← the shelf
Freud’s idea is that a person’s psychic wounds (traumas) cause his or her present unhappiness. When you treat a person’s life as a vast narrative, there is an easily understandable causality and sense of dramatic development that creates strong impressions and is extremely attractive. But Adler, in denial of the trauma argument, states the following: “No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”
We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences. Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.
PHILOSOPHER: If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get all of my parents’ attention focused on me. They’ll be extremely careful around me and always handle me with kid gloves. On the other hand, if I take even one step out of the house, I’ll just become part of a faceless mass whom no one pays attention to. I’ll be surrounded by people I don’t know and just end up average, or less than average. And no one will take special care of me any longer . . . Such stories about reclusive people are not uncommon.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right, anger is an instantaneous emotion. Now listen, I have a story. One day, a mother and daughter were quarreling loudly. Then, suddenly, the telephone rang. “Hello?” The mother picked up the receiver hurriedly, her voice still thick with anger. The caller was her daughter’s homeroom teacher. As soon as the mother realized who was phoning, the tone of her voice changed and she became very polite. Then, for the next five minutes or so, she carried on a conversation in her best telephone voice. Once she hung up, in a moment, her expression changed again and she went straight back to yelling at her daughter. YOUTH: Well, that’s not a particularly unusual story. PHILOSOPHER: Don’t you see? In a word, anger is a tool that can be taken out as needed. It can be put away the moment the phone rings, and pulled out again after one hangs up. The mother isn’t yelling in anger she cannot control. She is simply using the anger to overpower her daughter with a loud voice and thereby assert her opinions.
PHILOSOPHER: People are constantly selecting their lifestyles. Right now, while we are having this tête-à-tête, we are selecting ours. You describe yourself as an unhappy person. You say that you want to change right this minute. You even claim that you want to be reborn as a different person. After all that, then why are you still unable to change? It is because you are making the persistent decision not to change your lifestyle. YOUTH: No, don’t you see that’s completely illogical? I do want to change; that is my sincere wish. So how could I be making the decision not to? PHILOSOPHER: Although there are some small inconveniences and limitations, you probably think that the lifestyle you have now is the most practical one, and that it’s easier to leave things as they are. If you stay just like this, experience enables you to respond properly to events as they occur, while guessing the results of one’s actions. You could say it’s like driving your old, familiar car. It might rattle a bit, but one can take that into account and maneuver easily. On the other hand, if one chooses a new lifestyle, no one can predict what might happen to the new self, or have any idea how to deal with events as they arise. It will be hard to see ahead to the future, and life will be filled with anxiety. A more painful and unhappy life might lie ahead. Simply put, people have various complaints about things, but it’s easier and more secure to be just the way one is.
Yes. I have a young friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, but he never seems to be able to complete his work. According to him, his job keeps him too busy, and he can never find enough time to write novels, and that’s why he can’t complete work and enter it for writing awards. But is that the real reason? No! It’s actually that he wants to leave the possibility of “I can do it if I try” open, by not committing to anything. He doesn’t want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn’t want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it. In another five or ten years, he will probably start using other excuses like “I’m not young anymore” or “I’ve got a family to think about now.”
PHILOSOPHER: No, you are not being criticized. Rather, as Adler’s teleology tells us, “No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.” That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.
YOUTH: Because that’s a fact—I really don’t have any strong points. PHILOSOPHER: You’re wrong. You notice only your shortcomings because you’ve resolved to not start liking yourself. In order to not like yourself, you don’t see your strong points and focus only on your shortcomings. First, understand this point.
