“The Heart of Things”

Walking into my job each day was tiring. Dealing with unreasonable customers and nagging bosses was what I had to look forward to. I hung my worn purse on the coat hook behind the green door in the office and turned to ready myself for another all consuming long shift of corn meal and asking people “what can I get you honey?”

However, that particular day was just remotely different than the others. A small soft cover book sat at the corner of the desk and I stopped to take a look. The novel was titled Kokoro. A novel by Natsume Sōseki.

At that moment I had no real time to study the novel but I was determined to see just what this book was about. Later that night after washing all of the corn meal out and stench of pizza from my body I sat down to asses this book that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Perhaps it was destined for Me to discover Sōseki and everything he taught me in such a short time. Or maybe I am just a book thief who was addicted to books she’d never seen before. If it means anything to anyone I vote for the first option.

First thing was first. I looked up the meaning of Kokoro. Simply translated it means, “the heart of things.” Opening the front cover I discovered that I had to have been living underneath a rock because apparently this novel was very well known. I know, just kill me now.

Kokoro has been recognized by the United Nations as a Japanese translations collection and was studied in colleges around the world. Natsume Soseki had written this novel two years before his death. He chose to write about his mentorship and friendship with a man he decided to call Sensei. We will never learn Sensei’s name within the novel but somehow that makes the story all the more personal.

I have to say that I was not prepared for how much Kokoro drew me to think about life and past experiences shaping you into the human you ultimately become before you die. This read was a heavy one and I am here to tell you just how it made me realize things about myself and my new love for Soseki and Sensei. Now, this novel will not likely leave you feeling elated or lighter in your frustrations. Nor will it tell you how to combat the demons we all deal with in life. This article along with this novel i perceive was to make you think, question who you are, and if you may be capable of changing who you are because of the things you have gone through. And honestly, I do not believe Soseki to have thought that within the year 2020, his book would still hold so much relevance in today’s societies.

The story was told in first person, Soseki being himself an adolescent, meeting the main protagonist he called Sensei. Throughout the novel Sensei becomes a sort of teacher to Soseki. A rather harsh and straightforward one. Soseki knew what he was doing when naming Sensei the way he did. Calling him Sensei made us all pay very close to the words he says to Soseki throughout the entire book. In continuance we further try to understand the person Sensei is. Soseki does this in such a quiet manner that you are almost surprised at how invested you become in Sensei and Soseki's relationship.

In the beginning of 'Sensei and I ' we are formally introduced to Sensei. As I read i immediately made the observation of Sensei being a man content in his loneliness. I saw sadness and almost a lack of empathy. In agreeance with Soseki, you become curious as to how he ended up that way.

For me, this is where Soseki's brilliance really shines through. He made me become invested in discovering the truth behind Sensei.

Soseki briefly described Sensei as,

"a man capable of love, or should i say rather a man who was by nature incapable of not loving; but a man who could not whole-heartedly accept the love of another-such a one was Sensei."

Soseki is drawn to Sensei because of his loneliness within his family. He seemingly looks for it within his friendship with Sensei. We briefly touch on the subject of love within Kokoro but its importance was more minute than everything else. The center focus was more along the lines of loneliness and it was not hard to see why. Sensei came off as a very lonely man from the beginning. My interpretation of him was one of sadness and contentment in loneliness. Ultimately I came to question why Sensei was the way he was. He soon goes on to tell Soseki,

"I do not want your admiration now, because i do not want your insults in the future."

i read these lines over many times, and as i realize that Sensei is simply saying to Soseki that he should not have expectations of him because he will more likely not live up to them. Sensei would rather avoid crossing that bridge if they came to it. Once again i found myself astounded at how many people do this in present day. We tend to assume that we will not live up to people's expectations and we are afraid of letting the people we care for down. So our defense mechanisms are to reject any expectation all together, even to ourselves. Our minds convince us that we are doing this to protect the ones we love, but aren't we really doing it to protect ourselves? Could it be that we and even Sensei do not want to face the fact that we have not lived up to the expectations we'd even set for ourselves?

