The Vertigo of Answers: Finding the Root in a Rootless Age

We inhabit a world inundated with answers as never before. One need only peer into a screen to fall into the illusion that people across the globe are offering immediate solutions to the myriad things of the universe—politics, economics, health, and even the manner in which an individual should live. People ingest this ravenously, mistaking it for their own opinion, and steadily armor themselves.

However, if answers are truly overflowing, and if we possess so many correct solutions, why is the human heart so notoriously unstable and brittle? Why does the mere sight of a differing opinion from another induce palpitations as if one’s very existence were threatened, driving one to intense rage? Extreme arguments beget greater extremes, intensifying the alienation from the discussion itself. In that space, you do not exist.

Yet, as anyone living in the modern age surely senses, it is far more difficult not to become extreme. I confront this issue daily myself, realizing that if I let my guard down for even a moment, my opinions instantly veer toward the extreme. I feel there may be no era more terrifying than this; honestly, the fact that I can still face my own arguments and opinions through daily internal struggle might be the only saving grace. For across the world, even this internal struggle is already being ignored, and people have lost all methods other than radicalization. To speak plainly, nothing is easier in the modern age than to make one’s opinions and assertions extreme. It can be done at any moment. However, considering that the very concept of neutrality has become a relic of the past, we must place this radicalizing world as a premise of our thinking. And to begin with, this position of neutrality is itself suspect. Ultimately, in the discussions of this realm, any position amounts to the same thing.

This tremor occurs because we have lost our own “roots.” If the support of the root is lost, even a giant tree that has withstood wind and snow for ages will collapse overnight. Civilization, humanity, and the individual are all losing this support called the root and are charging toward collapse. Such scenes have become routine, but I view the stage for discussion as already having ended. It is a cruel observation, but debate no longer births anything, advances nothing, and resolves nothing. Debate is merely a struggle for the outdated seats of the intelligentsia and those on their periphery (that is, the maintenance of their livelihood); whether one leans to the extreme left or right, this fact remains unchanged. Now that debate involving the masses has rendered itself meaningless, our priority must be to value knowledge at the individual level and connect it to action—first, to resolve the troubles of others and the community within the scope of what we can do ourselves. Or rather, we have merely temporarily forgotten what was once obvious for human life. To act now to solve even one problem troubling the person most precious to you. I strongly feel that this is the only future left for the world—no, for humanity. If you have time to argue, act.

Fundamentally, the human act of “knowing” is not the mere accumulation of knowledge. Therefore, if knowledge exists only for the sake of knowledge, the world merely deepens its confusion; yet, in the current state, intellectuals have fallen into this trap to a wretched degree. What is common among them is that while they appear to present answers, they are presenting nothing. Those who understand this have already distanced themselves from all debates, secretly groping for the next era so as not to be suspected by anyone. They know. They know that “to know” is not the accumulation of knowledge. They know that “to know” is not for the sake of knowledge.

Let us recall the profound truth: “The myriad things of heaven and earth do not exist apart from me; they are my consciousness, the product of the self.” When we do, it becomes palpably clear that the colossal system called the modern world continues to whisper this to us: “The answer lies without.”

And the system teaches that because your interior is hollow, incomplete, and unreliable, you must constantly replenish it with new information from the outside, borrow the words of someone in authority, and adorn yourself with the trendy thoughts of the moment. The masses have fallen under this spell, closing the doors to their inner sanctuary, abandoning inquiry, and rushing outward in search of salvation. As a result, they have become unintelligible to themselves. This lies at the root of the phenomenon of the uniform spread of mental maladies, particularly among Gen Z. They are leading a life where “vertigo is the standard.” Because they are perpetually dizzy, they know not where they stand, whom they are meeting, or even what they are doing or thinking; everything is ambiguous and indistinct. In short, it is the realization of the first generation that has never truly lived, and will never truly live. This surfaces as a mental crisis.

The one truth I can state with conviction is this single point: “The answer is not outside.” Across all ages and cultures, every sage has arrived at this same answer, but because humans do not grow, we repeat the same cycle, merely losing sight of where the answer lies once again. That is precisely why, without looking back at the “mysterious warehouse connecting to the infinite past and leading to the future”—the wisdom inherited from ancestors and the compass possessed by life itself within one’s own interior—we are captivated by the “momentary phenomena” that pass before our eyes like clouds and smoke.

This is “heteronomy.” Heteronomy is a state in which one surrenders the criteria of one’s value judgment to the “outside”—to others or society. A common feature here is the absence of internal contemplation. That is why, when the outside world shakes, that person shakes as well. When someone else is denied, they feel as though they too have been denied. In truth, nothing is more absurd. Even if the outside shakes, there is absolutely no need for oneself to shake. A human who shakes because the outside shakes is called a “fool.” And the crucial point is that the posture of seeking answers externally has inevitably transformed “debate” into “war.” The idea that debate realizes “peace” is a complete lie; it is merely one aspect of the narrative arc that debate possesses once it has passed through the point of war.

One need only look at the modern discursive space to understand. What exists there is not a serene dialogue seeking truth together, but only an obsession with “victory and defeat”—brandishing borrowed words to refute and subjugate the opponent. Those who believe “the answer lies without” mutually insist, “The answer I picked up is the correct one.” The critical point is that the answer was not derived through their own contemplation, but “picked up” from somewhere. There is no room for introspection to enter. The noble endeavor permitted only to humans—to listen deeply to the words of the other and examine them against the light of one’s inner mirror—is abandoned, and only reflexive repulsion (reaction) is repeated. This is why I constantly repeat that the modern intellectual says nothing.

In that extreme confrontation, it is only natural for a sane person to be exhausted. There is a compulsion that one must always belong to one of the camps, and the silent pressure that remaining silent is evil rises. This tendency strengthens the younger the demographic, through social media. For silence is not seen as an assertion, but falls into the logic of failing to fulfill one’s responsibility to the world. Thus, immature people who lack the strength to endure silence deploy the “picked-up answers” presented one after another by algorithms as weapons to join the meaningless debate. Consequently, because they continue to spew words that are not their own, they fall into the sensation that the contours of their true self are melting away, and in that vertigo, they lose track of themselves. This manifests as the phenomenon of identity crisis. Humans have ceased to be themselves and have degraded into mass-produced “reflectors” that merely react to external stimuli.

How, then, can we stop this endless outflow to the exterior and return to our inner sanctuary?