or “wrong.” Being a beginner restores curiosity; you question, listen and read. This fascination is pure innocence. Sadly, as we grow older, we often neglect this side of us, the human part, the part that makes us one of a kind.
What happened to us? Where did our curiosity, go?
The world itself becomes a habit in no time at all. It seems as if in the process of growing up, we lose the ability to wonder about the world. And in doing so, we lose something central—something philosophers try to restore. For somewhere inside ourselves, something tells us that life is a huge mystery. That is something we once experienced, long before we learned to think the thought. Although philosophical questions concern us all, we do not all become philosophers. For various reasons most people get so caught up in everyday affairs that their astonishment at the world gets pushed into the background.1
Curiosity, please come back.2
When we’re lost and down, we worry a lot. What is going to happen now? What am I going to do? I’m fucked. We are overwhelmed in the dark, but remember, it’s darkest before dawn.
Can you see the next step? Just take that.
In reverse, though, you probably should worry if you aren’t worried. There’s always something to improve. Writing novels is hard. Reading novels isn’t. Hard means worry; if you’re not worrying that something you’re making will come out badly, or that you won’t be able to understand something you’re studying, then it isn’t hard enough… It's exhilarating to overcome worries. You don't see faces much happier than people winning gold medals. And you know why they're so happy? Relief.3
We have to be our life’s personal mixologist; no, not the ones that sell $20 embellished garbage in the city. You must pour a healthy dose of anxiety with confidence to create a cocktail of personal insecurity, hubris, and discipline. Sip on this drink like your life depends on it. It’s the only practical and balanced remedy to accomplish your dreams.
Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer.4 When we try something new, we are guaranteed to make mistakes; use it as a learning opportunity rather than beating yourself up. With everyone so bent on not failing, that’s why cases of success is so rare.5 Trying to be a perfectionist or waiting to “make it just right” is detrimental to growth—it prevents you from actualizing an idea and receiving feedback (similar to holding in your “good ideas” or whatever project you’re working on). Just do it and release it. Actualize your thoughts into the physical—shapeless ideas drifting in your brain are not real.
What have you up to now, truly loved, what attracted your soul, what dominated it while simultaneously making it happy? Place this series of reward objects before you, and perhaps their nature and their sequence will reveal to you a law, the fundamental law of your authentic self. Compare these objects, observe how one completes, expands, surpasses, transfigures the others, how they form a stepladder on which until now you have climbed up to yourself.6
What doesn’t feel like “work” to you? What topics keep you energized past 4 am? Would you still do it if no one saw it? In the past, I stayed up till dawn editing videos, and now I stay up watching films and writing. What is something you enjoyed in the past but stopped doing? Why did you stop? What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but never committed to?
There is one single path in this world on which no one but you can travel. Where does it lead? Do not ask, just take it.7
To the readers, especially undergraduates, and those in their 20s, is it truly your life’s dream to become a doctor, lawyer, or consultant? How we hasten to sell our soul to the state, to moneymaking, to social life, or to scholarship just so that we will no longer posses it; how even in our daily work we slave away without reflection and more ardently than is necessary to make a living because it seems to us more necessary not to stop and reflect.8
Don’t sign your life away just yet. Be bold. Use your youth to your advantage. Youth is flexible—we can correct our course later. We have nothing to lose. What is life telling you that you are refusing to listen to? Ghostly things are occurring around us, every moment of life wants to tell us something, but we do not want to hear this ghostly voice. When we are quiet and alone we are afraid that something will be whispered into our ear, and hence we despise quiet and drug ourselves with sociability.9
We have the answers, even if we’re lost. Trust yourself and remember: slowly is the fastest way to get to where you want to be.
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt, that build your city and fashioned all there is in it?10
Take the advice of Roger Skaer, a philosopher on TikTok: The more you fuck around, the more you’re gonna find out. So, find out. Explore the unexplored. The new passions and the ones resurfaced. No one can build for you the bridge upon which you alone must cross the stream of life, no one but you alone.11
In these situations, people use the phrase: "should I?" What do you mean by "should I?" Asking, "should I do this?" is such a spineless thing to say. Just do it. Almost always, deep down, we know the correct answer—do that. If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone.12 We are all insecure about various things, but you need a leap of faith to progress. You can’t keep seeking outside validation and confirmation to gain the confidence to act. Confidence is not something you immediately attain; you must construct, nurture, and earn it, often with two steps forward and one step back. And you must always move forward, for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.13 We were born in the house of tomorrow, so live like it.
