That's just it, though. There isn't anything. Do you think a flower needs faith to turn toward the sun? Do birds need faith to migrate south for the winter?
[He is lonely, in a sense. The only person who ever really tried to understand him is dead. But Vincent is wrong that he doesn't have anything, because it's that beloved person that leads him to try for a world that doesn't matter, in which he has nothing and every action is ultimately so much ash and dust in the wind. Because being on the side that saves people is just a little more beautiful, and Odasaku had wanted that for him.]
Faith was invented because humans fear death. We don't have the speed of cheetahs, the sheer strength of bears, the ability to resist extreme temperatures or natural defenses to ... well, anything, a sharp enough stick will kill us. Humans alone gained the ability to reflect on their mortality, though, and so they invented faith as a means of protecting themselves from the inevitability of that fear and pain. Some seek solace in the notion of an immortal soul, one which transcends the physical body and allows one the promise of rejoining those they have lost, someday, or a cycle of wanderings until eventual spiritual liberation from suffering as a concept can be attained. Others believe there is a little of the divine in everything, in the day to day.
[Dazai is a well and proper nerd, ultimately; he's read plenty on every kind of faith there is.]
...Unfortunately, there's also those that use faith as an excuse to pretend superiority over others, enough so to assume whatever they say is so significant that anyone who happens to have paid attention must be fixated on them specifically. Insufferable people like them always cause more damage than they're worth before finally fading away into obscurity, having accomplished exactly none of their grand goals while the world continues to persist.
You cling to a promise of something more that may never come. I already know there is nothing, and so I have nothing to lose, yet everything to gain.
no subject
[He is lonely, in a sense. The only person who ever really tried to understand him is dead. But Vincent is wrong that he doesn't have anything, because it's that beloved person that leads him to try for a world that doesn't matter, in which he has nothing and every action is ultimately so much ash and dust in the wind. Because being on the side that saves people is just a little more beautiful, and Odasaku had wanted that for him.]
Faith was invented because humans fear death. We don't have the speed of cheetahs, the sheer strength of bears, the ability to resist extreme temperatures or natural defenses to ... well, anything, a sharp enough stick will kill us. Humans alone gained the ability to reflect on their mortality, though, and so they invented faith as a means of protecting themselves from the inevitability of that fear and pain. Some seek solace in the notion of an immortal soul, one which transcends the physical body and allows one the promise of rejoining those they have lost, someday, or a cycle of wanderings until eventual spiritual liberation from suffering as a concept can be attained. Others believe there is a little of the divine in everything, in the day to day.
[Dazai is a well and proper nerd, ultimately; he's read plenty on every kind of faith there is.]
...Unfortunately, there's also those that use faith as an excuse to pretend superiority over others, enough so to assume whatever they say is so significant that anyone who happens to have paid attention must be fixated on them specifically. Insufferable people like them always cause more damage than they're worth before finally fading away into obscurity, having accomplished exactly none of their grand goals while the world continues to persist.
You cling to a promise of something more that may never come. I already know there is nothing, and so I have nothing to lose, yet everything to gain.