Why Was This Book Written? - Book "How to Create Meaning in Life" Trial Version 1

This is a trial version of the book "How to Create Meaning in Life: What Should We Do When There Is 'No' Correct Answer?" published by Shiroi Books.

On this page, we are publishing the full text of the chapter "Introduction: Questions and Purpose" from this book.

What I intend to think about in this book

Where is what you are looking for?

Thank you for picking up this book, "How to Create Meaning in Life." The fact that you have picked up a book with a title like this suggests that you are someone who is currently searching for exactly that. While there may be some who have only taken a peek out of curiosity rather than from such desperate feelings, I imagine that at the very least, something caught your heart. In any case, I welcome your visit.

This book deals with the very large theme of the meaning of life. And the title of this book is not "How to Search for" or "How to Find" the meaning of life, but "How to Create" it. To clarify from the beginning, this book does not claim to provide an answer that says, "This is the meaning of life."

When I, who make a living by writing, write a book, I am always conscious of the point of "not writing lies." As I will discuss in detail in the first half of this book, the meaning of life is not something defined by words, nor is it something given to you by someone else. Since the sense of meaning for that person is unique to them, it is necessary to cultivate it within yourself through your own power, just as you would grow a small sapling into a magnificent tree with the goal of harvesting fruit ten years later. The word "How to Create" in the title of this book is meant to convey that.

And this is different from the fluffy messages often heard in the world, such as "live like yourself." The series of stories I am about to begin is based on the premise that "in the first place, there is no objective meaning in this physical world." If meaning cannot exist objectively, then that sense must be created within one's own subjectivity, and that is how this world is fundamentally structured. This observation is the starting point of this book.

Furthermore, as anyone who has worked with others in this society to any extent knows, individual people's ways of thinking and feeling, their likes and dislikes, and their beliefs are all too different from one another. Since there is no one else with the same personality or sensitivity, and no one who has had the same experiences, their subjective content is always one-of-a-kind. A custom-made production process is unavoidable, and it is impossible to get by with mass-produced, off-the-shelf products. This is the second important premise.

In other words, this book was not written for the vague reason that "living like yourself is kind of nice." The reason I am trying to emphasize the keyword "subjectivity" in this book is to point out that "you will never find the meaning of your own life anywhere else," and this can also be said to be based on a certain sense of crisis that "you must not let the precious time of your one and only life end in meaninglessness."

For whom and for what purpose was it written?

Following the theme of this book, I will also explain the intended readership. This involves why I, who wrote this book, "thought it worth the trouble to convey such things," so I will also touch upon my personal feelings as a writer.

As the readers who will open this book, the first people I imagine are what you might call "ordinary people"—those who work hard every day to be recognized as "full-fledged members of society" and are not in a situation where they are struggling for tomorrow's food, clothing, or shelter. And most of these ordinary people are burdened with a lack of fulfillment, endless busyness and pressure, and troublesome human relationships, and such frustrations easily crush the mindset of "let's be satisfied with small happiness" or "let's do our best positively." Even if there are fleeting joys in work and private life, there is always a sense of futility or dissatisfaction in the corner of the heart. Let us assume this is the general state for you and me.

However, this reader profile is not so clearly limited. Since this book attempts to address head-on the question of "what is the meaning of living," it also contains much content aimed at younger generations, such as teenagers who tend to be particularly naive and troubled about their own identity and sense of existence. Also, if you are unable to work like those around you due to some illness or psychological circumstances and are suffering from the label of "not being a full-fledged member of society" (including self-punishing ones), that is also within the scope of the problems I want to deal with in this book.

Living while looking firmly ahead is difficult for everyone. Taking the growth of the younger generation as an example, as the steps of advancing to high school or university progress, worries about human relationships become much more complex and irreconcilable, and it becomes necessary to seriously face questions such as "who am I?" and "what do I really want to do?" in the form of career choices. There is probably no one who is always positive about these challenges and filled only with dreams and hopes. Possibility is something unknown, and the unknown means anxiety. If you are lucky, you might be blessed with encounters with classmates with whom you can talk about the future in the same direction, or reliable adults who will help you at key points, but basically, facing this is a job given to the person themselves.

Now, once such young people graduate from school, become working adults, and finish being tossed about by the rough waves of the world, people who have given up in a bad sense, saying things like "that's just how the world is" or "in the end, I was nobody," will start to appear here and there. The possibilities that should have been unknown in their depth and magnitude are fixed in their smallness as "just this much." This, too, is a well-known story.

Partially, the motivation that made me write a book like this is based on the feeling I had since my teens that "people in the world don't answer these questions seriously" and "no one seems to be trying to treat living seriously." Furthermore, after becoming an adult and being buried in work, the question "does everyone really think this is okay?" and "what is the meaning of such a business?" and the impatience of "is this really the time for me to be doing this in my limited life?" were added to this.

