A Journey through My Diverse Perspectives

  Since retiring, my wife and I have made it a daily habit to walk around our neighborhood. To keep the routine from becoming monotonous, we vary our route each time, and occasionally drive 10 to 15 minutes to a nearby park or other pleasant place for a change of scenery. One of our favorite destinations is a lush municipal sports center about ten minutes from home, where we sometimes enjoy walking along the surrounding paths. Yesterday and today, however, we tried something different: instead of walking outdoors, we exercised in the center’s gym and used several pieces of fitness equipment. It was my wife’s first visit to a gym, and for me, it had been more than a decade. We both approached the experience with fresh eyes and discovered that we had more physical stamina than we had expected, which gave us renewed confidence. It was also fascinating to realize how differently we viewed the same sports center simply because our purpose had changed. A familiar place can feel surprisin...

  Throughout my career, I devoted myself to acquiring the practical knowledge and skills needed to achieve meaningful results. After retiring, however, I gradually drifted away from my professional field, and my interests naturally expanded to broader subjects such as history and physics. There is a quiet joy in discovering, one by one, things I had never known before and satisfying my pure intellectual curiosity. That feeling resembles the deep contentment of enjoying a truly satisfying meal. As a citizen, I also remain interested in politics, economics, diplomacy, and national security. Yet these fields are deeply shaped by conflicting human interests, values, and ambitions. Even when I gain new knowledge in those areas, it rarely satisfies my intellectual curiosity in the same way, because the issues are shaped less by universal principles than by conflicting human interests and values.

  From the expansion of the universe to the fluctuations of elementary particles, the world we inhabit is filled with profound mystery and astonishing precision. It is hard not to marvel at the laws and order that govern it all. Yet we go about our daily lives largely unaware of this, focusing instead on the narrow confines of our routines, where our emotions rise and fall with the ordinary events before us. In truth, however, we exist between the ultra-microscopic and the ultra-macroscopic realms. Simply recognizing that our lives unfold within this miraculous space brings a quiet sense of awe and spiritual clarity.

  While I have no scientific evidence to support this, reflecting on my own life and watching interviews with older adults has led me to believe that people who habitually say, “I’m too old,” often seem to age more quickly—both physically and mentally. By the time they reach their fifties and beyond, they may appear and think noticeably older than many of their peers. In contrast, those who pay little attention to their age, remain deeply curious, and creatively enrich their daily lives sometimes appear more than a decade younger than others of the same age, even in their eighties or nineties. While many factors influence how we age, these observations suggest that our mindset plays a powerful role in sustaining the inner vitality needed to live a vibrant life.

  Through simple acts of kindness, anyone can offer others moments of “Ikigai”—a sense of purpose or something to live for. For example, taking elderly residents who are largely confined to their care facility on a short drive to enjoy the beauty of nearby forests, rivers, or parks can provide a welcome change of scenery. Even an outing of little more than an hour allows them to step away from the healthy yet monotonous routine of daily life, lifting their spirits, refreshing their minds, and renewing their sense of “Ikigai.” This is just one example, but whenever we have the opportunity to bring meaning to someone else's life—offering our time and care freely, without expecting anything in return, and in a way that remains sustainable—it is in those moments that we truly shine as supporting characters, even while remaining the protagonists of our own lives.

  We are naturally drawn to—and often admire—people who live vibrantly, enriching their daily lives with courage and ingenuity despite the limitations they face. Their example inspires us to emulate, at least in part, the spirit of their way of living. A Japanese proverb says that children grow up by watching their parents' backs, and the same psychological dynamic quietly shapes us throughout life.