这篇文章是一位与我非常好的朋友之托我翻译并发表的。他希望保持匿名，因为他认为自己的过去不值一提。而他之所以想要把这篇文章公之于世，也是因为想要放下一些东西。“Since my feet are now fast, and pointed away from the past. I’ll bid farewell and not give a damn”，他借着Bob Dylan的歌词这样对我说。我知道这不过是他愁思与浪漫主义的产物，他本人并不真这么想。但正因为我对他如此了解，他内心愁思的这一部分我才产生如此的共鸣。这不是他的全部，但却是他内心最真诚的、不加掩饰的部分。于是，我翻译了他的文章，并在我的公众号里发表。希望他言语中的力量能传递给愿意聆听的人。希望他的真诚能够被不加批判的听众接收到。正文如下：
在直到目前的人生中，有一样东西直到现在我还没有真正学会，那就是勇气。我曾经欣赏歌颂痛苦和苦难的文学作品，因为我知道我并不孤单。我痴迷于太宰治。我看到苦难是不可避免的，在这种苦难中，有一颗僵化的心和强加在它身上的疲倦的幽默。痛苦成为他存在的仲裁者。因此，当虚无的空虚感袭来时，他甚至需要有力地提醒自己是痛苦的，让自己知道自己还活着。“我是一个病人”，正如陀思妥耶夫斯基在《地下室手记》的第一行开头所说的那样。大宰看到没有比这更准确的对自己的描述，一定非常高兴。我曾经觉得自己是太宰。除了我，没有人能理解他的挣扎，我在这种私密的理解中找到了安慰。我甚至曾经鄙视那些假装没有看到这些无处不在的冲突的人。我甚至怀疑他们是否真的有感觉。他们生来就是幸福的吗？他们生来就可以免于任何痛苦和折磨吗？我回忆起我读《罪与罚》，那是在我离开太宰治的世界很久之后，有一种特殊的情绪正好描述了我当时的精神状态。拉斯柯尔尼科夫一见到斯维德里盖洛夫，就对他说，他甚至配不上索涅奇卡的小拇指。索涅奇卡是一个宽厚的姑娘，她受了太多的苦，却从不抱怨。是的，我觉得任何一个无法体会太宰与我的感受的人，已经不值得我们的小指了。他们的成就，他们的成功，是建立在抛弃人性的基础上的，他们把目光从自己身上移开，贬低他人，或者更糟的是，他们一开始就无法感受到强烈的痛苦。我一定认为，忍受痛苦直到崩溃，要比像个机器人一样活下去光荣得多。啊，我曾多么狂躁甚至狡猾地骄傲于对这些东西而鄙视啊。我曾经是多么愤世嫉俗啊。我曾是多么崇拜自杀啊。我记得我跟我的朋友提过，在战前和战后的五十年里，六位最著名的日本小说家中有四位自杀了。川端康成（Yasunari Kawabata）在70岁时，在自己的厨房里吸入一氧化碳气体，做出了离开尘世的决定。听到这个我很震惊。一个离坟墓只有几步之遥的人，怎么能决定不再等待，一下子就跳下去呢？他从来没有觉得自己是真正的活着。他只能在自己创造的想象世界中找到慰藉，并对自己塑造的角色感到爱。你可以从他的文字中看出。事实上，你可以从日本文学的表现中看出来。在日本精神的暗流中流淌着一种压倒一切的软弱，这种软弱根植于日本人如何看待自己。你甚至可以在村上春树这样的现代小说家身上看到这一点。我曾是多么崇拜那种软弱啊，我原以为那是和敏感相伴而来的。我曾经想过，如果不否认存在的意义，甚至不首当其冲地否认自己存在的意愿，你怎么能找到任何不可动摇的理由去活下去呢？我向自己的感情投降了，就像日本人在战后向世界屈膝投降一样。我变得温顺，逃避痛苦。但我又总是会一次次地回到痛苦中，因为我从痛苦中找到了证明我存在的乐趣。我面对心中那飘忽不定的动荡，就像一只乌龟对自己壳里的东西感兴趣一样。它必须向内，必须在探索的途中撕裂自己，必须像往常一样害怕，必须逃跑。但要它无处可逃，壳总是在它的背上。它必须停下来，再次开始撕裂。它正如一个有毒的狗仔队一般。那个狗仔就是我自己。是的，就是那种无论走到哪里，痛苦都紧紧追着你的感觉。我无处可逃，但只要你跑，你就能有片刻的解脱，如此我应付着引起这种痛苦的事情和任何人。我不记得有多少个夜晚，我独自徘徊，感受着巨大的痛苦，无法控制自己，渴望得到安慰，沉浸在《宅门》的浪漫幻想中，渴望它在现实中实现。我太天真了，看不到关系的真谛，也太软弱了。我太幼稚了，没有看到你永远无法逃避任何事情。你不愿看到或回忆的事情只会恶化，并以最激烈和无情的方式回击你。但我很感激，即使我从太宰的虚弱中获得了微弱的勇气，我仍然可以面对它们。无论这种勇气多么微弱和断断续续，它仍然推动着我度过这片混乱。软弱这个工具对我很有用。在那个时期，我开始广泛阅读日本文学，这些文学提供了类似的情感。即使我在各个方面都取得了进步，它仍然在进步。由于我的执念和之前对痛苦的真实形式的无知，我的情绪是单一的。我不断地用一种近乎残酷的方式，把我的痛苦解读和调和成那种半听天由命、半愤世嫉俗的悲观主义。我不考虑其他的可能性。我甚至对任何试图向我提供解决方案的人都感到愤怒，因为我看不出有人能公正地理解我内心发生的事情，并把我从这种情况中拯救出来。我如此坚定地认为唯一理解我的人是太宰。但回顾过去，我被一个人拯救了，我现在把他视为我最亲近的人。我甚至会想，我之所以能逐渐鼓起勇气，很大程度上要归功于那个人。在两年的时间里，对太宰不断的迷恋和他提供的情感，我渐渐厌倦了。在某次远离社会的两周时间里，我听到了三岛由纪夫（Yukio Mishima）的采访时。我开始对太宰故意的自嘲和那种尴尬狡猾的微笑感到厌倦。由纪夫在评论大宰时说，他对他既欣赏又厌恶。欣赏的一半来自于太宰在谈论病态自我时的直率，而其他人则总是绕道而行，用隐喻来表达。但恶心的一半也源于此。在这种直率中，由纪夫看到了他内心深处狡猾而病态的微笑。作为武士道精神的狂热信徒，由纪夫鄙视怯懦，更鄙视那些为了使怯懦正常化而半心半意地赞美怯懦的人。由纪夫一定认为太宰的行为是任何人都无法想象的最懦弱的行为，而且还如此明目张胆。从那时起，我开始明白一个人不能一直逃避。人们必须开始建立一种特殊的韧性，以保护他们免受内部纠葛的袭击。但当时我太无知，读书甚少，无法培养出对勇气和稳定的渴望。哲学与哲学家的关系错综复杂。尽管我们可以称那些从事科学研究的人为科学家；写小说的人是小说家；但是从事哲学研究的人并不一定就是哲学家。我记得有一段时间我对哲学非常着迷。这种执念助长了我的傲慢，把我的鄙视磨成尖利的刀锋——刺进包括我自己在内的所有人认为理所当然的东西。我变得完全愤世嫉俗，蔑视任何世俗的东西。虽然我当时不承认，但我知道我的心是假装敞开的，这样它就可以被关上一辈子。我知道，在所有假装勇敢的背后，隐藏着一种来自无法完全理解自己的恐惧。因为如果我真的向虚无主义投降，对爱和生活的渴望就会永远离开我。我无可抑制地倾向于把这个问题重新构造成抽象的二分法，并仅仅在辩证法的领域里处理它们。这种快乐是虚假的，但我选择与之相伴。如果我被欺骗了，那最好是被多数人无法理解的东西所欺骗。我崇拜“像荒野进发”的精神。我沉浸在我的幻想中，但从来没有勇气采取行动。我仍然从一个地方逃到另一个地方，偶尔在我极度的理性中找到慰藉。当时我还没有读过《罪与罚》。但多年后读完这本书后，我写了一篇评论，恰如其分地描述了我当时的心境。我写道，“拉斯柯尔尼科夫若是不思考爱情的隐喻就无法坠入爱河。他的爱情是由他对爱情的理想化形象所决定的，这种理想化形象只存在于他的幻想中。这是一种只有受过伤害的人才能梦想得到的爱，他们愿意为之赌上自己的一切——他们的财产、爱和精神。他们在白日梦中从不妥协。但他们又总是向现实的不完美屈服，只为在现实中品尝只存在于他们想象中的最轻微的甜蜜。”我当时不可能写下这些话，因为我被那种挣扎压垮了。这些年来，当我在文学作品中遇到不同的解释时，这种斗争以多种形式呈现出来：抽象与具体、理想与现实、无形与具象、荒原狼与小资、知识与经验、开明与愤世嫉俗、超脱与世俗、高尚与务实、个人与社会之间的二元对立……当一个人在阴沟里被绝望地殴打时，他的思想的绝对倾向是最强大的。绝望迫使人紧紧抓住任何二元对立，这样他们就可以把自己合理化，使自己变成对立的其中一方。因为人不可能在无法解决的冲突中逗留太久。这些二元论从来都不是完全正确的。但总的来说，它们是一种方便的工具，可以防止一个人永无止境地堕落到不归路的地步。我们从来没有别的选择。我记得那时候，死亡焦虑一直困扰着我。每当这种内心的混乱体现在我的生命有终点的时候，我就会被任何人类活动的完全无意义所震惊。它总是发生在我自己阅读或写作的时候。如果我明天就会死，那么诸如梦想、朋友、家庭、事业、知识和爱情还有什么意义呢？我现在做的事情有什么意义？导致它的事情和它在未来会导致的事情的意义是什么？首先，过去和未来的意义是什么？如果任何中间阶段都可以在一夜之间变成结局，为什么不做一个忠实的享乐主义者，无视任何会给你带来丝毫麻烦的不快呢？若理性只会给你带来痛苦，思考的意义何在？。如果你坚持的东西一眨眼就会化为灰烬，为什么要谈美德和荣誉呢？是的，我依然虚弱。这些悲观的逻辑总是把我从短暂的光明中拉回地狱。直到现在我才明白，我当时所面临的困境，并不能用那些自作聪明的二分法来描述。而是源于我从没有将过去、现在与未来的自己连接起来。我希望通过屈服于抽象概念来统一自己，希望理性能够通过其辩证的确定性来化解无法命名的冲突，恢复我内心的和谐。我仍然很懦弱。我仍然不能掌握自己的事情，因为我缺乏勇气去了解我真正想要的是什么，并采取任何必要的手段去追求它。但我开始发现，从虚假的自我否定中产生的病态的快乐，以及从半心半意的屈服于对痛苦的恐惧中产生的懦弱的自满，越来越少与我产生共鸣。我开始越来越不渴求别人的理解和宽容。十年来，孤独一直紧紧地追着我。我认为在未来的日子也是如此，只是它会待我善些。这种孤独的性质从来没有太大的变化。它总是表现在对孤独终老的恐惧和对陪伴的渴望。但有一个特定的时间，很可能是今年早些时候，死亡焦虑会从孤独的来源中消失。这是在我被迫体验生与死之间的完全相对主义的时候。这也是我在体验层面上最熟悉陀思妥耶夫斯基作品的时候，尤其是《罪与罚》。我觉得我就是拉斯柯尔尼科夫本人，停在街道中间，自言自语着什么，眼泪不由地流了下来，双手抱在头上，感到非常虚弱，马上就会倒在街上，希望有人来安慰我。但同时又对世界毫无感情。每天晚上都回到同一个地方，陷入忧郁和怀旧之中。站在桥上，看着闪烁着灯光的黑暗的水面，我拖着自己的影子在街上走着，就像一个骑马的人拖着躺在人行道上的尸体，把它们放到他的马车上，把所有人类的痛苦都负担在自己身上——一个灵魂收集者，他自己也是一个死魂灵。我还记得一个特别的场景，当时我正漫无目的地沿着海滨漫步。高高耸立的路灯将暖黄的灯光投射到人行道上，只照亮了它所能到达的近处。我漫步走过每一条灯火辉煌的水泥人行道，看着我的影子轻柔而又反复地拉长与缩短，鲍勃·迪伦（Bob Dylan）的歌词突然浮现在我的脑海里：是的，我总是背对着太阳——如果我没有看到它投在信徒身上的阴影，光明的承诺对我来说就显得如此空洞。所以我总是背对着人群，去那些没有伴侣谁也不会想到去的地方。那时我才意识到我生来要走的路。我必须忍受痛苦，不仅是我自己的痛苦，还有别人的痛苦。我必须承受人类的全部痛苦。我必须忍受人们害怕的东西，一看到它们就立刻转移视线。我必须拥抱人类的全部，他们所有的欢乐和苦难，所有的甜蜜和痛苦，所有人类经历的可能性。所有这些都是我所看到和追逐的影子。从那时起，我所看到的不再是黑暗中无形的剪影，不再是人类的影子重叠在一起，坍塌成一片黑暗。有些东西开始成形了。我开始区分不同的人投下的影子，让自己平静地进入他们的阴影中去，思考投下这个影子的人的形状。