Thinking about it now, I don't think these criticisms were one-sidedly correct. In any case, people have to earn their daily bread to live, and human society is not simple enough to be managed by the idealism of teenagers alone. People have their own circumstances, their own challenges given only to them, and their own struggles that only they know. No one can truly know the suffering of others. No one. To deny this just because someone appears to be living an ordinary life is the arrogance of the ignorant. Also, considering that everyone has to solve their own problems and take responsibility for their own lives, not forcing "the correct way of living I thought of" onto teenagers is a sincere and healthy attitude as an adult.

However, I thought it was necessary to write a book on a theme like this. Not to force useless correct answers from others, or mere generalities or lip service, but to have you rediscover for yourself, with your own hands, the "true answer" that will be the only one that is completely true within you. Among the things I mentioned earlier as emotional reactions due to youth, there is a fundamental question that you must never let go of in the decades of life that follow. That is the question, "Is this really okay?" and "Is it really just this much?"

You must not stop asking that. Because if you decide that you are only worth this much, you are already dead on the spot internally.

There is no "happily ever after" in real life

The reason I spoke about a target audience was actually for the sake of convenience to clarify the theme of this book; fundamentally, such themes are not limited to any specific generation. Considering that the questioning never stops, this book is aimed not only at the troubled teenage years or the twenties and thirties when one achieves internal and external independence, as assumed so far, but also at generations far beyond that.

The term "midlife crisis," said to occur in middle age around the age of forty as a form of doubt such as "Is this it?" or "Was this the right path?," is well known. Although circumstances such as physical decline play some part, this is also, after all, a matter of "meaning for oneself"—that is, subjective meaning—rather than just the external or social significance of what one does.

As more years pass, the scheduled event of retirement will eventually occur, causing most of the work, roles, places, and relationships that occupied the majority of your weekday time to disappear all at once. Filling the void created in this way should be a large-scale reconstruction of your entire life, as well as a redefinition of meaning for yourself. Since I have not yet reached this age myself, I cannot go so far as to say, "The contents of this book will definitely be useful," but at least it is safe to assume that the structure and feel of the problem will not change much.

Ultimately, when considered as something that can be given meaning, life itself rejects the framework of goals or goal achievement (this point will appear at the end as the conclusion of this book), so the theme this book deals with is not a problem limited to a specific generation. As life stages progress, the specific form of the challenges changes, but we remain ourselves, and the root of the problem does not change at all. If you cannot solve it now, or if you do not try to solve it, simply increasing the number of your age will not lead to things working out on their own before you die.

If "Is this it?" is (as it currently appears) an eternal question, then the final destination this book aims for is for you to digest all these life challenges yourself and simply be able to say, "This is fine." However, that can only be obtained by you fighting in earnest yourself.

The absolute affirmation of life—that is the greatest challenge given to human beings that the author and reader of this book are about to tackle together.

Structure of this book

Overall flow

Now that I have explained the general direction of this book, I will briefly look at the overall flow.

As a rough flow, I would like to do the following four things in this book. As written in the parentheses, the actual chapter structure is a bit more detailed, consisting of eight chapters in total.

1. Know the work that must be done: Become aware of the "dissatisfaction" within ourselves and discard expectations for incorrect solutions. Clarify the premise set at the center of this book that "the meaning of life is never given by others' assertions, guidance, or evaluations," and confirm the necessity of constructing a sense of meaning with your own power (Chapter 1: "What Should Be Discarded First," Chapter 2: "Why Are We Dissatisfied?")

2. Gain new concepts: Learn about several important ways of thinking that are core to giving meaning to life. In particular, focus on understanding the mechanisms of the real world and being able to practically deal with life's challenges, such as the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, the nature of human beings as an example of evolution, and the concepts of finiteness and trade-offs. Also, relativize the general image of growth, such as "improving" or "acquiring," and gain the perspective of "discarding" or "removing" as a new framework (Chapter 3: "Meaning Lies in the Subjective Realm," Chapter 4: "Humans as Biological Organisms," Chapter 5: "Steering Your Own Ship")

3. Move to practice: The basis for meaning lies within the self, but human nature cannot become rich without "doing" something in the outside world and "engaging" with others. Work and relationships are the two major topics in a person's life, and although they are difficult for everyone, they are areas that can be made meaningful depending on individual effort and ingenuity. After deepening the consideration of these two areas, start improving your own life (Chapter 6: "What Is Your Work?," Chapter 7: "The Salvation of Others")

4. Continue doing it: Discard the framework of thinking about achievement and results, place yourself in the flow of process and change, and thoroughly commit to the "meaning of your own existence as it is" (Chapter 8: "Meaning Is a Process")

After the eight chapters listed here, the "Conclusion" chapter is placed as the conclusion of this book. This conclusion is very short. I think that the point that stating the definition of the correct answer is not that important will be understood both logically and intuitively as you read through the contents of each chapter.

