To wait. In our lives we know joy, anger, sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, but these emotions all together occupy a bare one percent of our time. The remaining ninety-nine percent is just living in waiting. I wait in momentary expectation, feeling as though my breasts are being crushed, for the sound in the corridor of the footsteps of happiness. Empty. Oh, life is too painful, the reality that confirms the universal belief that it is best not to be born.
Interpretation
Life is largely defined by waiting for moments of happiness, while most of our existence is filled with pain and emptiness.
In this quote, Osamu Dazai reflects on the human experience, emphasizing that our emotions, though vivid and intense, only fill a small portion of our lives. The overwhelming majority of our existence is spent in a state of waiting, often filled with an awareness of the pain and emptiness that life can bring, leading to a profound sense of despair about existence itself. Dazai suggests that the anticipation of happiness is overshadowed by the suffering that accompanies daily life.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a reflective discussion about the nature of happiness and the human condition.
I soon came to understand that drink, tobacco and prostitutes were all great means if dissipating (even for a few moments) my dread for human beings. I came even to feel that if I had to sell every last possession to obtain these means of escape, it would be well worth it.
I want to spend my time with people who don't look to be respected. But such good people won't want to spend their time with me.
In my case such an expression as 'to be fallen for' or even 'to be loved' is not in the least appropriate; perhaps it describes the situation more accurately to say that I was 'looked after.
Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in the world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people. But those people can fight their unhappiness with society fairly and squarly, and society for its part easily understands and sympathizes with such struggles. My unhappiness stemmed entirely from my own vices, and I had no way of fighting anybody.
As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.
It would seem that the more irresponsible and crafty one is, the more likely one is to have a talent for storytelling.
Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.
The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.
If your busy with yourself now, you will be busy with yourself then. If you are busy with Allah now, you will be with Him then.
And in truth (as I now see) I had the wish to put off my journey as long as I could. Not for any peril or labour it might cost; but because I could see nothing in the whole world for me to do once it was accomplished. AS long as this act lay before me, there was, as it were, some barrier between me and the dead desert which the rest of my life must be.
Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?
We live in a world of communication - everyone gets information about everyone else. There is universal comparison and you don't just compare yourself with the people next door, you compare yourself to people all over the world and with what is being presented as the decent, proper and dignified life. It's the crime of humiliation.
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