Why Did Melos Run? Osamu Dazai and the "Pain of Believing"

I read "Run, Melos!" for the first time in a long while.

Even though I must have read it once as a child,
the story only remains vaguely in my mind.

I vaguely remember it as a story of friendship.
Running for a best friend. Keeping a promise. Justice prevails.
I feel like I thought it was such a straightforward and easy-to-understand story.

But reading it now as an adult, it looked completely different.

At the heart of this story is not just the beauty of friendship.
I thought it was something more urgent, something containing more pain.

It is the agony of "believing in people".

Melos is a very straightforward person.
But he doesn't just feel like a noble person.
He gets angry, he is extreme, he is clumsy,
and he has a side that rushes forward on emotion.
I don't think he is a perfect human being at all.

That is precisely why I was drawn to him.

A person who believes in others
is not always a calm, wise, and strong person.
Rather, they might be a person who is easily hurt, clumsy, and desperate.
There was such humanity in the way Melos ran.

The king does not believe in people.
Amidst betrayal and suspicion, he can no longer trust anyone.
If you just follow the story, the king is just a cold-hearted person.
But from my perspective now, the king looks like "a person who has become unable to believe in others."

Perhaps he was hurt as a result of believing in people.
Perhaps he was betrayed as a result of having expectations.
So, he is a person who decided that it is better to be suspicious from the start than to believe,
and that is what he ended up thinking.

I thought it was a heart I had seen somewhere before.

When people are hurt, they become unable to believe.
They think it is safer not to believe.
They think it is easier not to have expectations.
I understand that feeling very well.

But, at the same time,
I think that people, deep down, really do want to believe.

Melos and the king seem like opposites, but they are actually a little similar.
One is a person who tries to believe in others.
The other is a person who has become unable to believe in others.
But I felt that neither of them truly wanted to despair of humanity.

And I also thought about Osamu Dazai, who wrote this story.

Osamu Dazai was a person who wrote a lot about human weakness, ugliness, and unavoidable wavering.
I think he was also a person who could not easily believe in others.
But even so, Dazai did not write of complete despair in "Run, Melos!"

People betray.
People are weak.
People are ugly.
Dazai probably knew that well.

Even so,
"But, I want to believe,"
he may have entrusted that wish to this story.

While reading this work, I was also overlapping it with my own heart.

In truth, I want to believe in people.
I want to connect from the heart.
I want to believe in something warm.

But at the same time, I know myself to be someone who gets hurt by believing too much.
I know that the more I believe, the more painful it becomes.
That is why, even though I want to believe, I am afraid.
I want to get closer, but I am afraid of being hurt.
I feel like I have carried that wavering within me for a long time.

And I think that rather than wanting to believe,
I have probably always beena person who ends up believing.

Rather than protecting myself by doubting,
I have been hurt by believing.
Again and again.

Even so, somewhere in my heart,
I cannot give up on believing in people.

I cannot bring myself to hate
that kind of foolishness.

I think that perhaps,
I want to find the warmth that exists within someone.
I want to believe in something within them that has not yet died.

That is why Melos's figure
was not just beautiful.
It was somehow prayer-like, desperate, painful, yet noble.

Melos does not touch our hearts because he is perfect.
He has weaknesses, he has doubts, he wavers.
I think he touches our hearts because he runs anyway.

I saw my own heart in that.

Believing is not just a pretty sentiment.
It is offering yourself up even though you might be betrayed.
It is trying to believe in something within the other person, even though you might get hurt.

Perhaps that is not so much strength,
but rather a desperate human wish.

Believing is not so much a noble act,
but closer to a prayer.
It is close to wishing,
may there still be things in this world that we can believe in.

One can read 'Run, Melos!' as a story of friendship.
But to me now, it seemed more than that,
a story about the question, 'Can people believe in others once more?'
.

And that question does not end within the story.
It is also quietly directed at my own heart right now.

From here on out, I may
get hurt by believing.
There may be days when I think I will not do it anymore.
There will surely be days when I hate believing in people.

Even so, I
do not want to become a person who is completely closed off.

Because I have been hurt,
I know the ease of doubting.
I know the safety of not believing.
But if I were to stay only within that safety,
I am sure I would no longer be myself.

That is why I think I will continue to believe, without learning my lesson.

That may be a weakness.
That may be foolishness.
But I do not hate that part of myself
as much as I used to.

Watching Melos run,
I saw within myself
a "heart that still wants to believe."

It is so precarious,
so vulnerable,
and hopelessly clumsy.

But that is precisely why it is human.
And perhaps that is why it is precious.

Reading "Run, Melos!" made me think that
believing is not just beautiful,
but also a matter of accepting pain.

And I realized that I do not want to deny
that heart which, despite everything, still wants to believe.

Even if it
might seem a little foolish.

It is.