PHILOSOPHY

Post-modernity as a guideline for overcoming anthropocentrism. The modern era referred to here means the period from the Renaissance in world history (or the Meiji Restoration in Japan) to the present — distinct from what is usually called modernism or post-modernism. Humanity stands at a crossroads: keep accelerating a modernity of individual independence and freedom, or enter a new era in which the individual and the whole find harmony.

The adverse effects of modernity

Modernity advanced as a historical necessity. That individuals separated from the whole and gained independence and freedom was a great achievement for humankind — post-modernity is not a rejection of modernity. But every force, taken too far, turns into its own adverse effect: the authority of the Middle Ages, community, the maternal, all the same. Today the "liberation of the parts" has gone too far, and as its adverse effect the "harmony of the whole" is collapsing. Individual mental health, loneliness within families, exhaustion from competition, the destruction of the environment — these are one and the same structure appearing consistently from the micro to the macro. What must be diagnosed is not modernity itself, but the amplitude of its swing.

Heteronomy · Independence · Autonomy

This history is also the succession of three modes. The "heteronomy (WE)" of the Middle Ages, governed from outside; the "independence (ME)" of modernity, standing on one's own feet; and the "autonomy (US)" of post-modernity. A car equipped only with an accelerator will eventually crash — in a life, that crash is burnout. What is asked for is to keep one's independence while applying the brakes oneself, reconnecting with the whole: family, community, nature. Not belonging or depending again, but committing to the whole with subjective will. This is the central theme of post-modernity.

Harmony is not stillness. It is a state of "dynamic equilibrium" — endlessly swaying yet keeping balance within two contradictory dynamics: "relationship" and "independence." Dynamic equilibrium as an individual, and as a group.

Courage and love to hold wholeness within ourselves in order to be united with others we cannot fully understand. Self-transformation beyond self-acceptance. Harmony is not the stopping of this sway, but the balance sustained right in the middle of it.

A study for the emergence of harmony. The center holds a transparent, static, universal consistency. The edge, by contrast, is diverse, dynamic, undergoing individualistic change. The opposition of the two is mythic and universal. When they are united and mutually supportive, harmony is born. This is the principle of the "arrangement" from which harmony emerges.

The practice that raises this principle into an actual place —

If the "arrangement for harmony" and "dynamic equilibrium" are the principle, this is the concrete practice that raises them into an actual place. For a long time I thought about harmony on a "plane" — center and edge, relationship and independence. But what truly mattered was not where one stands on that plane, but changing the phase itself — the z-axis.

Physically, that is a shift of gravity from the thinking "brain" to the feeling "heart." Toward a place that no amount of horizontal resolution — debate, consensus — can reach, one dives deep as an experience (Deep Dive). When each person descends to that depth, a transparent field of resonance (the Coherent Field) rises, and awareness and healing beyond the individual — harmony — appear of their own accord. "Coherence" (the physiological state in which heart rate and breathing are regulated and synchronized with the brain) is the doorway that lets this change of phase begin not from willpower, but from the body.

The process of this thinking is documented (in Japanese) on note.

note.com/kensuke__