我要补充的是，我并不是在按时间顺序追溯我的发展，因为有些年份似乎只是重复了同样的习惯，而有些月份，甚至几天，特别是去年的那些，标志着强烈地背离以前轻率的惯性。我也省略了许多我认为值得一提的东西，因为他们没有为我的思想发展增添新的元素。然而，它本身并无传记的意味。我只不过是沉浸在回忆的魔力之中。从那时起，我对孤独的态度发生了变化，同时，我发现那种虚弱的倾向也逐渐消失了。随之而来的是矜持的沉默和无可奈何的疲倦。我曾经写道：“我厌倦了思考，但我更厌倦了记录我的思考。因为除了代偿人类的健忘和唯我论的撤退，我看不出记录能立即提供任何解决方案。”事实证明，在有限的时间内，一个人能承受的痛苦是有限的。凡人的身体不可能承受如此长时间、如此剧烈的痛苦。它把人逼到死亡和疯狂的边缘。当一个人处于绝望的边缘时，他会下最不理智的赌注，以免自己陷入泥沼。但我一次又一次地抑制住了这种非理性的倾向，因为我很清楚，这只不过是旧习惯的重演。我强迫自己去面对那种彻底的虚无，约束自己去走一条比较容易的世俗之路。对峙几个月后，我发现了如上所述的一种新的厌倦，这是我以前从未经历过的。它可以被描述为对所有人类欲望和人类活动的放弃。这些欲望和活动源于对所有人类价值的真正怀疑。这是躯体化的虚无主义。刻意提高理性的结果便是无法自拔的对生活的消极性——正如《地下室手记》中描述的那样。但这种与空虚持续的眼神接触会让人疲惫不堪。面对最真实、最不加掩饰的虚无需要勇气。但勇气是建立在某种不容置疑的信念之上的。这种信念能使你拥有跨越一切问题的力量。另一句鲍勃迪伦的歌词准确地描述了勇气的本质：“你对他嗤之以鼻。但在输掉每一场战斗之后，在结束的枪响时，他却赢得了胜利。”正是对等待已久的成功的信念，给了一个人勇气去承受看似无尽的磨难。如果一个人要死，他必须为比死亡更伟大的事情而死。一个人可以为朋友、为家庭、为荣誉、为人民、为国家、为后代、为理想、为未来而死。但如果没有一件事值得相信呢？如果每一个短暂的信念都要受到挑战，每一个结论都要经过艰苦的思考才能被接受呢？如果每一种生活的目的和每一种死亡的愿望都被搁置直到它们经历了虚无主义的每一次可能的考验，而一个人无法决定是生是死，直到每一种想法都通过了考验，那该怎么办？现实是，虚无主义是非常强大的，它可以反驳每一个生存的欲望。每当对人生的目的有一丝希望的时候，就会被虚无主义无情地打倒。人被困在生与死之间。人既找不到一个明确的理由去活，也找不到一个明确的理由去死。一个人在希望闪烁的时刻是勇敢的。但它永远不会持续超过几天，因为希望总是零星的。我厌倦了为乐观主义寻找任何逻辑基础。我也对无法迈出第一步而感到虚弱。而当我读到《等待戈多》的时候，我才真正理解了我当时所处的状态。我进而理解了如陀思妥耶夫斯基、尼采、黑塞、贝克特等人的状态。面对庞然巨物时，来自恐惧和颤抖的勇气只能维持这么久。当一个人的恐惧没有带来任何切实的改变时，他最终会感到疲倦。一个人最终会放弃，要么避免余生的空虚，要么成为一个脾气暴躁的愤世嫉俗者。你怎么能与既不会带来荣耀也不会带来耻辱的东西持续地抗争呢？在连续几个月面对人类的全部价值和生死的界限后，我逐渐认同了《等待戈多》中所描绘的那种对空虚的无谓态度。如果你知道你不会得到答案，那么问这些问题有什么意义呢？当你甚至不知道哪些问题是正确的问题时，等待答案有什么意义？当你放弃恐惧和对思考的渴望时，勇气显得如此无关。而直到最近我才意识到，不仅有不同种类的勇气，还有不同种类的无意义。支撑漠然的态度需要一种特殊的勇气——如上所述。这种勇气的目的是挑战所有的信仰体系，通过创造一种超越人类自身范畴的信仰来超越虚无主义。这就是尼采式的勇气，这种勇气注定是短暂的，也会缩短拥有它的人的生命。为尼采式的勇气提供了动力的这种无意义正是在追求生命意义时重复的失败。逻辑很简单。因为每一次寻找某种内在意义的尝试都彻底失败了，我们应该停止在人类语境中询问意义，而是将其视为超越人性的预兆。尼采称赞自己是一个先知，听到了这个神圣的召唤。他必须成为人类和超人之间的桥梁，为人类带来新的曙光。但还有另一种勇气，它不那么狂热和激进，对虚无主义引发的不可阻挡的悲观主义持更温和的态度。这种贝克特式的勇气并非源于对虚无主义的狂热拒绝，而是最终对虚无主义的安然接受。世界是虚幻的，任何声称不是这样的人都是妄想。悲伤太悲伤，痛苦太痛苦。既然从悲伤和痛苦中什么也得不到，我们最好把目光移开，把自己淹没在眼前的快乐和短暂的陪伴中。既然思考本身是不会有结果的，那么愤世嫉俗或超然是没有用的。因为你知道，不满足地、痛苦地生活在人间，或者像隐士一样在树林里游荡，都是逃避。如果其中一个和另一个一样毫无意义，为什么还要费劲去做选择呢？如果逃避都是一样的，为什么还要费神做决定呢？如果事情让你难以忍受，那就把自己淹没在乏味的娱乐中，然后在你走神的时候睡着。如果你做了噩梦，不要告诉别人，因为别人会觉得难以忍受，因为他们会觉得任何严肃的思考都令人作呕和令人厌恶。没有内在的漩涡可言，因为虚无早已被躯体化。你甚至开始对它迟钝。你寻不到激情或厌恶，因为所有闪过你脑海的东西都是短暂的，不留痕迹。你发现自己无法爱或恨，因为没有情感沉淀成复杂的模样，紧紧地附着在你的灵魂上。你的记忆力开始变差，因为你已经很久没有认真对待任何事情了。你对未来没有远见，因为你的前景是由眼前的快乐或不适所驱动的。你对你的冷漠变得漠不关心，对你的逃避变得逃避，对你的困倦变得困倦，对你的无意识变得无意识，因为它们实在是太难以忍受了。一切事物在它们的现实中是多么真实：贫瘠、死亡、无色。如果现实没有提供生活的目的，为什么还要继续活着？如果无意义仍然是无意义，那么我选择自杀或者继续像一个没有灵魂的机器人一样生活又有什么关系呢？不，这正是一个人在被无处不在的无意义彻底挫败后会说的话。我认为，在一个人真正面对空虚的全部力量之后，会有一个关键时期。如果一个人不能摆脱这种空虚，他就会完全被它所吞没，就像流沙吞没了站在中间太久的人一样。另也有一个关键时期，因为那些无法度过难关的人会决定放弃世界或放弃自己。对于那些避免过多思考这个问题的人来说，他们将体现出部分的空虚，他们后来会感到困惑，为什么他们无法对任何事物或任何人产生依恋。正如任何有效的陷阱都覆盖着最不令人警惕的苔藓和茅草一样，真正的空虚是如此无情，它不在乎你如何掉下去，而是确保你困在陷阱里。但你知道你不能再这样下去了。你既不能否认这种无情的空虚的存在，也不能放弃你仍是人的事实，转而在超然中寻求救赎。你可以避免去想它，因为你觉得它太难以忍受了。但你很清楚它就在那里。随着时间的推移，它正在溃烂，变得越来越难以触及。很快你就会用尽所有可能的方法来有效地避免空虚。很快你就会被迫面对它，你需要在那一天到来之前武装自己。没有一种情感是没有目的的。它们都是指一些特别的东西，曾经或现在离你很近，很珍贵。那是你的过去，你身份的根源，你力量的来源。是的，一个统一和谐的自我是我勇气的来源。它是对我自己的完整的、不做作的理解——事物对我的影响以及我对事物的影响。它是面对我的过去，不带任何欺骗，对我过去最残酷、最尴尬、甚至最不道德的片段感到战栗和畏缩，从而治愈并迈出真正的第一步。我曾经认为我的过去是可以被遗忘的，几十年来我一直是这样做的。每当一段关系中的问题泛滥，我开始失去对自己的控制，我就会离开那个地方，重新开始。但这只不过是一种粗暴的否认自己每一个时期的方式。这只不过是一种狡猾的方法，以避免看到我所犯的错误与那些我那些根本性的倾向中的问题。尼采，带着他那牵强附会的超人，难道不是要通过驳斥人的概念来避免所有人类问题的真实形式吗？他发现和别人一起面对的问题让他难以忍受，而完全抛弃人性反而要简单得多。他在超脱的道德逻辑推理中找到安慰。通过将真实的问题转化为抽象的问题，他不必面对自己过去的阴暗。对他来说，把他的整个过去和整个人类历史简化为屈服于怯懦的简单案例要容易得多。不，我觉得这种丧失理智的形而上学的背后是懦弱的象征。尼采式的勇气并不是真正的勇气，而是一个精心设计的借口，用来掩饰他对现实世界中受损的信心的懦弱。最近，当我想到那些在一生中经历了一些真正的痛苦，却从未真正恢复过来的人时，我感到一种真正的宽容。我深深地感受到他们的痛苦，我感动得流下了眼泪，好像我就是那个受苦的人。虽然我很想帮助他们，但我还是保持了距离。我知道总有一天他们必须面对自己，总有一天他们会想“我不能再这样下去了”，总有一天他们会决定重新振作起来。在那之前，我无能为力。我唯一能做的就是等待, 等待他们的内心开始向他们说话, 等到他们开始坚定地看那些一直选择忽略的自己的部分, 等到他们真正感到强烈的痛苦并看到它背后的意义,等到他们有了真正的勇气做自己而不是他们为自己创造的形象,等到他们开始变得真正的快乐和健康……正如我在等待我的戈多，每个人也都在等待自己的戈多。我不应该焦急，也不应该催促任何人。无论我们决定走哪条路，我们都会在同一个终点相遇。我们终将在人生的终点重聚，我相信这一点。我将以一首歌的歌词来结束我的写作，这首歌在过去的一周里给了我很大的力量。愿每个人即使在最沮丧的时候，仍然能够发现自己内心深处的勇气。あの日の情熱の火はいずこ 悔しさを並べたプレイリストそぞろリピート音楽と風景 後悔、浄化する過去の巡礼まさかお前、生き別れたはずの 青臭い夢か？恐れ知らずの喂難不成、你還在做那個應該拋下的幼稚美夢？曾經無所畏懼酒のつまみの思い出話と 成り下がるには眩しすぎたよなじられたなら怒ってもいいよ 一人で泣けば誰にもバレないよ被罵的話生氣也沒關係啊 一個人哭的話不會有人發現的そんな夜達に「ほら見たろ？」って 無駄じゃなかったと抱きしめたいよ對那些夜晚說「喂看到了吧？」 想要了解一切並非白費的去擁抱但「你要積極活著」 卻是說給無法認同這句話的某個誰聽恨み辛みや妬み嫉みの グラフキューブで心根を塗ったそれでも尚塗りつぶせなかった 余白の部分が己と知った今更弱さ武器にはしないよ それが僕らがやってきたことの正しさの証明と知っている 今この僕があの日の答えだ至今為止我所做的全都是對的 現在的我就是那日的答案那是只有可見之人才可見的光 陰影正是光亮唯一的理解者旅立ちと言えば聞こえはいいが 全部投げ出して逃げ出したんだ孤独な夜の断崖に立って 飛び降りる理由あと一つだけそんな夜達に「くそくらえ」って ただ誰かに叫んで欲しかった對那些夜晚說「去你的吧」 只希望有人能為我向誰喊出來僕の過去の轍を見る人よ ここで会うのは偶然じゃないさただ一つだけ言えること僕は 僕に問うこと諦めなかった足りない君が馬鹿にされたなら 足りないままで幸福になってそんな夜達に「ざまあみろ」って 今こそ僕が歌ってやるんだ
