1.

At the beginning part of “Flowers for Algernon,” there is a scene where Charlie, the main character who was intellectually challenged, was given an explanation about Algernon, an ultra-intellectual mouse which had undergone a special surgery, by his doctors: a piece of cheese at the goal motivated Algernon to run through a complicated maze whose goal even Charlie, who was a human, had trouble reaching.

That is, through this depiction, we can learn that even Algernon was a just mouse after all, and the usage of its boosted intelligence was only to fulfill one of its instinctive needs, its appetite (though at the latter part of the story, Charlie found that Algernon solved complicated problems even without rewards). I think a similar thing is also applicable to humans.

Humans cleverly make up lofty ideals to justify their deeds (Sometimes, even the person who advocates such an ideal themselves takes it seriously, so it may not be adequate to say that they “make them up,” though). Let me explain with some examples of historical figures in Japan. The goal Oda Nobunaga, a great warlord who lived in the 16th century, aimed at was to unify the whole country, and Itō Hirobumi, an elder statesman who contributed to the Meiji Restoration, aimed to make Japan strong enough to be on a par with Western powers. Both of them pursued the high and noble goals without a doubt. However, according to my penetrating view, I suspect that after all, (for some reasons such as eliminating their political opponents) they had just reached a point of no return while struggling to guarantee their own survival and fulfill their instinctive needs like appetite and sexual desire, so that they said such things to justify their own deeds.

We can cite so many more familiar examples without telling such big stories. Most of the ordinary entrepreneurs around us also define something like “serving for the world and humanity” as their management philosophies by all possible means, but it is often that they are basically greedy people. And they coat their own greed swirling within themselves this way only because they are well aware that if they revealed their real nature saying, “I want to be rich! I want to exploit others so that I can live an easy life! And I want to be popular among women!”, nobody would follow them eventually.

I emitted venom a bit, but I must admit that after all, it is also out of my own worldly desires such as hunger for money and recognition that I’m writing novels this way. Ultimately, we can say that what forms the basis of humans’ mind is instinct, and the function of intellect is to coat it to prevent it from causing us any discordance with society. We can’t recognize humans’ nature correctly without understanding this point, in my opinion.

I might be saying the same thing again, but for humans, instinct is master, and intellect is servant. Incidentally, I suppose humans feel happiness when they have been able to fulfill their own instinctive desires to some extent, not to say all of them, without causing discordance with society. Furthermore, every human wishes to be happy, needless to say. From this point of view, it can be said that we can’t blame others so easily even if we happen to catch a glimpse of their real nature (that is, their instinctive desires) in our daily lives. We ourselves are also mediocrities with irrepressible desires, who are merely reacting nervously to our changing situations, so when we point a finger at another person, the other three fingers point towards ourselves too.

2.

By the way, I’m a former medical student who quit the medical school aiming to be a novelist. I’m still in touch with some of my ex-classmates I got to know at the school, and one of them became a psychiatrist. I suppose thinking about what happened to him (let’s call him Honda) will give you an important insight to know how dangerous it is to make light of the function of instinct.

Honda had been an introvert person since he was a student. That might be why we were compatible. Even though I rarely joined the gatherings held by students such as group dates, I would eat out together with him a few times a month.

We always talked about literature and psychology on such occasions. It seemed that Honda had already decided that he would be a psychiatrist before I quit the school (I quit it in my third year). He had read a lot of psychology books, many of which are related to psychoanalysis, and he told me about such topics as Freudian psychosexual development theory and Jungian dream analysis, occasionally stating his personal views about them. Although he was a quiet man, he became quite eloquent when he talked about psychoanalysis at dinner with me. He, on those occasions, demonstrated a wealth of knowledge talking so fast and furious that all I did in most times was just listen to him silently.

Honda also was familiar with literature. He had read a variety of literary works centering on Japanese ones, and his favorite novelist was Haruki Murakami. As for me, my interest focused on foreign literature, so our areas of interest were totally different. However, it made our conversation all the more comfortable because it led to our providing each other with knowledge and viewpoints each of us didn’t have.