Collecting keywords

I should state in advance that, especially in the first half of this book, the flow is to repeatedly confirm with the readers the basic principle that our life challenges are "not something that can be solved immediately just because you read or heard something." As I will emphasize frequently in the main text, realistic solutions cannot occur without an understanding of reality, and rushing somewhere based on incorrect imagination and desires can sometimes be worse than lying down and doing nothing.

However, people cannot keep working hard on things that have no response or sense of accomplishment. If you are in a situation where you are never thanked by customers at work, or where the same amount of tasks as you have cleared are added infinitely, it is a bit unreasonable to expect motivation from that. A sense of learning and progress is certainly necessary.

Therefore, in this book, I will review important keywords at the end of each chapter to confirm that you have "obtained tools that you can actually use" to enrich your life with meaning. This is not a set of fixed problem statements and finalized answers. These are new perspectives and concepts for dealing more appropriately and skillfully with your own life challenges, which are presented in more subtle forms in your daily life. I touched briefly on why finalized answers are completely useless in the introduction so far, but I intend to handle the details in Chapter 3.

While hoping that the "answer of your own" that is not yet visible will mature in the depths of your heart, let us for the time being collect keywords in a visible form.

Columns and Their Role

Along with reviewing the keywords, a short (and sometimes slightly long) column is inserted at the end of each chapter. These are collections of stories that might offer some hints regarding the theme of this book, drawn from the author's own past experiences, people I have seen in my life, and people I have been deeply involved with. While these columns serve as a sort of break, there is a reason for their inclusion that relates to the concept of this book, so I will explain the perspectives of reproducibility and individuality in more detail.

As a policy for this book, I did not want to base any arguments solely on the author's personal experiences, which would likely contain a great deal of coincidence and bias, so I avoided incorporating such personal episodes into the main thread of the discussion. Nevertheless, just like the idea that one cannot work hard without a sense of accomplishment, people are generally not moved by abstract arguments that are not based on personal experience. In a sense, I believe that what moves people is entirely personal experience, personal enthusiasm, and personal words.

If it were a topic of science or business, stories without reproducibility would be useless. If you want to say in the field of psychology that "the human mind has such a tendency," it is of course not enough to just bring in two or three people who happen to be that way; you need a method such as collecting and verifying data from hundreds or thousands of randomly selected subjects. Furthermore, even if the same kind of survey were conducted in a different region by a different researcher, if the original claim is correct, it is required that the same results be obtained.

However, our innate qualities, the environment in which we grew up, the experiences we have had so far, and the events we will encounter in the future are all one-time occurrences, and it is impossible to conduct a survey or test with a sample size exceeding "n=1" in the first place. The probability of each side of a die appearing is equally one-sixth, but if there are only a few major crossroads in life where you will roll it, what meaning does a number like a statistical average have? We cannot seek support there in the form of data or statistical evidence.

Thinking about what type of person is likely to pick up a book with a title like this, I imagine that the reader of this book has somewhat logical and intellectual tendencies. And while I agree that such qualities are indeed important, the basis for the set of contents that this book intends to convey lies elsewhere. In order to give meaning to life and to get along well with our own ambiguous and complex minds, a delicate sense of steering is required: "not going out of one's way to go against science and logic, but also not relying on scientific and logical methods." This also involves a mental challenge peculiar to some modern people, which is "not being able to feel at ease without theoretical explanations and evidence," so I intend to think about this point in more detail in Chapter 3.

Knowledge is merely a trigger. Even if you read or hear something, if it does not drive your own internal changes or external actions, such knowledge was probably not very important to begin with. As the reader deepens their thinking through their own practice, I hope that the episodes included in the short columns at the end of each chapter will serve as a helpful auxiliary tool.

Also, this book has a volume that can be called thick for a general book, and given the all-too-obvious difficulty of the task itself, I think it is quite difficult to read through it in one sitting. Therefore, I hope you will use these chapter-ending columns as rest points and read through it at your leisure, taking breaks as needed.

Once again, regarding the personal view I want to convey above all else

With the long introduction out of the way, I will convey one final important view before entering the main text.

What I want to convey through the contents of this book includes something that has nothing to do with objective knowledge, theory, or know-how, but is merely a "feeling." This world is full of difficulties and things that do not go as planned, but can we become happy through our own power? Is it really possible, through individual effort alone, to make one's life meaningful and to be able to affirm everything about oneself with confidence?

My personal answer to this is "I think it is probably possible."

The reason I cannot assert "it is possible" here and end up with a lackluster tone is that this task is clearly difficult, and it seems that there are not a few people in this world who actually end up failing or not achieving it (perhaps because the time limit is short), and such an assertion would go against the book's policy of being "based on facts." However, personally, I believe it is possible. I do not doubt it.

Now, let's get to work.

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