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The thing I have never truly learnt in the two and a half decades of my existence until now, is courage. I once appreciated literature that praises pain and suffering, for I can see that I am not alone. I was obsessed with Dazai. I see the inevitability of ordeal, and within that ordeal, is that petrified heart and weary humour forced upon it. Pain becomes the arbitrator of his existence. So when that nihilistic emptiness kicks in, he even needs to forcefully remind himself of the pain to know that he is still living. “I am a sick man”, as Dostoevsky opens the first line of “Notes from the underground”, Dazai must be more than pleased to see no more accurate description of himself than this. I used to feel like I am Dazai. No one understands his struggle but I. I find solace in this private understanding. I even used to despise those who pretend not to see these pervasive conflicts. I even question if they are really capable of feeling anything. Are they born to be happy? Are they born to be exempt from any pain and suffering? I recall my reading of “Crime and Punishment”, which has been a long way after my departure from Dazai Osamu, there is a particular sentiment that describes rightly of my mental state at the time. Raskolnikov, upon meeting Svidrigailov, who bore a cunning and egoistic apparition, tells him that he is not worth the little finger of Sonechka, the magnanimous young girl who has suffered too much but never complains one thing. Yes, I felt anyone who cannot feel what Dazai has felt, and by that resemblance, me, is not worth our little finger. Their accomplishments, their success, are founded on renouncing the fundamental humanity and devalue others by averting their eyes from themselves, or worse still, they are incapable of feeling the intense pain in the first place. I must have thought that suffering until the point of collapse is infinitely more honourable than to live on like a robot.O, how much rabid and even sly pride have I taken on my despise. How cynical I once was. How much have I idolised suicide. I remember mentioning this to my friend, that four out of the six most famous Japanese novelists during the fifty years period pre and post-war, have committed suicide. Yasunari Kawabata made the decision to depart by inhaling carbon monoxide gas in his own kitchen when he was seventy. I was appalled to hear this. How can anyone who is steps ahead of the grave decides to wait no longer and jump into it in one go? He has never felt that he was truly living. He can only find solace in the imaginary world he creates and feel love towards the characters he moulds. You can tell from his writing. In fact, you can tell from how Japanese literature presents itself. There is an overarching feebleness flowing in undercurrent of the Japanese spirit, that it is entrenched in how Japanese perceive themselves. You can even see that in modern novelists like Haruki Murakami. How have I idolised that feebleness, which I thought to go hand-in-hand with sensitivity. How can you derive any unshakeable reason to live, if not denying the meaning, even the will of your existence first, so I once thought. I surrendered myself to my sentiments, just as Japanese surrendered and kneeled meekly before the world after the war. I became meek, ran away from pain, yet would always come back because I find pleasure in proving my existence from that pain. I confronted that erratic turbulence in my heart like a turtle interested in what lies with its shell. It must turn inward, must tear itself along the way, must be scared as it usually is, must run away yet find out where it runs, the shell is always on its back, must then stop and start tearing once more. That is the paparazzi with whom I have struck a toxic relationship. That paparazzi is myself.Yes, it is the feeling that wherever you go, your pain still chases you tightly. I have nowhere to run, but as long as you run, you can have a moment of relief, so have I coped with anything and anyone that have elicited that pain. I cannot remember how many nights I have wandered alone, feeling the overwhelming pain, unable to control myself, wanting to be consoled, preoccupied with those romantic fantasies in “Strait is the gate” and yearning for its actualisation in reality. I was too naive to see the true point of relationship and too feeble. I was too childish to see that you can never run from anything. Things you wish not to see or recall will only fester and snap back at you in the most fierce and ruthless manner. But I am thankful that I can still confront them even with the sparkling courage I attain from the feebleness of Dazai. However slight and intermittent that courage is, it still pushes me through the chaos. The tool of feebleness has served me well. I began to read extensively on Japanese literature that supplies a similar sentiment during that period. Even if I am making progress in all kinds of directions, it is still making progress. Because of my obsession and my previous