Like this, Honda was one of a few friends of mine when I was a medical student, and it seemed that the bond of friendship we had formed when we were young was unexpectedly strong, so that I met him several times a year even after I was no longer a medical student. I spent my life where I made a living working as a part-time juku (cram school) teacher and continued to write novels aiming to be a novelist whereas Honda graduated from the medical school to finally become a psychiatrist without problems, so our values had become quite different, but strangely we had been keeping in touch for years.

3.

Honda’s work seemed to be going well for a while after he became a psychiatrist. It seemed that he worked at a minor mental health clinic in the suburb. When we met, he cheerfully talked about unusual patients and interesting events he encountered in clinical practice.

“Today, a schizophrenia patient with delusions insisted that it was because of telekinesis he had sent, that renowned celebrity X divorced.”

Occasionally, he made fun of his patients with severe symptoms citing what they had said or done like this (I have no idea what he thought about that, but at least, I couldn’t help feeling he was making fun of them), which made me feel a slight discomfort, but it seemed that his skills and reputation as a doctor weren’t bad at all, so he rarely complained about his job.

However, after some years had passed since he began to work as a psychiatrist, I came to notice that he had undergone some changes, which made him bring up an endless complaint about such topics as welfare systems for people with mental disorders in Japan and prejudice and discrimination against them.

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According to him, though there were various welfare systems to relieve mentally disabled people such as disability pensions and medical expenses aid, none of them was sufficient. Moreover, he said psychiatrist’s time-saving clinical practices, so called “five-minute check-up,” were inevitable considering the lack of manpower in clinical site, and often expressed his dissatisfaction at the fact that he didn’t have time and energy to spare so he couldn’t closely monitor each patient’s state.

Since I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m not quite certain what kinds of problems there were in psychiatric care. It’s not my intention to deny, however, what he mentioned as a psychiatrist who worked in clinical site, and I assume what he talked about had a grain of truth.

Even so, now that I’ve become older, what I can’t help feeling is that what an individual person can do is limited whatever job they have after all, and as the end of Honda indicates (the details will be described later), too strong a sense of justice or extravagant sympathy for others can make our lives out-of-balance.

I know it very well now. I’m still active as both a juku teacher and a novelist, and what I can tell about both of them is that all I can do is just brighten up the mood a bit. Ultimately, the only thing I can do as a juku teacher is to hold a lesson or a class earnestly each day so that my students will think even just a little bit, “his lecture was worth listening to. It was instructive.” Of course, it is even better if my students’ grades improve, or they enter their first-choice school as a result of the accumulation of such daily efforts of mine.

However, even if I do my best like this, my students I eagerly taught and entered their first-choice universities may get into some trouble at universities, or they may suffer from the gap between their ideals and the reality after entering universities. However, such things are out of my reach unfortunately. Also, even if passing their entrance exams leads to ruining their lives, all I have done is just to do my best, so it’s very unlikely that they hold grudge against me, and even if they did, I wouldn't care.

The same goes for my activity as a novelist. It’s nonsense to even slightly think that my works may have an impact on society. After all, most of the people in society don’t read books written by other people so earnestly, and as a novelist too, all I can do is temporarily provide pleasure and joy so that my readers will think even just a little bit, “this book was worth reading.”

4,

Now that I’ve realized this, I might have been able to give a good advice to Honda if I traveled back in time. However, since I hadn’t attained such a state of mind in those days, I did nothing but inoffensively demonstrate empathy for his dissatisfaction caused by his indignation, saying,

“Strange things do happen. It doesn’t make sense.”

More time had passed since then, and in a certain year after we entered our thirties, one incident occurred. I felt it strange that the New Year’s card from him hadn’t arrived at the start of the year as usual, and I tried calling him, but oddly enough, he didn’t answer my call however many attempts I made.

Until then, Honda voluntarily e-mailed me at least once a month, and he was so methodical a man that he never left a number of missed calls.