Soseki again draws you in as he does not shy away from Sensei. In fact, he pushes onward. Towards the end of 'Sensei and I' we really see the two push and pull over revealing the humanity beneath the cloak of loneliness Sensei hides behind. Sensei is not exactly a great mentor but he was not entirely a bad one either. Though i found that Sensei gave advice no other Soseki encountered through out life would have been able to give him. And even though Soseki remained constant in Sensei's life Sensei held fast in trying to force Soseki away. At one point he says,

"But surely, when you are with me, you cannot rid yourself of your loneliness. I have not it in me to help you forget it. You will have to look elsewhere for the consolation you seek. And soon, you will find that you no longer want to visit me."

Sensei without proper reasoning began to already anticipate that Soseki was only drawn to him out of a similar sadness, and thought he was looking for comfort in a kindred soul. Sensei was too detached for such matters.

Still, to see Soseki continue to visit Sensei is a small bittersweet comfort. An unsuspecting character sheds more light than we realize on Sensei's defensiveness. His wife was only slightly less cryptic than him when speaking to Soseki. But she reveals that she feels responsible for the end result of Sensei.

We have already been made aware that Sensei lost someone important earlier on in his life that he chooses not to speak about but Soseki wonders if the death of one man could cause Sensei to become entirely settled and withdrawn.

As Soseki asked this question of Sensei's wife i debated it myself. Was one death enough to change a man so completely?

Towards the end of 'Sensei and I ' we really see the two push and pull over revealing the humanity beneath the cloak of loneliness Sensei hides behind. We soon see small changes in Sensei's behavior towards Soseki. He comes off as sincerely happy when Soseki finishes his thesis for college.

For me, Sensei still comes off as a bit harsh but I also have to remember that this is simply how Sensei is.

As Sensei offers his advice to Soseki i think that at some points he feels goes in one of Soseki's ears and out of the other. Soseki combats this by telling Sensei,

"I value your opinions because they are the results of your experiences. Your opinions would be worthless otherwise. They would be like soulless dolls."

It is interesting to me that Soseki uses the term 'lifeless dolls.' If Soseki and Sensei had not stumbled upon one another I feel that that is what Sensei would have ended up leaving this life being. Do I think that he left this world feeling like an entire whole human being; no. Sensei was still too far gone for such things to change him so completely.

For the second section of Kokoro, titled 'My parents and I' , I watched Soseki battle his feelings on almost waiting for death to take his father from him and the rest of his family he also struggles with trying to remain filial to a family he feels a lack of love from. In his inner turmoil we watch Soseki reach out in letters to Sensei for his advice and guidance. It is a subtle gesture that shows that you truly value the opinion of someone. This display was one that showed just how much Soseki's affection grew for Sensei.

I must be honest here. I was very upset and disappointed in Sensei when no return letters came. Again i grew angry with the way Sensei was. And again, i had to remind myself that this was just simply how Sensei was. Though i still questioned what made him so detached from human affection.

Much closer to Soseki's fathers death he finally received a pretty thick letter from Sensei. My heart was overjoyed with the news until Soseki began to read the letter. These would be the last words Sensei would ever say to Soseki, and when i came to that conclusion, i was immensely saddened. Here was a young man who saw past Sensei's raw and emotionless sendoffs, and his refusal to accept love as it was being given. Losing two important people within his life within the same time frame must have been close to unbearable. I know that Soseki rushed back to Yedo (Tokyo) as soon as he realized but by that time it was already too late. In learning of Sensei's death i was surprised to watch my emotions towards him change so suddenly. Had i not just been furious with the man a few moments ago?