ignorance of the true form of that pain, my sentiment was unitary. I keep interpreting and attuning my pain to that half-resigned and half-cynical pessimism in an almost brutal way. I disregard all other possibilities. I become even bilious towards anyone who tries to provide me with a solution, for I fail to see how anyone could justly understand what is going on in me and save me from it. The only man who understands me is Dazai, so determined I was. But looking backwards, I was saved by someone, who I regard near and dear to my heart now. I would even think that the reason I can build up my courage gradually must be largely attributed to that person. Within two years of ceaseless obsession of Dazai and the sentiment he provides, I gradually become weary. The time when I felt sick of Dazai’s purposeful self-ridicule and that awkward cunning smile he has always depicted, was when I was listening to an interview with Yukio Mishima during my two-week retreat from society. Yukio commented on Dazai, saying that he felt both appreciation and disgust towards him. The appreciative half stems from Dazai’s straightforwardness in speaking of the morbid self, whereas others would always take detours and speak in metaphor. But the disgusting half also stems from this. In that straightforwardness, Yukio sees that cunning morbid smile emerge on the face of his inner self. As a fervent believer of the Bushido spirit, Yukio despises cowardice, and even more so towards those who praise it so half-heartedly just to normalise it and not feel trapped in that cowardice. Yukio must have thought Dazai was exercising the most coward cowardice anyone can imagine and be so blatant about it. It is from that time on, I start to see that one cannot keep running away from something. There is a particular resilience one must start to build that could protect them from the sea of troubles. But I was too ignorant and unread to develop that kindling yearning for courage and stability at the time. The relationship between philosophy and philosopher is an intricate one. Even though we can call those who do science scientists; those who write novels novelists; but those who do philosophy are not automatically philosophers. I remember that there is a time period when I was deeply obsessed with philosophy. That obsession fuels my arrogance and hones my despise into a sharp whittle - one that incises into anything which people, including myself, take for granted. I become utterly cynical and show contempt to anything bourgeois. Even though I do not admit it at the time, I know my heart pretends to be open so that it can be closed for life. I know that underlying all that pretended bravery, lies the fright to comprehend myself in the fullest of terms. For if I truly surrender myself to nihilism, the yearning to love and live will take leave of me permanently. I cannot help but taking pleasure in reconstructing the problem into abstract binaries and handle them merely in the realm of dialectics. That joy is spurious, but I choose to go along with it. If I were to be deceived, it is better to be deceived by something to which only the minority will be susceptible. I idolise the spirit of “in to the wild”, preoccupied in my reverie, but never had the courage to make the move. I am still running from one place to another, while occasionally finding solace in my heightened rationality.I was yet to encounter “Crime and Punishment” at the time, but a comment I wrote years later upon finishing the book depicted my state of mind rightly at the time. I wrote, “Raskolnikov cannot love without pondering the metaphor of it in abstract forms. His love is predicated by his idealised image of it that only pertains in his reverie. It is the kind of love where only damaged men are able to dream of, where they are willing to wager everything they have on it - their possession, love and spirit. They admit no compromise in their daydreams, but will always surrender themselves to the imperfection of reality just to taste the slightest sweetness which only exists in their imagination”. I could not have written these words at the time, for I was overwhelmed by that struggle. This struggle has taken many forms of binary throughout these years, as I encounter different interpretations of it in the literature. It is the binary between abstract and reified, ideal and real, intangible and concrete, Steppenwolf-en and bourgeois, knowledge and experience, enlightened and cynical, unworldly and worldly, virtuous and pragmatic, individual and society…the list cannot be exhausted. The categorical tendency of men’s mind is most powerful when one is desperately beaten in the gutters. Despair forces men to clench to any binary where they can legitimise