PHILOSOPHER: It might be hard to understand from your own example, so I’ll use another. I use this study for simple counseling sessions. It must have been quite a few years ago, but there was a female student who came by. She sat right where you are sitting now, in the same chair. Well, her concern was her fear of blushing. She told me that she was always turning red whenever she was out in public, and that she would do anything to rid herself of this. So I asked her, “Well, if you can cure it, what will you want to do then?” And she said that there was a man she wanted. She secretly had feelings for him but wasn’t ready to divulge them. Once her fear of blushing was cured, she’d confess her desire to be with him. YOUTH: Huh! All right, it sounds like the typical thing a female student would seek counseling for. In order for her to confess her feelings for him, first she had to cure her blushing problem. PHILOSOPHER: But is that really the whole case? I have a different opinion. Why did she get this fear of blushing? And why hadn’t it gotten better? Because she needed that symptom of blushing. YOUTH: What are you saying exactly? She was asking you to cure it, wasn’t she? PHILOSOPHER: What do you think was the scariest thing to her, the thing she wanted to avoid most of all? It was that the man would reject her, of course. The fact that her unrequited love would negate everything for her, the very existence and possibility of “I.” This aspect is deeply present in adolescent…
PHILOSOPHER: We can repeat it as many times as you like: All problems are interpersonal relationship problems. This is a concept that runs to the very root of Adlerian psychology. If all interpersonal relationships were gone from this world, which is to say if one were alone in the universe and all other people were gone, all manner of problems would disappear.
In other words, the feelings of inferiority we’re suffering from are subjective interpretations rather than objective facts? PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. Seeing it from my friend’s point of view that I get people to relax or that I don’t intimidate them—such aspects can become strong points. Of course, this is a subjective interpretation. You could even say it’s an arbitrary assumption. However, there is one good thing about subjectivity: It allows you to make your own choice. Precisely because I am leaving it to subjectivity, the choice to view my height as either an advantage or disadvantage is left open to me.
PHILOSOPHER: In other words, value is something that’s based on a social context. The value given to a one-dollar bill is not an objectively attributed value, though that might be a commonsense approach. If one considers its actual cost as printed material, the value is nowhere near a dollar. If I were the only person in this world and no one else existed, I’d probably be putting those one-dollar bills in my fireplace in wintertime. Maybe I’d be using them to blow my nose. Following exactly the same logic, there should have been no reason at all for me to worry about my height. YOUTH: If you were the only person in this world and no one else existed? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. The problem of value in the end brings us back to interpersonal relationships again.
PHILOSOPHER: Adler says, “In fact, if we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be, the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.” The baby rules over the adults with his weakness. And it is because of this weakness that no one can control him.
When we refer to the pursuit of superiority, there’s a tendency to think of it as the desire to try to be superior to other people; to climb higher, even if it means kicking others down—you know, the image of ascending a stairway and pushing people out of the way to get to the top. Adler does not uphold such attitudes, of course. Rather, he’s saying that on the same level playing field, there are people who are moving forward, and there are people who are moving forward behind them. Keep that image in mind. Though the distance covered and the speed of walking differ, everyone is walking equally in the same flat place. The pursuit of superiority is the mind-set of taking a single step forward on one’s own feet, not the mind-set of competition of the sort that necessitates aiming to be greater than other people. YOUTH: So life is not a competition? PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. It’s enough to just keep moving in a forward direction, without competing with anyone. And, of course, there is no need to compare oneself with others.
PHILOSOPHER: A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self. YOUTH: But . . . PHILOSOPHER: Look, all of us are different. Gender, age, knowledge, experience, appearance—no two of us are exactly the same. Let’s acknowledge in a positive manner the fact that other people are different from us. And that we are not the same, but we are equal. YOUTH: We are not the same, but we are equal? PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Everyone is different. Don’t mix up that difference with good and bad, and superior and inferior. Whatever differences we may have, we are all equal.