Entering 'Sensei's Testament' i found myself just as eager to read what Sensei had to say to Soseki. Now i will not go into full detail on Sensei's life story because i feel that in order to truly understand Sensei you must read it for yourself. However, i will give my opinions and take on his long letter.

In reading Sensei's words, with him finally deciding to grant Soseki's wish in telling him his life story i found Sensei to have been a very kind-hearted, sweet, and almost innocent young boy. I could not help but to compare myself to Sensei. We all begin as innocent children. But then life takes hold and begins to strip away that innocence. For Sensei it was not slowly stripped but rather ripped hastily like a bandage on skin.

Loss was the first to come for him. He lost both of his parents very young and struggled through that pain. Then his uncle and his family betrayed him. Soseki in his reading was taken aback to find that Sensei held vengence in his heart. He admitted to becoming vengeful and insistent on making others around him feel his pain.

Once Sensei decided against vengeance and moved away from his remaining family he met the brief love we got to see. And there was a sense of beauty there but also a sense of unrealistic thoughts. In Sensei's time we see love depicted in a much different way than we see today. He fell in love with a woman's outward beauty. He wasn't very concerned with the state of her mind, or her personality even. Simple beauty drew him to her because he thought that he could find love that way.

That depiction for Sensei was ruined when an old friend of his going by the name of K. came into the picture. K wanted to live his life in a way that was not possible in that time and he was slowly killing himself trying to obtain it. Sensei in his last attempt with humanity took K beneath his wing and tried to protect him from himself. K ultimately betrayed him and proclaimed his love for Sensei's fiancee! To me this was one of the many straws that broke the camels back for Sensei. He'd tried to be a good person and the one friend whom he'd been closest tried to steal the love of his life. For me, i felt rage for Soseki. Again he had been betrayed by those he trusted and at this point i wanted to protect him the way a mother protects her children. But all i could do was continue to read and feel sorrow as Sensei continued.

Vengeance took hold of Sensei once more and he lashed out at K. causing him to commit suicide the night before Sensei's wedding. Sensei had felt terrible after lashing out and had intended on apologizing to K for his behavior but he had been too late.

I think that in the moment that Sensei got the news of Ks death, although not entirely his fault, felt utterly responsible. He had become exactly like the others that had hurt him through out his life and up until that point he had still held himself with some sort of regard. But now...

my thoughts returned to Soseki's question of Sensei's wife. Could one mans death really change another man so completely?

I knew the answer to Soseki's question now and i was pretty sure that Soseki knew it as well. The answer was yes. Yes because for Sensei, when he lost K he did not only lose faith in humanity. In that breath in time Sensei lost himself. He came to hate himself. That will change anyone for the worst.

Throughout the rest of Sensei's life he remained quiet about the demons that plagued him; Ks shadow following him through life. He suffered in great silence and that left him withdrawn. In my reading of Sensei's life all of the anger with the man dissipated for me. I came to truly understand him and his loneliness. He knew no other way to be. Life had not given him much choice.

Sensei committed suicide the day The emperor of Meiji passed away. Then End of the Era that Sensei had grown up in and knew his entire life was his send off notification if you will. He felt it only right in his Confucian mind that with then ending of the Era meant that there was no place for him in this new coming of age world. So he left his story to someone whom he trusted to keep safe and tell when ready. I believe that even towards the end of everything for the two, even though there was not an onslaught of emotion within their relationship i believe that Sensei left Soseki with many life lessons and shown him to not dwell in the loneliness everyone feels at some point within their lives. And Soseki gave Sensei the chance to unburden himself before he took his life.

After finishing Kokoro i found that all of us live with a sense of sadness, loneliness; we all feel vengeance and betrayal within our lives. But it is what we do in those lives and those moments that truly shape who we will become later on within our lives. And that humanity and self perseverance allow us to get to the heart of things.

To Soseki, thank you for your beautifully written words and emotion.

To Sensei, thank you for sharing your life with us and allwoing me to really face the loneliness within myself and want better.