themselves into one of the opposites, for men cannot stay in irresolvable conflicts for long. Those binaries are never impartially true, but they are by and large tools of convenience to keep one from the never-ending decadence to the point of no return. We never really had any choice. I remember death anxiety always preoccupied me at the time. Whenever that internal turmoil manifests itself into a proximate end of my existence, I was struck by the utter meaninglessness in any human activity. It always happens when I am reading or writing by myself. If I were to die tomorrow, what is the point of dream, friend, family, career, knowledge and love at all? What is the point of the very thing I am doing right now? What is the point of things that have led to it and things it will lead to in the future? What is the meaning of past and future in the first place? If any intermediary stage can turn into a finale overnight, why not be a devoted hedonist and disregard any displeasure that would give you the slightest bother? What is the point of thinking even, for rationality will only bring you misery? Why talk about virtue and honour, if things you persist will turn into ashes at the blink of an eye? Yes, that meekness is still with me. It manifests into these pessimistic reasoning that always drags me from the transient feeling of enlightenment back to hell. It is only now I see that the dilemma I was facing at the time cannot be captured by those wittily construed or borrowed binaries, but it stems from a failure to connect the cause and effect of myself across time. I wished to unify myself by surrendering to abstract notions, hoping that rationality can dissolve the unnameable conflicts and restore harmony within me by the power of its dialectical certainty. I was still meek and coward. I still fail to take matters in my own hands, for I lack the courage to understand what I really want and pursue it with any means necessary. But I start to find less and less resonance with the morbid pleasure out of spurious self-denial and coward complacency out of the half-hearted resignation into the fear of suffering. I start to desire pampering and magnanimity from others less and less.Solitude has chased me tightly for a decade now, and I expect it to accompany me for the rest of my days, only on more friendly terms. The nature of that solitude has never varied much. It has always manifested in the fear to die alone and the yearning for company. But there is a particular time, most likely earlier this year, when death anxiety dims out from a source of solitude. It is at a time when I am forced to experiment with the absolute relativism between life and death. It is also the time when I am most acquainted with Dostoevsky’s work at an experiential level, especially "crime and punishment”. I felt like I was Raskolnikov himself, stopping in the middle of the street, muttering something to himself, tears streaming involuntarily, hands on his head, feeling extremely feeble that he can collapse right on the street, desiring someone to console me yet being so uncharitable at the same time, revisiting the same place every night, trapped in melancholy and nostalgia, standing over the bridge, watching the dark waters with twinkling reflection of lights, feeling no internal force that could stop him from jumping into the waters and end it all, then feeling a cold shudder down the spine, followed by a thought that even to die is meaningless…I dragged my shadow on the street like a horse man carrying corpses he found lying on the sidewalk, putting them onto his cart and burdening himself with every piece of human suffering - a soul collector who is a dead soul himself. I recall a particular scene when I was strolling aimlessly along the Harbourside. Tall-standing street lamps cast streams of warm yellow light onto the pavement, brightening only proximate area of circle it can reach. I promenade past each lamp-lit concrete sidewalk, seeing my shadow growing and diminishing softly yet repeatedly, those lines of lyrics by Bob Dylan suddenly pop in my head: “And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhymeTo your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behindI wouldn't pay it any mindIt's just a shadow you're seeing that he's chasing”Yes, I have always turned my back against the sun - a bright promise appears so empty to me if I do not see the shadow it casts on its believers. So I always turn my back against the crowd, stepping into places where no one would think to tread without company. It is then when I realised the path I am born to take. I must bear the suffering, not only those of myself, but those of others. I must bear the entire suffering of humanity. I must bear things