PHILOSOPHER: In terms of the amount of knowledge and experience, and then the amount of responsibility that can be taken, there are bound to be differences. The child might not be able to tie his shoes properly, or figure out complicated mathematical equations, or be able to take the same degree of responsibility as an adult when problems arise. However, such things shouldn’t have anything to do with human values. My answer is the same. Human beings are all equal, but not the same. YOUTH: Then are you saying that a child should be treated like a full-grown adult? PHILOSOPHER: No. Instead of treating the child like an adult, or like a child, one must treat him or her like a human being. One interacts with the child with sincerity, as another human being just like oneself. YOUTH: Let’s change the question. All people are equal. They’re on the same level playing field. But actually, there’s a disparity here, isn’t there? Those who move forward are superior, and those who pursue them from behind are inferior. So we end up at the problem of superior and inferior, don’t we? PHILOSOPHER: No, we do…
PHILOSOPHER: If someone were to abuse me to my face, I would think about the person’s hidden goal. Even if you are not directly abusive, when you feel genuinely angry due to another person’s words or behavior, please consider that the person is challenging you to a power struggle. YOUTH: A power struggle? PHILOSOPHER: For instance, a child will tease an adult with various pranks and misbehaviors. In many cases, this is done with the goal of getting attention and will cease just before the adult gets genuinely angry. However, if the child does not stop before the adult gets genuinely angry, then his goal is actually to get in a fight. YOUTH: Why would he want to get in a fight? PHILOSOPHER: He wants to win. He wants to prove his power by winning.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. There are probably a lot of people who feel mystified by seeing a child who cuts his wrists, and they think, Why would he do such a thing? But try to think how the people around the child—the parents, for instance—will feel as a result of the behavior of wrist cutting. If you do, the goal behind the behavior should come into view of its own accord. YOUTH: The goal being revenge? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. And once the interpersonal relationship reaches the revenge stage, it is almost impossible for either party to find a solution. To prevent this from happening, when one is challenged to a power struggle, one must never allow oneself to be taken in.
YOUTH: But what if they come at you with mistaken accusations, or make insulting comments? I shouldn’t get angry even then? PHILOSOPHER: You don’t seem to understand yet. It’s not that you mustn’t get angry, but that there is no need to rely on the tool of anger. Irascible people do not have short tempers—it is only that they do not know that there are effective communication tools other than anger. That is why people end up saying things like “I just snapped” or, “He flew into a rage.” We end up relying on anger to communicate. YOUTH: Effective communication tools other than anger . . . PHILOSOPHER: We have language. We can communicate through language. Believe in the power of language and the language of logic.
PHILOSOPHER: One more thing about power struggles. In every instance, no matter how much you might think you are right, try not to criticize the other party on that basis. This is an interpersonal relationship trap that many people fall into. YOUTH: Why’s that? PHILOSOPHER: The moment one is convinced that “I am right” in an interpersonal relationship, one has already stepped into a power struggle. YOUTH: Just because you think you’re right? No way, that’s just blowing things all out of proportion. PHILOSOPHER: I am right. That is to say, the other party is wrong. At that point, the focus of the discussion shifts from “the rightness of the assertions” to “the state of the interpersonal relationship.” In other words, the conviction that “I am right” leads to the assumption that “this person is wrong,” and finally it becomes a contest and you are thinking, I have to win. It’s a power struggle through and through.
Adlerian psychology is a psychology for changing oneself, not a psychology for changing others. Instead of waiting for others to change or waiting for the situation to change, you take the first step forward yourself.
PHILOSOPHER: But Adler does not accept restricting one’s partner. If the person seems to be happy, one can frankly celebrate that condition. That is love. Relationships in which people restrict each other eventually fall apart. YOUTH: Wait, that’s an argument that can only lead to affirming infidelity. Because if one’s partner were happily having an affair, you’re saying that one should celebrate even that. PHILOSOPHER: No, I am not affirming someone having an affair. Think about it this way: The kind of relationship that feels somehow oppressive and strained when the two people are together cannot be called love, even if there is passion. When one can think, Whenever I am with this person, I can behave very freely, one can really feel love. One can be in a calm and quite natural state, without having feelings of inferiority or being beset with the need to flaunt one’s superiority. That is what real love is like. Restriction, on the other hand, is a manifestation of the mind-set of attempting to control one’s partner, and also an idea founded on a sense of distrust. Being in the same space with someone who distrusts you isn’t a natural situation that one can put up with, is it? As Adler says, “If two people want to live together on good terms, they must treat each other as equal personalities.”
