History Is Incandescent Ash
Retrieving the Pulse of True Learning
It is the way of the world that as the eras shift, the earth comes to be blanketed by those who know nothing of history. To contemplate the future, insight filtered through the lens of history is indispensable; indeed, one might say that for those who do not know history, there is no future. Yet, history must never be reduced to mere archives. History must not be a mere interpretation of what was signified. For history is the visceral vestige of the raw lives of our predecessors. For instance, while Japan may appear peaceful today, supporting a population of over one hundred million, one need only look back to see that there were times when the streets were strewn with corpses.
Given the current world system—which offers the illusion of superficial progress while countless internal systems undergo liquefaction—no one in a developed nation would imagine that such hellish scenes could ever again unfold upon their streets. However, history teaches us that eras appearing tranquil and safe never endure for long. Most importantly, it teaches that the corruption of the human heart inevitably invites judgment from the Heavens. We are already witnessing and experiencing scenes of nature launching its counter-offensive against humanity on a daily basis, yet this is merely the prologue.
I was born and raised in Osaka, which has now become one of Japan’s great metropolises. Walking its streets today, no one would believe that this very ground was once scattered with massive numbers of the dead, or that it was the site of an event that became a driving force for great historical change. In fact, the number of people who even know this history is dwindling. Thus, the theme I propose here is the inquiry into what constitutes a “living human.”
I raise this because, as I have personally felt, encountering a “living human” in the modern age has become an extremely rare experience. This is a truly strange phenomenon. It is said that the global population has exceeded eight billion—perhaps even more if uncounted multitudes are included—and is rushing furiously toward the ten-billion mark. Ordinarily, one would assume that as the population increases, the number of living humans would increase proportionally. The fact, however, is the exact opposite: the more the numbers swell, the more the count of living humans decreases in inverse proportion. The problem of the modern era, regarding population or anything else, is that while quantity increases impressively, quality shows no sign of improvement. Or rather, while the correct modern conduct would be to elevate both quality and quantity, we remain trapped in a stagnation where we invariably lean toward one, unable to escape this imbalance.
A “living human” does not refer to survival in the sense of a beating heart or repeated respiration. Modern man is obsessed with extending his lifespan, yet life extension without true life is the height of folly. As I observe the daily realities of Japan’s super-aging society, I am compelled to ask myself fiercely: What is this living human? I ask this because the figures I see before me increasingly represent the possibility of our future—or rather, a far more tragic future.
To truly “live.” It refers to a state in which one embodies the life force inherent in a human being without reserve, sharpening those unspeakable forces that boil like magma at the bottom of one’s gut. Such individuals stake their very lives on their daily discipline. This discipline is often invisible to others, for it can be described as the “discipline of the heart.” The mind and body are not separate; they are indivisible.
And there comes a moment when that sharpened, magma-like life force, triggered by a certain event, erupts with accumulated energy, possessing intense endurance and explosive power, becoming the engine that confronts life itself. To witness such a moment is to stand at the “epicenter of life” that we have lost. Regaining the act of living itself may seem a mysterious theme to modern people, but it is self-evident that the definition of what they believe to be “living” is no longer the true form of life. In other words, the question is how far one can interrogate oneself as to whether one is truly alive.
However, when I survey the modern landscape, I cannot help but shudder at its utter heterogeneity. Speaking from personal experience, for those who know the daily life, the faces of people, and the aspect of the streets before the advent of the iPhone—or before the colossal neural network of the Internet blanketed the world—the modern form appears grotesque, like a husk stripped of vitality and spirit. In Japan, I recall the iPhone was released in early 2008; I was on the verge of graduating high school, just as my classmates were heading to university. Social media did not yet exist, or at least was not general, so our generation passed the age of eighteen just before these modern problems manifested.
I still remember how, from that point on, the faces of those around me changed rapidly. While the reason remains not entirely clear, I cannot shake the feeling that the faces of human beings altered distinctively following the rise of the iPhone and social media. And that which was once called human transformed, before we knew it, into something other than human—becoming a machine, a device, a component of a system. Furthermore, they are no longer human in the former sense, but exist merely as a domesticated accumulation of biological life. I cannot help but feel an intense sense of violation and heterogeneity in this current state (the real).
From this desolate horizon, crying out “how a human ought to be,” lining up flowery words and platitudes, will merely echo into the void. This is because the very definition and concept of the “human” being objectified has lost the weight of former life and is merely floating. In a modern era where a sanitized, bleached “human-like thing” must be signified and affirmed as the new human before anything can be said, the expression of our life has lost its place. Yet, precisely because of this, the present has opened a space for the emergence of a minority filled with strong conviction and the resolve to live. It is by knowing history that we can realize that this situation is, in fact, repeating itself.
Currently, the world is overflowing with people who are nervously irritable or who scatter mere dissatisfaction and complaints, stubbornly justifying this as “human emotion.” However, such spasmodic and reactive emotions (reflexes) that sweep the world are far removed from true life force. In such a state, raising essential questions—what is a human, what does it mean for a human to be human, how should one live—ends as meaningless, futile labor. We are standing on the horizon of the ruins of a “world where humans once existed.”
Nevertheless, it is also a fact that a powerful expression of life force—born of discomfort with this figure, unable to endure it, and seeking to question once again what a human is—is beginning to appear here and there, crossing borders. Since it is extremely difficult to find “living humans” among those currently alive, we must seek that source in the water vein of history and learn from it. In doing so, we will know: Is it not the same in every era?
To gaze into that abyss, the story I wish to take up here is that of a certain figure born and raised in my own hometown. This is not to present a mere historical record, but to press upon the heart of that person in an urgent manner, to ponder the existence of a living human.