Know “what you are” and discover the irreplaceable

──People have begun to face the idea of “what you are.”

 

　Yes, I think so. In the books I’ve written so far, I’ve often mentioned “what I am.” I think that there is a sense of self-reliance on that axis.

 

　One is a sense of self-reliance based on evaluations from others. This includes positive things that get a good reputation for one’s performance, such as high annual income and ability to study more than others, and that one recognizes himself as “someone.” There are also cases of the negative, as one makes himself transparent so that others don’t give bad reviews. Both are identities established by being “different from others.”

 

　In the trend of neo-liberalism that emerged in the 1980s, in a sense, with others, one should make a good evaluation by highlighting the difference between him and others, how much one is capable of and how much one can earn. It is a sense of self-reliance that we take positively to make more and more of the difference.

 

　As I explained in detail in “Network of Awakening,” “I,” which I talk about in terms of being different from others, is a set of information that accompanies “I,” and is outside of me, such as status, title, property, and fashion. The information is the same as oneself. It causes an attachment to materials. One will continue to strengthen material possession and information in order to get a sense of satisfaction like when replacing the current car to a luxury car and a feeling that “this will differentiate from yesterday’s self.” Thus, one tends to try to make a difference more than necessary. Soon, one can only think about whether he is happy or not only by comparing himself to others.

 

　By making oneself transparent to avoid obtaining bad reviews from others is a negative self-reliance one can sense by extremely avoiding any “different from others.” This is what I said in the “Meaning of Life,” but it is deeply related to the fact that many Japanese people are very concerned about the eyes of others. We live in a culture of ethnicity that is very afraid of other people’s thinking like being judged that “he is useless.” We have made ourselves transparent because we are overly conscious of how we are viewed by others. There are a lot of people who think that if they put out their own color, they will be disliked, eliminated, or bullied. This tendency to be overly conscious about people’s eyes is intensifying due to the spread of smartphones and social media where agreeing with others is highly pressured.

──Are you saying that evaluation from others are becoming many people’s objective?

 

　That’s right. Apart from that, there is another sense of self-reliance. One may conclude that the evaluation from others is irrelevant. It is a sense of self-reliance that “my own existence should be respected in the first place.” “I” is an irreplaceable existence. It is infinitely valuable in itself, and I have explained it with the word “irreplaceable” with the feeling that it would be absolutely troublesome if it disappeared. As detailed in “Irreplaceable Humans,” even if one thinks that one is living his very own life, in many cases one is actually a tool that can be replaced with someone. He has become replaceable. In my many years of teaching at the university, I have felt that the number of students who have such a sense of “irreplaceable self” has become overwhelmingly small.

 

　At the university, the content that the faculty member speaks in the lecture is predetermined. Whether the student is present or sleeping at home, the lecture will proceed in the same way regardless of his attendance. Those lectures continue to give students a strong meta-message that “the world moves in the same way every day with or without me.” Of course, it is certain that the teachers who teach take the time to prepare and give lectures seriously, thinking about the students. However, the form of the lecture itself in the large classroom drives the students into a state where “I am excluded from the progress of the world” and “I have no place to put myself”; and as a result, they acquire consciousness that “I contribute nothing to the world.”