[Character Sketches Extra Edition] 🤔 Why the Analects of Confucius Resonate with Me Now

🖌 A reading experience as quiet resonance

Hello, this is Bell note.

I read Osumo Nuts' article titled “I want to protect the happiness of not giving an answer. The true feelings I realized through AI.”.

“I want to know, but I don't want to know.” The hesitation and turbulence contained in those words were written very quietly, yet with a clear outline, and they settled straight into my heart.

It was a piece of writing with a detached tone, yet it left a mysterious lingering effect. As I read it, I had the sensation of a single line running through the depths of my chest.
Ah, people must surely be facing their own questions for a long time, without telling anyone, or while unable to put them into words—that is what I thought.

On the other hand, there were moments when I suddenly looked back at myself.
Had I really been imagining the hearts of others?
Had I been tracing only the words in front of me, and trying to properly grasp their background and atmosphere—?

Reading is a mysterious act, isn't it?
Deep behind the written words, one can sometimes faintly see the parts of the person that have not yet been spoken. Ah, this person must have carried many things until now... It left a quiet lingering effect that naturally made me feel such things.

🖌 Changes in the gaze toward one's own inner self

Recently, I have finally—and it really feels like finally—begun to think little by little that people live while carrying deep and complex thoughts, even if they do not show them on the surface.

In the past, why did I assume so much that I was the only one worrying, thinking, and turning over complex thoughts?

In reality, I think it was I who was shallow and looking at things with a narrow perspective.

But at the time, I was either aware of it or not—I just held onto a vague sense of discomfort and spent my time deceiving myself.

Even when I passed someone by, or when I was hurt, I only thought, “This is how I felt,” and I think I had no room to turn my eyes toward the background or feelings within the other person.

Thinking about it now, I believe that was pure arrogance.

I would “think I understood” the other person and rush to judgment. Or, without even imagining what lay behind their silence, I would place only my own emotions at the center.

I have only recently begun to see such immaturity in myself.

I feel like I am beginning to understand that the true nature of my hazy discomfort lies, little by little, in my own immaturity.

🖌 The 'if' as a hypothesis. What if note existed in the past?

After I finished reading Nuts' article, I thought about something for a while.

If a place like note had existed when I was younger, would I have been able to sense something in it? Would I have been able to notice the quiet thoughts hidden behind people's words, or the emotions that remain untouched, as I do now?

The answer is probably "no."

Even if note had existed back then, I don't think I would have tried to read people's writing as deeply as I do now.

To begin with, I think I was somewhat guarded about the act of writing itself, and above all, I don't think I had developed the attitude of trying to properly listen to other people's words at all.
I certainly wouldn't have been able to focus on the things within people that are "not yet words," as I do now.

Even if note had existed, I probably wouldn't have been able to engage with it the way I do now—that is what I thought.

🖌 What is note? A printer that visualizes the heart

So, why am I able to be interested in and calmly engage with this place called note now?

I have started to think about that again recently.
I don't really feel that the medium of note itself changed anything.

However, precisely because note is such a casual place, the feelings and thoughts that had been drifting inside me have gradually become words and started to take shape. I have that realization.

I think there are times when you first notice your own emotions through the act of writing.
Things that weren't organized in my head are finally understood as "Ah, so that's how I was feeling" once they are put into text and placed before my eyes.

Thoughts that hadn't become words quietly take shape and rise up—it felt just like a "printer" that prints out my heart.
For me, note was exactly that kind of place.
And, as an extension of that, the series "Character Review" was born.

The meaning of someone's actions or words that I couldn't understand when I was young gradually becomes visible through writing.

I am able to revisit past events and touch upon the margins and warmth that I didn't notice at the time.

That was a very big change for me, as I tended to be swayed by first impressions.
If it weren't for note, those many emotions might still be sleeping deep in my heart.

That is precisely why I feel a quiet weight in note—a "place that brings the heart to the surface through words"—more than I had even imagined.

