On a Planet Racing Toward Accelerated Decline, I Have Yet to Do Everything in My Power. [My History No. 11]

Our planet is now heading toward accelerated destruction. Conflicts and refugee crises are multiplying, while freedom and democracy are increasingly under threat.

I believe that artists who remain indifferent to these developments and refuse to speak out against them have little value as artists.

No matter how much fame or wealth we accumulate, I feel that none of it will mean anything if our planet collapses.

Looking back through history, we find that great artists such as Pablo Picasso (パブロ・ピカソ), Wassily Kandinsky (ワシリー・カンディンスキー), Paul Klee (パウル・クレー), John Lennon (ジョン・レノン), Mick Jagger (ミック・ジャガー), Bob Dylan (ボブ・ディラン), and Charlie Chaplin (チャールズ・チャップリン) did not remain silent in the face of dictatorship, militarism, and human egoism—that is, self-centeredness.

Yet I am not going to declare, “Ordinary people are radiant and bright; I alone seem dim and obscure” (俗人昭々、我独り黄昏のごとし) and simply withdraw from the world by moving away to some other country.

Why?

Because I still have work to do.

I must fuel the fire within my heart and keep my desires burning fiercely. I have not yet done everything in my power.

As Toyotsu Yamamoto (山本豊津) has told me, I must not allow myself to become resigned or complacent.

I must create many more works that can help people, and I must communicate the mysteries and secrets of art that I have come to understand in ways that everyone can comprehend.

Like Osamu Tezuka (手塚治虫), I believe in reincarnation.

Therefore, if I am ever reborn, I must leave behind my artworks and writings so that I can, at the very least, resume my journey from the point I have reached in this life. These works will serve as proof that I lived in Japan in this particular era, and they will become a valuable legacy for future generations.