“But four years was too short a time to discover myself. Even when I started looking for jobs, I was just running in circles. But I’ve realized why I’m lost. It’s not because I don’t have a map. It’s because I don’t have a destination.”
I seem to have noticed around various forums and blogs that there is a kind of general acceptance that Takemoto Yuuta went on his long-distance cycling trip as a means of self-discovery. Now, the quote I have provided is surely a testimony to such a notion, he even says: “…to discovery myself.” However, this idea that identity is discoverable – the idea that you can simply peel back the layers until you’ve literally found your elusive identity as if it were thrown into the lost and found bin the first place – can’t bear much scrutiny. This narrative of identity presents us with two problems: (1) identity entails a process that occurs outside of the self, and (2) that identity is an allegedly tangible-abstract product, and by that I mean that while it does hold a physical existence, it has a kind of metaphysical presence that is open for manipulation – in essence, it is an object that is handled.
But before you can address how these two designs are problematic, you’d have to flesh out what you’re thinking of as “the self”. The self is perhaps your totality of being, your total life experience, your total comprehensiveness and consciousness – the philosophy of the self steeped in a Levinas-esque brew. This does not preclude seemingly external events from “becoming” the self, since that is how identities evolve – and I use quotes here because the term “becoming” or any such term which describes the conduit nature of identity is problematic for that very reason. In this sense “total” necessitates everything related in a kind of network of observance. If I am looking at a tree (and this is where “becoming” comes into play) then that experience of looking “becomes” part of my identity not in a manner of osmosis in that this particular experience has not only an existence unto itself, but that this existence was absorbed into mine, but in a completely unmanipulative fashion – in essence, this act of observance only stimulates an identical reaction within the self thus allowing for evolution.[1]
Having established what the “self” is, you could subsequently address how the product-based narrative of identity is problematic. Product-based being the notion that identity I have just described. First, we cannot overlook how the self is constantly evolving – that it is impossible to locate at any given instant. I’ll make a reference to my extremely simplistic understanding of the electron cloud theory: we cannot determine the location of an electron nor its actual state. Rather, we can only determine the probability of its location within a set area and its state, in other words, and in a very, very lenient paraphrase, we can never assess the present state of identity, only estimate its future and reflect upon its history. If we are to say that identity is a product, that would lead the empirically infinite manufacture of an infinite amount of identities. A new identity would be born every .000000000001 seconds (and the order of magnitude is infinite). You are able to contest that your identity at age seven is separate than your identity at age seventeen. We cannot throw our histories out the window, since they are absolutely crucial in the continuous evolution of the self. To say that you are able to “discover yourself” implies that at that very instant, there is no “yourself” – that you are void of any “self” and are in search of it.
Now Takemoto’s quote seems much more complicated. He does state that he couldn’t discover himself, yet the last sentence seemingly contradicts this. How can you discover something that is not so indiscoverable, but simply nonexistent? So, he is lost because he does not have a destination – thus he has no product in mind. I can’t help but say that Takemoto’s narrative of identity is one of product, not praxis. By stating that the absence of a map – the process of formation – is not what makes him lost, he completely relinquishes identity as praxis in favor of an elusive product – a destination. And as I stated the inherent problems in English concerning identity, Takemoto’s quote can only seem the more hypocritical as he, as with the rest of us, is forced to use “I” to refer to “himself”, paradoxically referring to that “self” which is apparently “lost”.
So we can see that ignoring the continuum of identity and reverting to a safer notion of latent product ignores the positions in which these identities have been formed. While I like Takemoto and he’s a good guy, his belief that identity is a product is the basis of his contradiction which I’ll point out now.
If there is one thing that is essential to identity in this day and age, it is its positioning. Before positioning can be addressed, the composition has to be fleshed out. In essence, identity is pluralistic – it is a hybridity based on difference. Takemoto assumes different roles and identities in multiple situations. He is the son, the character who struggles to deal with the new step-father. He is also the student, the one that is determined to unleash his creative potential by any means possible, thus he is desperate to make his tower (and he realizes this desperation when he overcomes it and destroys it, which was a cool move I think). He is the unrequited romantic, always questioning himself in relation to Hagu (and he understands how this is neither a bad thing nor a means to an end! Another good move!). He is the friend, always near Morita and Mayama (at least early in season one) to provide some sort of escape and comic relief for them (although Morita is in himself the paramount of comic relief). This list is not exhaustive, nor is it restrictive to one identity per position, but at least it gives us a glimpse of its complexity and plurality.
So Takemoto may think that all he needs is a destination in order to discover his “real” identity, yet he seemingly misunderstands that he already had a complex identity which is always evolving, and we definitely get that at the very last episode. Before I mentioned how his relationship with Hagu was not a means to an end but only so in itself – basically, another experience that takes place in his self-evolution. The interesting thing is that Takemoto, once again, seemingly contradicts himself when he comes back from his trip.
”Well, a lot of people on the way also said that I was on a self-realization…But I actually didn’t leave to find myself…Well honestly, I just got stressed out and started riding without knowing what’s going on. I really came back empty handed.”
So it seems that, up to that point, Takemoto probably did believe that he really could discover his “inner self”. But after coming back he realizes at some level that identity is not tangible in the most abstract sense of the word – that in any attempt of self-realization, you always end up empty handed. However, in this realization, the self-realization journey is not all in vain. Through this kind of failure, we did get to discover at least one thing, at any kind of knowledge will always be included into the praxis of identity. So, rather than the self-realization journey being all about, well, self-realization in the identity-as-product sense, self-realization is then the realization that identity is a praxis. We may come back home empty-handed (since we always will) but we have discovered the process by which we address our identities.
[1] On somewhat of a side note, I have noticed, in my amateurish analysis of the English language, that the word “myself” is problematic in my conception of identity. “Myself” entails two ideas, two free morphemes – “my” and “self”. And so when using this single symbol of the self, I am obliged to think of it as wholly “mine”. Yet “my” also demands that the “self” is contained within this “my” – that the two are completely separate and that this “my” is capable of containing the “self”. Here we can see how the conduit metaphor is inscribed within our language. Sadly, there is no way around this. Language is the means of semiosis. The only way to produce meaning is to enter in that game, whether or not its position is problematic.