🖌 Remembering the words of the Analects. The overlap of age and perspective

As I was writing my feelings on note little by little like this, a phrase suddenly came to mind.

It is that famous passage from Confucius's "Analects."

I must have seen these words several times during my student days, and I remembered them with an image of them being something like "life guidelines," but at the time, I was reading them as if they were someone else's business.

I think I only felt that it was just 'I see, there is such a way to divide up one's age'.

But recently, when I recall these words at unexpected moments, there are times when it resonates in the depths of my heart, thinking, 'Ah, this might be exactly what it means'.

That does not mean I have reached a high state of enlightenment like Confucius.

Rather, it may be that because I have finally become able to acknowledge my own immaturity and narrow perspective, the 'contours' of these words have gradually begun to come into view.

Even after passing thirty, it was difficult to stand on my own, and even after welcoming forty, my confusion never ended.

Even so, as I approached fifty, I think I have finally become able to look back little by little, thinking things like, 'Perhaps that judgment back then was too hasty,' or 'There might have been something in that person's words that I failed to notice'.

These words may not be about 'naturally becoming that way as you age,' but rather that 'there are things that become visible as time passes.'
The daily writings I have left behind on note sometimes feel like 'traces of my own journey'.

🖌 What note has given me

I think note was not so much a 'place that gave me realizations' as it was a 'place that quietly allowed realizations to surface' for me.

By writing, emotions and thoughts I didn't even know I had gradually seeped out.

It was a sensation like fragments of my heart that had been submerged without words beginning to show themselves one by one.

Looking back, the series called 'Character Review' was also a accumulation of such visualization.
By carefully writing down the people I met, the words we exchanged, and the feelings that remained misunderstood—things that were not visible gradually become visible.
note may have been a place that accepted such activities and acted like a 'printer of the heart' that quietly reflected the depth of my own heart.

In addition—

note also has the natural characteristic of allowing you to encounter the writings of others.

For example, by coming into contact with the words of someone like Osumo Nuts, who I never met in real life, and who continues to quietly face the questions within themselves, I feel my own perspective expanding a little.

No matter how carefully written a piece is, there are 'unspoken thoughts' deep within the words. I imagine those nuances while reading.

That, too, may be an experience I could only have because it was within the medium of note.

However, even if the place called note did not exist, I think I would have eventually reached this state of mind over time.

The words in the Analects—'At fifty, I knew the decree of Heaven,' 'At sixty, my ear was attuned.'
That is because I believe these are things that gradually press upon one as a reality while living, whether note exists or not.

I think the true achievement of note for me lies in the fact that, as an output device, it made it possible to visualize the inner lives of many people from different positions.
As a result, even for an ordinary person like me, the number of samples I encounter has increased dramatically.

Each person is writing words with their own background.
By continuing to encounter those fragments, I think my own perspective expanded a little faster.

Everyone lives while carrying complex thoughts.
Even if I cannot understand them completely, I must continue to have the desire to try to imagine them. The place called note has continued to be a device that quietly supports that modest activity.

🖌 As a postscript

Now that I have finished writing this, it has a slightly different flavor from 'Character Review,' which spoke about direct interactions with people. However, there is a reason why I decided to write this piece as a 'Character Review: Extra Edition'.

Character Review is an essay series for looking back on past encounters and relationships with memorable people, carefully tracing the changes and realizations within oneself. However, the protagonist this time is someone faceless, or perhaps the medium of 'note' itself. It is not about a person in front of me, but rather the result of carefully tracing the changes in my own perspective—or more precisely, the changes in my 'way of seeing things'—and realizing that it was a quiet dialogue with entities like 'note' and 'note creators' such as Nuts-san.

People are deeply illuminated and grow not only through relationships with others but also through encounters with thoughts and words—in that sense, I felt that this is indeed an extension of 'Character Review'.

🔔Bell