YOUTH: Ha-ha, if we’re looking for people I don’t like, there’s no shortage of candidates. PHILOSOPHER: But it isn’t that you dislike Mr. A because you can’t forgive his flaws. You had the goal of taking a dislike to Mr. A beforehand and then started looking for the flaws to satisfy that goal. YOUTH: That’s ridiculous! Why would I do that? PHILOSOPHER: So that you could avoid an interpersonal relationship with Mr. A. YOUTH: No way, that’s completely out of the question. It’s obvious that the order of things is backward. He did something I didn’t like, that’s why. If he hadn’t, I’d have no reason for taking a dislike to him. PHILOSOPHER: No, you are wrong. It’s easy to see if you think back on the example of separating from a person whom one has been in a love relationship with. In relationships between lovers or married couples, there are times when, after a certain point, one becomes exasperated with everything one’s partner says or does. For instance, she doesn’t care for the way he eats; his slovenly appearance at home fills her with revulsion, and even his snoring sets her off. Even though until a few months ago, none of it had ever bothered her before. YOUTH: Yes, that sounds familiar. PHILOSOPHER: The person feels this way because at some stage she has resolved to herself, I want to end this relationship, and she has been looking around for the material with which to end it. The other person hasn’t changed at all. It is her own goal that has changed. Look, people are…
YOUTH: But how can you conclude that I am lying? You don’t know anything about what kind of people I have around me, or what kind of life I lead, do you? PHILOSOPHER: True, I don’t know anything about your past. Not about your parents, or your elder brother either. I know only one thing. YOUTH: What’s that? PHILOSOPHER: The fact that you—and no one else—are the one who decided your lifestyle.
YOUTH: So you’re out to condemn me. But you’re calling people liars and cowards. And saying that everyone is my responsibility. PHILOSOPHER: You must not use the power of anger to look away. This is a very important point. Adler never discusses the life tasks or life-lies in terms of good and evil. It is not morals or good and evil that we should be discussing, but the issue of courage. YOUTH: Courage again! PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Even if you are avoiding your life tasks and clinging to your life-lies, it isn’t because you are steeped in evil. It is not an issue to be condemned from a moralistic standpoint. It is only an issue of courage.
YOUTH: So it’s that statement: “It’s not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment.” PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Thank you for remembering it. Freudian etiology is a psychology of possession, and eventually it arrives at determinism. Adlerian psychology, on the other hand, is a psychology of use, and it is you who decides it.
Well, I couldn’t find any answers. But I did find this—it’s not my own idea, but something I came across at the library, a line from a novel by Dostoevsky: “Money is coined freedom.” What do you think? Isn’t “coined freedom” a rather refreshing term? But seriously, I was fascinated to find this one line that drove right to the heart of this thing called money. PHILOSOPHER: I see. Certainly, if one were to speak in a very general sense of the true nature of that which is brought about by money, one might say that is freedom. It is an astute observation, to be sure. But you wouldn’t go so far as to say that “freedom therefore is money,” would you? YOUTH: It’s exactly as you say. There probably is freedom that can be gained by way of money. And I’m sure that freedom is greater than we imagine. Because, in reality, all the necessities of life are dealt with through financial transactions. Does it follow, then, that if one possesses great wealth, one can be free? I don’t believe that is the case; I would certainly like to believe that it is not the case, and that human values and human happiness cannot be bought with money.
PHILOSOPHER: In the teachings of Judaism, one finds a view that goes something like this: If you are not living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you? You are living only your own life. When it comes to who you are living it for, of course it’s you. And then, if you are not living your life for yourself, who could there be to live it instead of you? Ultimately, we live thinking about “I.” There is no reason that we must not think that way.
PHILOSOPHER: Wishing so hard to be recognized will lead to a life of following expectations held by other people who want you to be “this kind of person.” In other words, you throw away who you really are and live other people’s lives. And please remember this: If you are not living to satisfy other people’s expectations, it follows that other people are not living to satisfy your expectations. Someone might not act the way you want him to, but it doesn’t do to get angry. That’s only natural.
PHILOSOPHER: In general, all interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having one’s own tasks intruded on. Carrying out the separation of tasks is enough to change one’s interpersonal relationships dramatically. YOUTH: Hmm. I don’t really get it. In the first place, how can you tell whose task it is? From my point of view, realistically speaking, getting one’s child to study is the duty of the parents. Because almost no child studies just out of enjoyment, and after all is said and done, the parent is the child’s guardian. PHILOSOPHER: There is a simple way to tell whose task it is. Think, Who ultimately is going to receive the result brought about by the choice that is made? When the child has made the choice of not studying, ultimately, the result of that decision—not being able to keep up in class or to get into the preferred school, for instance—does not have to be received by the parents. Clearly, it is the child who has to receive it. In other words, studying is the child’s task.