that people fear and avert their eyes immediately upon seeing them. I must embrace the entire spectrum of men, all their joy and tribulation, all their sweetness and bitterness, all possibility of human experience. All those things lie the shadow I am seeing and chasing. From then on, what I am seeing is no longer a formless silhouette of darkness, where shadows of men overlap and crumble into darkness. Something starts to take form. I begin to differentiate shadows casted by different people and let myself enter their shadows peacefully to ponder the shape of that man, which gives rise to the shape of their shadow.I should add that I am not retracing my development in a chronological way, for some years appear to as merely a repetition of the same habit, while some months, even days, especially those in the past year, mark violent departures from previous thoughtless inertia. I am also omitting many things that I consider worth mentioning but do not add new elements to the development of my thinking. Nevertheless, it is not meant to be exhaustively biographical in the first place. It is no more than to take pleasure in the magic of reminiscence. My attitude towards solitude has changed since then, and simultaneously, I find the feeble tendency has gradually dissipated. What comes with that is the reserved reticence and resigning weariness. I once wrote, “I am weary of my thinking, but I am more weary at recording my thinking. For I see no benefit in providing an immediate solution but compensating for human forgetfulness and acting as a solipsistic retreat”. It turns out that there is only so much suffering one can bear in a limited timeframe. A mortal body is never designed to bear suffering for a prolonged period of time and with such intensity. It drives a man to the very margin of death and insanity. And when one is at the border of desperation, he will roll the most irrational wager to save himself from oblivion. But I have suppressed that irrational tendency over and over again, for I know quite clearly that it is nothing more than a recurrence of the old habit. I force myself to confront that utter emptiness and restrain myself to take the easier bourgeois path. Several months into this confrontation, I find the new kind of weariness as described above, which I have never experienced before. It can be depicted as resignation to all human desires and activities stemming from a genuine disbelief to all human values. It is the embodied nihilism, that overruling negativity to life as a result of the deliberately heightened rationality - exactly like the condition depicted in “notes from the underground”.But that constant unwavering eye contact to that emptiness wears one out. It takes courage to confront that emptiness in its truest, untainted form. But courage is predicated on some unquestionable belief that contains power to transcend the matter one confronts. Another lines of lyrics by Bob Dylan depicted the nature of courage accurately: “you never think to look at him, but at the final shot he won the war, after losing every battle”. It is the belief of long-waited success that gives one courage to bear the seemingly endless tribulation. If one was to die, he must die for something greater than death. One can die for friend, for family, for honour, for people, for country, for offsprings, for a vision, for a future. But what if there is not one thing to believe in? What if every transient belief is to be challenged, every conclusion is not to be accepted until the validity of its premise is painstakingly pondered? What if beliefs of every purpose to live and every desire to die are suspended until they have undergone every possible test of nihilism there is, and one cannot decide whether to live or to die until each idea has passed the test? The reality is, nihilism is extremely powerful to refute every desire to live. Whenever there is a glimmering hope to the purpose of life, it will be ruthlessly beaten down by nihilism. One is stuck in between life and death. Neither can one find a definite reason to live, nor can one find a definite reason to die. One is courageous at the moment when the hope is glimmering. But it never persists longer than a few days, for that is how long a particular reason for hope can last. I am weary at looking for any foundation for optimism, and I am feeble from being thrown back to the ground after just making one step up the hill.It is when I read “waiting for Godot” that I truly understood the state I was in at the time, and by extension, the state of Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Hesse, Beckett and the likes. Courage derived from fear and tremble can only last so long when confronting the colossal. One will eventually