2010-8-4
In one of its issues this year, Newsweek gave me my final inspiration.
Of course, it came from an article that every one of my readers would have read and passed over.
And of course, not one person among the 120 million people in this country would have arrived at those final words from the reporter’s article.
If there is such a thing in this world as being gifted, that is what should be called gifted.

If I had continued along the path laid out for me and become, as my mentor wished, a great scholar who carried Kyoto University on his shoulders, the Japanese media—the major publishing houses and newspapers—would call even about something I had casually written and sent them: “Professor, thank you. I have read it. May we publish it as it is?”

Of course, no such call comes to someone like me, who has remained unknown to this age…
But yesterday, I was surprised to receive a call from Ichirō Ozawa’s office…
I began talking under the mistaken impression that it was a business call…
“There are people in Tokyo, too, who talk about what happened around 1990 to 1992… Nothing on a scale as large as this, though…”
“So what would you like Ichirō Ozawa to do?”

Because the call was unexpected and I had started talking under the impression that it was from a client, I thought I should keep my answer brief:
“Well, first, the foolish things being done at the North Yard…”
The person on the other end laughed, as though that was out of the question.

After I hung up, I regretted it…
I should simply have said, “Please put my proposals into action as soon as possible. That is the only way to return Japan to where it ought to be.”

When I thought I had more or less finished the first chapter of “The Turntable of Civilization,” I decided that I should first make it into something like a book and send it to him.
We printed and bound it at our office… Naturally, it turned out stiff and ungainly… Just like a set of property documents.
But I sent it anyway, thinking that the sooner he received it, the better.

The next day, one of my employees told me of a place that could bind it neatly at a low price.
I went there at once, had it made into a book that looked good for something produced by hand, and sent copies to several of Japan’s five leading publishing houses and to the presidents of the publishing arms of the Asahi Shimbun and the Nikkei…
I could not bear the thought of a secretary throwing it in the bin before it went any further, so I pasted my covering letter directly onto the back of each large envelope. (Laughs.)

Of course, I heard nothing from any of them.
I called one company just to ask whether it had arrived, and naturally a female secretary answered…
Perhaps she remembered it because I had sent it in such an unconventional form…
“We receive all sorts of things from all sorts of people, so we send them to the relevant department rather than to the president…”
That, I suppose, was where it went into the bin.
For literature, it would have to be a work submitted to and selected by a literary magazine…
They do not even realize that this sort of stereotyped deference to authority is what has ultimately produced an increasingly stereotyped media.

What good does it do for the media, whose work rests on words and ideas, to imitate the organization of major manufacturers and other large corporations?

One could say that Ichirō Ozawa’s office is far more democratic than the media, and that the image the media have created of him is entirely different from the reality.
They not only thought there was truth in the words of one unknown man of modest means; they also responded to what I was trying to convey within the scope of “The Turntable of Civilization.”

Dear Mr. Ichirō Ozawa,

Thank you for the call I received from your office today.
The handmade book I sent you the other day was so ungainly that I had it rebound the following day.
I am enclosing at the back the pieces I have written since then.

I want my words to reach as many people throughout Japan as possible, as soon as possible.
Had I followed the path laid out for me and become a great scholar who carried Kyoto University on his shoulders, this country’s major publishers and newspapers would call even about something I had casually written and ask, “Thank you very much. May we publish it as it is?”

Wherever one goes, there are people who live with their thoughts fixed solely on the truth, and my writing will reach the public.
Of course, it will not be through anything as foolish as self-publishing.
It will be published as a book that warns the country, reaches its center of power, and changes it—as a Wealth of Nations for the twenty-first century.

Yours sincerely,

To S,
You once wrote to me, “I eagerly await the arrival of a new writer who is a little past his prime.” You are now at the heart of a distinguished major company that embodies Kansai itself.
It has taken a very long time, but at last my work will reach the public.
I may, however, continue writing for young people who are needlessly hurt and alone within their homes and families, who misunderstand society and define themselves too narrowly, who are strangely obedient to everything they have decided from the outset to regard as the rules of the world, and who may one day see no way to settle matters except by suddenly erupting.
In that case, I will not be writing for people like you, who will probably enjoy a life of reading and farming when you retire, though that day is still some way off.

In any event, I will keep writing from now until neither of us is in this world.