PHILOSOPHER: It’s true that one often hears parents today using the phrase “It’s for your own good.” But they are clearly doing so in order to fulfill their own goals, which could be their appearance in the eyes of society, their need to put on airs, or their desire for control, for example. In other words, it is not “for your own good” but for the parents’. And it is because the child senses this deception that he rebels. YOUTH: So even if the child hasn’t been studying at all, you’re saying that, since it’s his task, I should just let him be? PHILOSOPHER: One has to pay attention. Adlerian psychology does not recommend the noninterference approach. Noninterference is the attitude of not knowing, and not even being interested in knowing what the child is doing. Instead, it is by knowing what the child is doing that one protects him. If it’s studying that is the issue, one tells the child that that is his task, and one lets him know that one is ready to assist him whenever he has the urge to study. But one must not intrude on the child’s task. When no requests are being made, it does not do to meddle in things. YOUTH: Does this go beyond parent-child relationships? PHILOSOPHER: Yes, of course. In Adlerian psychology counseling, for instance, we do not think of the client’s changing or not changing as the task of the counselor. YOUTH: What are you saying here? PHILOSOPHER: As a result of having received counseling, what kind of resolution does the client make? To change his…
YOUTH: Then, suppose your own child had shut himself in, what would you do? Please answer this not as a philosopher but as a parent. PHILOSOPHER: First, I myself would think, This is the child’s task. I would try not to intervene in his shut-in situation, and I would refrain from focusing too much attention on it. Then I would send a message to him to the effect that I am ready to assist him whenever he is in need. In that way, the child, having sensed a change in his parent, will have no choice but to make it his own task to think about what he should do. He’ll probably come and ask for assistance, and he’ll probably try to work some things out on his own.
PHILOSOPHER: Then let’s envision a scene in which your parents are vehemently opposing your choice of place of employment. They were in fact against it, weren’t they? YOUTH: Yes, they were. I wouldn’t go so far as saying they were vehemently opposed, but they did make various snide remarks. PHILOSOPHER: Well, let’s exaggerate it and say they were vehemently opposed. Your father was ranting and raving with emotion, and your mother was protesting your decision with tears in her eyes. They absolutely do not approve of you becoming a librarian, and if you will not take on the family business like your brother has, they may very well disown you. But how to come to terms with the emotion of “not approving” is your parents’ task, not yours. It is not a problem for you to worry about. YOUTH: Now wait a minute. Are you saying that it doesn’t matter how sad I make my parents feel? PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. It doesn’t matter. YOUTH: You’ve got to be joking! Could there be such a thing as a philosophy that recommends unfilial behavior? PHILOSOPHER: All you can do with regard to your own life is choose the best path that you believe in. On the other hand, what kind of judgment do other people pass on that choice? That is the task of other people, and is not a matter you can do anything about.
PHILOSOPHER: That is Adler’s life-lie again. I can’t do my work because I’ve been shunned by my boss. It’s the boss’s fault that my work isn’t going well. The person who says such things is bringing up the existence of the boss as an excuse for the work that doesn’t go well. Much like the female student with the fear of blushing, it’s actually that you need the existence of an awful boss. Because then you can say, “If only I didn’t have this boss, I could get more work done.” YOUTH: No, you don’t know my relationship with my boss! I wish you would stop making arbitrary guesses. PHILOSOPHER: This is a discussion that is concerned with the fundamentals of Adlerian psychology. If you are angry, nothing will sink in. You think, I’ve got that boss, so I can’t work. This is complete etiology. But it’s really, I don’t want to work, so I’ll create an awful boss, or I don’t want to acknowledge my incapable self, so I’ll create an awful boss. That would be the teleological way of looking at it. YOUTH: That’s probably how it’d be framed in your stock teleology approach. But in my case, it’s different. PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you had done the separation of tasks. How would things be? In other words, no matter how much your boss tries to vent his unreasonable anger at you, that is not your task. The unreasonable emotions are tasks for your boss to deal with himself. There is no need to cozy up to him, or to yield to him to the point of bowing down. You should think, What I should do is…
First, one should ask, “Whose task is this?” Then do the separation of tasks. Calmly delineate up to what point one’s own tasks go, and from what point they become another person’s tasks. And do not intervene in other people’s tasks, or allow even a single person to intervene in one’s own tasks. This is a specific and revolutionary viewpoint that is unique to Adlerian psychology and contains the potential to utterly change one’s interpersonal relationship problems.