Surah Al-Baqarah Ayat 2:28614
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا ۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا مَا ٱكْتَسَبَتْ ۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذْنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوْ أَخْطَأْنَا ۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحْمِلْ عَلَيْنَآ إِصْرًۭا كَمَا حَمَلْتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِنَا ۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلْنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦ ۖ وَٱعْفُ عَنَّا وَٱغْفِرْ لَنَا وَٱرْحَمْنَآ ۚ أَنتَ مَوْلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرْنَا عَلَى ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ ٢٨٦
We must live with blind faith and hope for a better tomorrow. If you have a project, startup idea, whatever it is, do it—act even with the likelihood of failure. And when you’re wrong, be humble and admit it. It takes true maturity to acknowledge that you were wrong and start again. Never lose the courage to begin anew. Every morning is a new start. Every breath a second chance. Keep showing up. Things will happen.15 Beautifully [or annoyingly], life is an endless loop of failure and success—nirvana is samsara.
Everything happens for a reason—even you, reading at this moment. You somehow stumbled across this on your winding path through life—I wish you the best of luck. So be a beginner in something. Try something new. Lord, we know what we are but we know not what we may be.16 Sometimes, it’s better to be wrong and make mistakes—Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.17
Additional English text below the Japanese translation.
暗い。何も見えない。夜中に森の中走った事ある?右、左、前、後ろ、何も分からない。向きがわからないで、迷子の世界。夏休みの間、こう言う思い出があらました。
日曜日の朝、梅雨前の東京。今年は、変な天気で、梅雨はあまりなかった。6月の終わりに、代々木公園まで向かった。走りながら、蚊がいっぱい。体が虫除けの変な匂いに囲まれていた。汗が首にベタベタくっついていた。「ポカリスエットが飲みたい」と思った。左の手は、白いタオル、右の手は、紐。この紐は、先輩が持っていた。外は明るいけど、全部が暗い。暗い森の中を走ってなかった。目隠しをつけていた。
夏休みの間、目の不自由な人と8キロ代々木公園で走りました。この方は、Achilles International: Japanの社長で、「しげた・まさとし」と申します。短い間だったけど、かなり印象的な方でした。目が見えないけど、代々木公園の道、池、花、の場所がちゃんとわかっていました。しげたさんが言った言葉が、「間違える方が良い」です。
子供の時から、「まちがえる」と言うのは悪い思っていた。発表を失敗して、言う言葉を忘れるとか、数学の問題で、マイナスのサインを忘れる。バカな間違えは一つだけど、失敗することが「悪い」と思っていた。でも、逆の方が正しい。「失敗は成功のもと。」失敗しても、また次の日、来るのは勢力だ。みんなは、間違えたから、新しいことに体験しないと言う傾向があります。でもこれをすると、あまり成長がない。自分ができないことに体験しないと、命の意味があまりない。
初心者の時は天国だ。何もわからないから、どれだけでも、質問する事が出来ます。好奇心がたっぷり。デオ、だんだん歳が上がるほど、好奇心がなくなる。好奇心がないと、世界の見方もあってない。世界は、毎年毎日変わっているから、好奇心がないと、火石になっちゃう。生きてる化石より寂しい人生はない。
この質問は、「ソフィーの世界」と言う本にこのテーマがよく書かれています。子供みたいの好奇心はどこに行ったかしら。
僕たちが、悩んでいる時は、頭の中が迷子な感じです。次の段、見える?それで良いよ。一段一段先に進もう。
逆に、心配してなかったら、多分心配した方がいい。心配してないと、自分が作っているもの、教えてることが簡単すぎと言う意味です。ちょっと日本語で説明できないけど、英語の翻訳を読んでください。すみません。
あなたは何が好き?子供の時の憧れは何?昔、いっぱいやってた事で、今は何もやらない。こう言うことある?なぜやめた?また始めたい?時間作ったら。
人生はあまり急がなくて良いと思う。程々のプレッシャー与えて、良いものを作った方がいい。みんなが喜ぶ物。あまり若い時に焦ると、あまり良い結果がないと思う。自分が興味がある物、そして難しい事をやっていたら、きっと大丈夫。まだ翻訳は100%できないけど、また来週も頑張ります。ここまで読んで、ありがとうございます。
If you learned something by reading this, please subscribe and share this with one other person, just one. Click here to read my past essays. Thank you for everything; as always, I’m lost in the right direction.
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Schopenhauer as Educator by Friedrich Nietzsche
Schopenhauer as Educator by Friedrich Nietzsche
Schopenhauer as Educator by Friedrich Nietzsche
Schopenhauer as Educator by Friedrich Nietzsche
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Schopenhauer as Educator by Friedrich Nietzsche
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The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Surah Al-Baqarah Ayat 2:286 in the Quran: “Allah does not require of any soul more than what it can afford. All good will be for its own benefit, and all evil will be to its own loss. ˹The believers pray,˺ ‘Our Lord! Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord! Do not place a burden on us like the one you placed on those before us. Our Lord! Do not burden us with what we cannot bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our ˹only˺ Guardian. So grant us victory over the disbelieving people.’”
Seton Hall University Office of Mission and Ministry
Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Paradise Lost by John Milton
beautiful insight