I had a feeling that something bad was happening to him. Come to think of it, at the last meeting with him a few months before, I got the impression that he had become even thinner than before, and he also said something strange (I will reproduce the conversation we had then below).

“These days, I often go to a temple to practice Zen meditation.”

Honda suddenly changed the subject of conversation from the recollection about a professor of our school which we had been talking about with his big eyes glaring, which stood out more than usual because of his thinness.

“I see. That’s so you, who are deeply interested in human mind.”

When I answered so, he stated rapidly without paying attention to what I said,

“Zen meditation is a good way to clear our minds. I always think nothing is as ugly as humans’ worldly desires, or their instinct to be more precise. Probably you also know well how corrupted politicians in this nation are, and there are plenty of men in my trade who conduct poverty business, that is, the ugliest form of money making, dealing with the mentally disabled. They are all ugly. Moreover, patients with mental illnesses are ugly too. After all, those people are only concerned about themselves, and all they do is just ask for help: while their symptoms are severe, they say ‘Doctor, I’m so depressed that there is nothing I can do about it’; after recovering from them, this time, ‘I can’t work satisfactorily, so I’m short of money,’ and so on.’”

While saying so, he never made eye contact with me and spoke as eloquently as when he harangued about psychoanalysis in our school days.

“Even so, everyone has their own desires, and your patients are also suffering in reality, aren’t they? You would have trouble too without money, wouldn’t you?”

Hearing me ask so, he snappishly said in a strong tone,

“You just don’t get it! Listen, I’m a man who has been earnestly confronting human mind in clinical site like hell for years. Great historical figures such as Budda and Christ may have also preached about how to manage the state of mind, but now that I’ve acquired the latest psychiatric knowledge and have been putting it into practice through clinical practice, I’m even superior to them in terms of understanding of mind. After all, they were just people who lived thousands of years ago.”

Furthermore, after a pause, he continued,

“Humans are a creature with intellect. Besides, intellect can suppress instinct. Placing emphasis on your intellect will reveal how selfish and ugly it is to pursue your own happiness. Now, I’m considering educating my patients as to ‘emptiness of pursuing happiness’ through adopting oriental meditations like Zen as a treatment.”

His story was concluded like this.

5.

Come to think of it, I should have noticed that there was something wrong with him back then. However, since it wasn’t rare for Honda to show such an offensive way of saying, I paid little attention to it.

Soon after recollecting the conversation, I called his office. As expected, they said they couldn’t contact him for more than a week either. Therefore, I learned his parents’ contact information from them, and with his parents, I went to the condominium where Honda lived alone during the day.

When we entered his room using a duplicated key we received from the landlord, we found dead silence reigned over the room. From the entrance, there was no sign of anyone being in the room. With the other people, I went along the corridor extending from the entrance, put my hand on the doorknob of the living room on our left, and timidly turned it.

And then, we saw Honda sitting cross-legged on the floor facing the wall on the righthand side of the door (none of furniture, picture, or other stuffs was seen around the wall. All we could see was the desolate white wall spreading out). He was just sitting there holding himself erect with his eyes closed.

Even though we approached him, he didn’t show any sign of reacting. As we got closer to him, I came to realize that his cheeks were weirdly drawn in. I could observe his sinewy hands sticking out of his sleeves too.

“Honda! What are you doing?”

When I talked to him, he said in a thin voice as if to mutter, opening his eyes slowly without a single move,

“I’m practicing Zen meditation. I’ve been doing this for days. I seem to have surpassed my instinct. I have to convey what I’ve learned to my patients too.”

It suddenly hit me that Honda had described other people’s desires and instinct to pursue their own happiness as “ugly,” so he came to have no choice but to deny his own instinct.

After that, Honda was carried to the hospital, but his appetite never returned. I lost a friend of mine.

What I can tell from this story is that denying humans’ instinct can lead to also denying survival of creatures itself. Without more or less tolerating the good and evil elements including accepting their own ugliness and stupidness, humans can’t live, can they? After facing Honda’s death, I’m thinking about such a thing now.