But consider this: From an ethical or moral point of view, could it be said to be the right thing to do? That is to say, a way of living that draws boundaries between oneself and others. Because wouldn’t you be brushing other people away and saying, “That’s intervention!” whenever they were worried about you and asked how you’re doing? It seems to me that this is something that treads on the goodwill of others. PHILOSOPHER: Have you heard of Alexander the Great? YOUTH: Alexander the Great? Yes, I learned about him in world history. PHILOSOPHER: He was a Macedonian king who lived in the fourth century before Christ. When he was advancing on the Persian kingdom of Lydia, he learned of a chariot enshrined in the acropolis. The chariot had been secured tightly to a pillar in the temple by Gordias, the former king, and there was a local legend that said, “He who unravels this knot shall be master of Asia.” It was a tightly wound knot that many men of skill had been certain they could unbind, but no one had succeeded. Now, what do you think Alexander the Great did when he stood before this knot? YOUTH: Well, didn’t he unravel the legendary knot with ease, and go on to become the ruler of Asia? PHILOSOPHER: No, that’s not how it happened. As soon as Alexander the Great saw how tight the knot was, he pulled out his sword and sliced it in half with one stroke. YOUTH: Wow! PHILOSOPHER: Then, it is said that he declared, “Destiny is not something brought about by legend, but by…
PHILOSOPHER: For instance, when reading a book, if one brings one’s face too close to it, one cannot see anything. In the same way, forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance. When the distance gets too small and people become stuck together, it becomes impossible to even speak to each other. But the distance must not be too great, either. Parents who scold their children too much become mentally very distant. When this happens, the child can no longer even consult the parents, and the parents can no longer give the proper assistance. One should be ready to lend a hand when needed but not encroach on the person’s territory. It is important to maintain this kind of moderate distance. YOUTH: Is distance necessary even in the kind of relationship that parents and children have? PHILOSOPHER: Of course. Earlier you said that the separation of tasks is something that treads on the other person’s goodwill. That is a notion that is tied to reward. It’s the idea that when another person does something for you, you have to do something in return—even if that person does not want anything. Rather than responding to the goodwill, it is just being tied to reward. No matter what sort of appeal the other person might make, you are the only one who decides what you should do. YOUTH: Reward is at the root of what I am calling “ties”? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. When reward is at the base of an interpersonal relationship, there’s a feeling that wells up in one that…
PHILOSOPHER: However, there are certainly situations in which it would be easier to intervene in the tasks of another person without doing any separation of tasks—for instance, in a child-raising situation, when a child is having a hard time tying his shoes. For the busy mother, it is certainly faster to tie them than to wait for him to do it himself. But that is an intervention, and it is taking the child’s task away from him. And as a result of repeating that intervention, the child will cease to learn anything, and will lose the courage to face his life tasks. As Adler says, “Children who have not been taught to confront challenges will try to avoid all challenges.” YOUTH: But that is such a dry way of thinking. PHILOSOPHER: When Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot, there were probably those who felt the same way: that the unraveling of the knot by hand had meaning, and that it was a mistake to cut it with a sword; that Alexander had misunderstood the meaning of the oracle’s words. In Adlerian psychology, there are aspects that are antithetical to normal social thinking. It denies etiology,…
PHILOSOPHER: An adult, who has chosen an unfree way to live, on seeing a young person living freely here and now in this moment, criticizes the youth as being hedonistic. Of course, this is a life-lie that comes out so that the adult can accept his own unfree life. An adult who has chosen real freedom himself will not make such comments and will instead cheer on the will to be free. YOUTH: All right, so what you are maintaining is that freedom is the issue? Let’s get to the main point. You’ve been using the word “freedom” a lot, but what does freedom mean to you, anyway? How can we be free?
