Welcome to Running: A FEVER. My name is Michael Davis, and this is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end.
I haven’t been watching it lately, but I enjoy a YouTube show called That Pedal Show, which is ostensibly about guitar effects pedals but actually delves into a variety of music-related topics, including classic guitars, playing techniques, and genres of music. They often feature guest musicians representing various genres, as well as other guests who are involved in the guitar and effects industry. One of the co-hosts has an interest in philosophy and is seeking to improve his life, mental health, and overall happiness. On the show, he recommended a book by Japanese philosopher Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, a professional writer. The title is The Courage To Be Disliked: How to free yourself, change your life, and achieve real happiness.
I was intrigued, so I recently read the book. It was interesting. Not exactly a page-turner, but serious works of philosophy rarely are. There is a table of contents, but it would have been nice to have an index as well. Surprisingly, for a book with “happiness” in the title, the point of view expressed is often negative—things to avoid or mistaken ideas. However, I still think it is valuable. Please note that the book covers a wide range of topics, and I won’t be able to delve into them all. This is just a sampling to provide an overview. I hope these will be valuable to you and help you decide whether or not to read the book. So here we go.
The book is presented as a conversation between an old philosopher and a young protege. It is set in the philosopher’s study and takes place over the course of several nights. Ichiro himself is an adherent of the early twentieth-century philosopher, psychiatrist, neurologist, and ophthalmologist Alfred Adler, a colleague and competitor of Sigmund Freud.
1. Unhappiness is something you choose for yourself. Kishimi indicates that the root of this is a resistance to change. What might have happened to us that made us unhappy is in the past. In the present, we can choose our lifestyle, which will determine only what our life is like in the present. No one knows what the future holds, but if we don’t choose to change, we can be assured that those things that are under our control will not improve. It is tough to change because where we are is a comfortable place, even if only because it is familiar.
2. Overcoming the tasks that face you in life. To the Philosopher, all problems stem from interpersonal relationships. The functions of life all contain elements of these relationships. Even if your work is mostly solitary, such as writing books, there are essential components to the task, including editors, publishers, and readers. Ignorance of this fact tends to make you focus on the wrong area. Focus on the relationships in your life to improve them.
3. Deny the desire for recognition. The source of many of these interpersonal relationship problems is a desire to please others, as well as being overly concerned about what other people think about us. Absolute freedom means being disliked by other people; thus, the title of the book is The Courage to be Disliked. The fact is that despite any of our efforts to the contrary, there will always be people who dislike us. To live one’s life to please others is like a stone rolling down a hill. What arrives at the bottom will not be one’s authentic self. But this desire for the approval of others may be an instinct. To live without succumbing to this desire to please others is like pushing a stone uphill; it takes effort and strength. It takes courage.
4. You are not the center of the world. It may seem that this statement contradicts the denial of the desire for recognition. But as was alluded to earlier, interpersonal relationships are the key to life. If I’m only concerned about myself, I will find myself outside of any community and without those relationships. The goal is not to avoid them, but to actively participate in the community and care for others without needing their approval. An excellent illustration that the Philosopher uses is that of a map versus a globe. A French map of the world shows the Americas on the left, Asia on the right, and Europe in the center. In contrast, a Chinese map shows the Americas on the right and Europe on the left. A map always puts the reader in the center of the world. A globe, on the other hand, has no point of view specific to any continent or country. It depicts the entire Earth. Think in terms of a globe rather than a map.
5. You can be happy now. “For a Human, the greatest unhappiness is not being able to like oneself.” Happiness is a feeling of being of value, of contributing to a community. The things we do for the community are not based on a desire to be liked, but rather a desire to be of service and be a part of something bigger. When we feel that value produced, we see value in ourselves, and that is the best reason for liking ourselves.
There are several excerpts from the philosophy of Ichiro Kishimi, as presented in the book “The Courage to Be Disliked.”
Reference:
Ichiro Kishimi and Koga Fumitake. The Courage to Be Disliked. London, Allen & Unwin, 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Adler