become weary when his fear yields no tangible change by any measure. One will eventually resign either by avoiding emptiness for the rest of their lives or becoming a bilious cynic, for how can you fight something that will lead to neither glory nor disgrace? It is that kind of detached attitude towards emptiness depicted in “waiting for Godot” that I gradually endorse after confronting all human values and the boundary between life and death for a few months on end. What is the point of even asking those questions in the first place if you know you will not receive an answer? What is the point of waiting for an answer when you do not even know which questions are the right ones to ask? Courage seems so impertinent when you forgo the fear as well as the yearning to ponder. It is only fairly recently that I realise, there are not only different kinds of courage, but also different kinds of meaninglessness. A sweeping attitude of indifference requires a particular type of courage - the one depicted above. The purpose of that courage is to challenge all belief systems and transcend nihilism by creating a belief that transcend the category of human itself. This is the Nietzschean courage, one that is bound to be short-lived and would also shorten the life of its possessor. The corresponding meaninglessness that fuels the Nietzschean courage is therefore the repetitive failure in yielding any proximate answer to the question of meaning of life. The logic is straightforward. Because every attempt to locate some intrinsic meaning fails utterly, one shall stop interrogating meaning in the human context, but to see this as a premonition to transcend humanity. Nietzsche praises himself for being a prophet that hears this sacred calling, where he must be the bridge between man and superman, who brings a new dawn to humanity.But there is another type of courage, one that is less fervent and radical, with a warmer attitude towards the inexorable pessimism induced by nihilism. This Beckettian courage stems not from a fervent rejection of nihilism, but the eventual acceptance of nihilism. The world is illusory, and anyone who claims otherwise is being nothing but delusional. The sorrow is too sorrowful, and the pain is too painful. Since nothing grows out of that sorrow and that pain, it is best to avert our eyes and drown ourselves in the immediate pleasure and fleeting company of others. Since the very act of thinking bears no fruit, it is of no use being cynical or detached. For you know living discontentedly and banefully in the human world or wandering off to the woods as a hermit is escape all the same. If one is as meaningless as the other, why bother making a choice? If escape is all the same, why bother making a decision? If things are too much to bear, simply drown yourself in tasteless entertainment and fall asleep as your mind wanders off. If you had a nightmare, keep it to yourself, for others will find it too much to bear as they find any serious thinking nauseating and detestable. There is no inner vortex to speak of, for emptiness has long been embodied that you are even blunt to it. You find no passion or disgust, for everything that crosses your mind is fleeting and leaves no trace. You find yourself unable to love or hate, for no emotion precipitates into a complex form that would attach itself tightly to your soul. You start to have a bad memory, for it has been a long time since you have taken anything seriously. You do not possess a vision to the future, for you prospect is driven by the immediate pleasure or discomfort. You have become indifferent to your indifference, avoidant to your avoidance, sleepy to your sleepiness, unconscious of your unconsciousness, for they are simply too much to bear.How true everything is in their actuality: barren, dead and colourless. Why keep on living if the reality offers no purpose of life? If meaninglessness is meaninglessness all the same, what does it matter if I choose to kill myself or keep on living like a soulless robot? No, this is precisely the statement one will utter after being completely disheartened by the pervading meaninglessness. There is a critical period, I think, after one is truly confronted by the entire force of emptiness. If one is unable to shake off this emptiness, one will be completely absorbed by it, like how quicksand devours one who stands in its middle for too long. There is a critical period as well, for those who cannot make it through will decide to abandon the world or abandon themselves. For those who avoid thinking too much about the problem, they will embody part of the emptiness, which they will later find it puzzling why they are unable to feel attached to anything or anyone. Just as any