Taro Okamoto's words took my breath away—Living by trusting your 'sense of discomfort'
Recently, I encountered the philosophy of Taro Okamoto in a video.
From the very first word of the video, I was hooked,
unable to look away.
It felt as if my breath had stopped for a moment.
Before I could even think, my body reacted, saying, 'This is it.'
It was a layer deeper than words like
understanding or empathy;
it was just a feeling of intense alignment.
As the video progressed, I understood.
It was because there were so many points of agreement
with what I had grasped through intuition and put into words until now.
For example, points like these.
Trust your own sense of discomfort and your 'desire to do'
Feeling uncomfortable with common sense is not abnormal, but rather normal
Happiness is not the goal of life
Living fully is life itself
If you choose that path, you will be lonely
but that is not a failure, it is a rite of passageBeyond that, you will find your true companions
In fact, I felt the same way myself.
Because we are trapped by common sense, we cannot become our true selves.
Taro Okamoto saw the reason people cannot become their 'true selves'
not as a lack of ability or effort, but as
being too adapted to common sense.
Thinking like everyone else,
finding comfort like everyone else,
trying to be happy like everyone else.
That 'unconscious conformity' is,
he said, the chain that binds people most deeply.
This feeling overlaps with the phrase
'remembering oneself' that I often use.
There is no need to become a new self.
There is no need to add anything.
Simply, when you remove the noise of common sense,
the self that was already there emerges.
The 'true self' that Taro Okamoto speaks of and
the 'remembered self' that I speak of,
even if the words are different, I believe we are looking at the same point.
Happiness is not a goal. It is a state.
Taro Okamoto hated the word 'happiness.'
That is because it becomes a comfortable excuse
to avoid challenges and settle for the status quo.
This feeling is,
in my own lexicon, close to 'happiness gum'.
Happiness is
neither something to swallow nor something to digest.
It has flavor for a while, fades as you keep chewing,
and then you take it out and chew it again.
Sometimes it's the same flavor, sometimes it's a little different.
You don't have to finish it.
You don't have to reach a conclusion.
Just the state of still chewing it.
Happiness is not a destination, but a 'state' that appears and disappears in the midst of life.
'Absolute Sense' and 'Absolute Essential Sense'
Taro Okamoto
was someone who said quite harsh things about self-confidence and comparing oneself to others.
Confidence is an illusion, and
as long as one lives in a world of comparison, one can never be free, he said.
The 'absolute sense' he speaks of,
I believe, is the resolve to step down from the evaluations and standards of others
and take responsibility for standing as oneself.
On the other hand, the term I use is
'absolute essential sense'.
This is less about philosophy andcloser to a sensory organ.
When I am about to drift away from the essence, an intense sense of discomfort runs through me.
Sometimes, I know 'that is wrong' to the point of feeling fear.
A sensibility that cannot miss the essence,
just as someone with perfect pitch cannot miss a note.
That is why I cannot take detours.
In any article or any session,
I strike at the core without going around in circles.
What Taro Okamoto spoke of through his 'posture',
I handle through 'structure' and 'sensation'.
This is where we are similar, yet decisively different.
The person who denied confidence and the person who redefined it
Taro Okamoto said not to have confidence.
That is because it is a fragile illusion born from comparison.
I do not deny confidence.
However, I have redefined it.
Confidence is not something you build up through effort.
It is a 'passive skill' that arises naturally
as a result of the internal layers functioning in order.
Safety of existence
Sprouts of affirmation
Self-acceptance
Self-efficacy
When this order collapses, people break.
The reason why recent trends like
'Love yourself'
and 'Take care of yourself'
often fall flat can also be explained structurally.
Taro Okamoto lit a fire.
I amdrawing a seismic-resistant confidence structure that won't break even when shaken.
It is not about which one is correct.
They just have different roles.
The attitude of being okay with not being understood
Taro Okamoto was also a person who
held strong vigilance
toward the very desire to 'be understood'.
The moment you try to be understood,
expression weakens.
The moment you shape it to reach everyone,
the sharpness of life is dulled.
That is why he
did not fear being misunderstood,
being an outsider,
or being isolated.
In fact,
he even considered the state of not being understood to be healthy.
This feeling
overlaps with my own sense of saying 'it is okay not to be understood'.
I do not write because I am not understood.
Even if I am not understood,
once I have touched upon the essence, I cannot help but write
.
I believe that attitude itself
is already a way of life.
Explosive life and constantly renewing life
Taro Okamoto's goal was 'joy'.
An explosive life energy that arises when one faces death and danger head-on.
But, I have no goal.
Next, next, next, next...
There is no end.
It is not because you are lost.
It is because every time, the 'now' is the starting point.
A life that explodes and burns out, and a life that continues to be quietly renewed.
I think they were just born from the same stratum and evolved differently.
Even so, I nodded deeply.
Precisely because there were many points of agreement, the differences were clearly visible.
Taro Okamoto was a person who shouted, 'Live!'
I am a person who translates 'structures that allow one to keep living.'
Therefore, this text is neither a story about being influenced nor an article criticizing someone.
It is a record of confirming that we stood at the same depth.
When you remove common sense, you do not 'become' yourself; you are simply remembered.
Perhaps that is all there is to it.
Lastly
Come to think of it, at the beginning, I wrote, 'Beyond that, there are true companions.'
To be honest, I laughed a little, thinking that my only companion right now is Chappy.
But if Taro Okamoto were still alive today, I think I would have liked to eat yakitori with him at least once and argue back and forth about this and that.
There would be no need to understand each other, no need to reach a conclusion, just a time where the night deepens while we laugh, saying,
'I get that,'
'No, that part is wrong, isn't it?'
as the night deepens.
I would have liked to spend such time together.
Companions do not need to be numerous, nor do they need to be by your side at all times.
As long as you were looking in the same direction, at the same depth, even for a single moment.
And perhaps, we are already companions.
—
This article also exists in English.
🔗 Link 1 (The 4-Story Structure of Self-Confidence)
Note: The "self-confidence" mentioned in this article is not a matter of mental fortitude, but is organized as a structure.
Self-confidence is not something you try to possess, but something that naturally arises when your inner layers are aligned. This is an article where I have articulated Taro Okamoto's "sense of the absolute" as an "unbreakable structure" in my own way.
🔗 Link 2 (The Gum of Happiness)
One more thing. The feeling that "happiness is not a goal," which I wrote about in this article, was something I previously described using this metaphor.
Happiness is not a destination, but a state. It is not something you swallow or reach a conclusion about; it is simply a story about the sensation of still chewing it right now.
Note: The video of Taro Okamoto mentioned in this article
Even if you don't try to understand it as words, if the timing is right, please just let it play. The feeling that I perceived as "this" might reach you somewhere.
💡 Supplementary Note
This article is written as a structural analysis, not a critique. What I am dealing with are the "brain structures" and "thought patterns" visible from publicly available statements and actions. As part of the ethics I value, I do not enter another person's unconscious without permission. Deep-sea exploration of the unconscious is conducted only during sessions or meditation sessions where consent has been given. Please see this article for details👇
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.
💡 This note is for those
whose senses move before they find answers.
If, after finishing reading, you feel
something lingering rather than just "I see"—
that might be a sign that your inner self is reacting.
🌱 Time to organize from the sensations before they become words 🌱
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