Even so, regardless of our efforts, there are people who dislike me and people who dislike you. This, too, is a fact. When you are disliked, or feel that you are being disliked, by someone, what state of mind does it put you in? YOUTH: Very distressed, to put it simply. I wonder why I’ve come to be disliked, and what I did or said that might have been offensive. I think I should have interacted with the person in a different way, and I just brood and brood over it and am ridden with guilt. PHILOSOPHER: Not wanting to be disliked by other people. To human beings, this is an entirely natural desire, and an impulse. Kant, the giant of modern philosophy, called this desire “inclination.” YOUTH: Inclination? PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it is one’s instinctive desires, one’s impulsive desires. Now, if one were to say that living like a stone tumbling downhill and allowing such inclinations or desires or impulses to take one wherever they will is “freedom,” one would be incorrect. To live in such a way is only to be a slave to one’s desires and impulses. Real freedom is an attitude akin to pushing up one’s tumbling self from below. YOUTH: Pushing oneself up from below? PHILOSOPHER: A stone is powerless. Once it has begun to roll downhill, it will continue to roll until released from the natural laws of gravity and inertia. But we are not stones. We are beings who are capable of resisting inclination. We can stop our tumbling selves and climb uphill. The desire for recognition is probably a…
PHILOSOPHER: You’ve probably been thinking of freedom as “release from organizations.” That breaking away from your home or school, your company or your nation is freedom. However, if you were to break away from your organization, for instance, you would not be able to gain real freedom. Unless one is unconcerned by other people’s judgments, has no fear of being disliked by other people, and pays the cost that one might never be recognized, one will never be able to follow through in one’s own way of living. That is to say, one will not be able to be free. YOUTH: Be disliked by other people—is that what you are saying? PHILOSOPHER: What I am saying is, don’t be afraid of being disliked. YOUTH: But that’s— PHILOSOPHER: I am not telling you to go so far as to live in such a way that you will be disliked, and I am not saying engage in wrongdoing. Please do not misunderstand that. YOUTH: No. Then let’s change the question. Can people actually endure the weight of freedom? Are people that strong? To not care even if one is disliked by one’s own parents—can one become so self-righteously defiant? PHILOSOPHER: One neither prepares to be self-righteous nor becomes defiant. One just separates tasks. There may be a person who does not think well of you, but that is not your task. And again, thinking things like He should like me or I’ve done all this, so it’s strange that he doesn’t like me, is the reward-oriented way of thinking of having intervened in another person’s tasks. One…
PHILOSOPHER: One can think from the viewpoint that it is an interpersonal relationship card. As long as I use etiology to think, It is because he hit me that I have a bad relationship with my father, it would be a matter that was impossible for me to do anything about. But if I can think, I brought out the memory of being hit because I don’t want my relationship with my father to get better, then I will be holding the card to repair relations. Because if I can just change the goal, that fixes everything.
YOUTH: I wonder if you really feel so from the bottom of your heart. I can understand it in theory, but the feeling just doesn’t sit right with me. PHILOSOPHER: Then it’s the separation of tasks. It’s true that my father and I had a complicated relationship. He was a stubborn person, and I could never imagine his feelings being able to change easily. Moreover, there was a strong possibility that he had even forgotten ever raising his hands against me. However, at the time of making my resolution to repair relations, it did not matter to me what sort of lifestyle my father had, or what he thought of me, or the kind of attitude he might adopt in response to my approach—such things didn’t matter at all. Even if there were no intention to repair relations on his side, I would not mind in the least. The issue was whether or not I would resolve to do it, and I was always holding the interpersonal relationship cards. YOUTH: You were always holding the interpersonal relationship cards? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Many people think that the interpersonal relationship cards are held by the other person. That is why they wonder, How does that person feel about me? and end up living in such a way as to satisfy the wishes of other people. But if they can grasp the separation of tasks, they will notice that they are holding all the cards. This is a new way of thinking. YOUTH: So due to your changing, did your father change too? PHILOSOPHER: I did not change in order to change my father. That is an…