effective trap is covered with the most unalarming moss and thatches, the true emptiness is so merciless that it cares not how you fall, but to make sure that you stay entrapped. But you know you cannot go on like this. Neither can you deny the existence of this ruthless emptiness, nor shall you abandon the fact that you are still human and seek for salvation in transcendence instead. You can avoid thinking about it as you find it too much to endure. But you know pretty well that it is there. It is festering and becoming more untouchable as time passes. Soon you will exhaust all possible tools to avoid the emptiness effectively. Soon you will be forced to confront it, and you will need to arm yourself before that day comes. Not a single emotion is without purpose. They all mean something particular that has been or is near and dear to your heart. That is your past, the root of your identity, where you strength originates from. Yes, a unified and harmonised self is where I draw my courage from. It is that complete, unpretentious understanding of myself - the effect of things on me and effect on things by me. It is to face my past without any deception, to shudder and cringe at the most cruel, embarrassing, even immoral episodes of my past, to heal and make the first true step forward. I used to think my past is something to be forgotten, and that is what I did for decades. Whenever problems in a relationship overflow as I start to lose my control over myself, I will take leave of that place and start afresh. But that is nothing but a crude way of denying each and every period of myself. It is nothing than a cunning method to avoid looking at the mistakes I have made, problems that lie at the very core of my tendencies. Isn’t Nietzsche, with his farfetched superman, aiming to avoid all human problems in their real form by refuting the very notion of man? He finds that to face his problems with others too much to bear, which he thinks to be much more difficult than to abandon humanity completely. He finds comfort in the detached logical reasoning of morality. By translating the real problems to these abstract ones, he needs not to confront himself with murky colours of his own past. It is just much easier for him to reduce his entire past and the entire human history to a simplified case of surrendering to cowardice. No, I find the intuition behind this forfeiting metaphysic an emblem of cowardice. The Nietzschean courage is not an authentic one, but a well-crafted excuse to hide his cowardice to the damaged confidence in the real world. I felt a genuine magnanimity recently when I think about those who have undergone some genuine suffering in a period of their life, from which they have never truly recovered. I feel their suffering so intensely that I am moved to tears as if I am the one who has suffered. Though I feel a strong desire to help them, I have kept my distance. I know there will be a time that they have to confront them, a time when they think “I cannot go on like this”, a time when they have really decided to piece themselves together. Until then, I can do nothing to help them. The only thing I can do is to wait, to wait until their inner voice has spoken to them, to wait until they start to look resolutely at those pieces of their life they have thus chosen to ignore, to wait until they have truly felt the intensity of their suffering and see the implications behind it, to wait until they have acquired the true courage to be themselves rather than the image they created for themselves, to wait until they become genuinely happy and healthy, to wait until they become strong…just I am waiting for my Godot, each and everyone is also waiting for their Godot. I should hurry not, nor should I press anyone. For whichever path we decide to take, we will always meet at the same end. We will reunite at the end of our paths, and I am counting on it. I will end my writing with the lyrics of a song which has given my great strength for the past week. May everyone still be able to discover the courage that is always in them even when most disheartened.あの日の情熱の火はいずこ 悔しさを並べたプレイリストそぞろリピート音楽と風景 後悔、浄化する過去の巡礼まさかお前、生き別れたはずの 青臭い夢か？恐れ知らずの喂難不成、你還在做那個應該拋下的幼稚美夢？曾經無所畏懼酒のつまみの思い出話と 成り下がるには眩しすぎたよなじられたなら怒ってもいいよ 一人で泣けば誰にもバレないよ被罵的話生氣也沒關係啊 一個人哭的話不會有人發現的そんな夜達に「ほら見たろ？」って 無駄じゃなかったと抱きしめたいよ對那些夜晚說「喂看到了吧？」 想要了解一切並非白費的去擁抱但「你要積極活著」 卻是說給無法認同這句話的某個誰聽恨み辛みや妬み嫉みの グラフキューブで心根を塗ったそれでも尚塗りつぶせなかった 余白の部分が己と知った今更弱さ武器にはしないよ それが僕らがやってきたことの正しさの証明と知っている 今この僕があの日の答えだ至今為止我所做的全都是對的 現在的我就是那日的答案那是只有可見之人才可見的光 陰影正是光亮唯一的理解者旅立ちと言えば聞こえはいいが 全部投げ出して逃げ出したんだ孤独な夜の断崖に立って 飛び降りる理由あと一つだけそんな夜達に「くそくらえ」って ただ誰かに叫んで欲しかった對那些夜晚說「去你的吧」 只希望有人能為我向誰喊出來僕の過去の轍を見る人よ ここで会うのは偶然じゃないさただ一つだけ言えること僕は 僕に問うこと諦めなかった足りない君が馬鹿にされたなら 足りないままで幸福になってそんな夜達に「ざまあみろ」って 今こそ僕が歌ってやるんだ
