October 18, 2020

As I climb the mountain path, I ponder-

If you work by reason, you grow rough-edged; if you choose to dip your oar into sentiment’s it will sweep you away. Demanding your own way only serves to constrain you. However you look at it, the human world is not an easy place to live.

And when its difficulties intensify, you find yourself longing to leave that world and dwell in some easier one – and then, when you understand at least that difficulties will dog you wherever you may live, this is when poetry and art are born.

The creators of our human world are neither gods nor demons but simply people, those ordinary folk who happen to live right there next door. You may feel the human realm is a difficult place, but there is surely no better world to live in. You will find another only by going to nonhuman; and the nonhuman realm would surely be a far more difficult place to inhabit than the human.

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The above is the beginning of Natsume Soseki‘s nobel Kusamakura.

上記は、夏目漱石の草枕の冒頭部分です。

This lines comes to my mind when I want to escape or when I want to quit humans.

逃げたい時や、人間をやめたくなる時に、この文章が頭をよぎります。