SECTION 5
SOUZOU [CREATIVITY]

7. Hatenaki Miraizou
[An Unending Vision of the Future]

When I really look back at my own life, I completely think that the trip to Madagascar was the second great turning point for me.

Madagascar was a very poor country. There is only about 2-3 percent of the country's population which can afford education. But the people there are overflowing with smiles. At that time, I happened to think, "I wonder if I can smile like that."

At the same time, I was keenly feeling my own lack of strength. My existence felt very small. And so, I felt that I couldn't be rescued by the people who were around me.

That feeling hasn't changed even now.

What is the most necessary for people? I think that is the fact that people have to wake up and realize change is inevitable.

For example, because we say Madagascar is a poor country, there are people who give 100,000,000 yen to their cause. One village can probably live affluently on that money for a year. However, after a year, conditions return to what they were previously. And so, there is no meaning in doing that.

No one makes you bring food to your mouth to eat; if food is set before you, then you will pick up chopsticks and eat of your own will. That's the same way I operate.

I dine on my own intentions. The things which are seen to be moved by my intentions and purposes are, to people, the most precious things, the most important things. If that's not the case, nothing will change about people.

I want you to make me act on my intentions. I want you to change. I am not going to make anyone change of my own will.

Though this was something that I had thought about many times before I went to Madagascar, going to Madagascar refined it, and I felt then that the things I was thinking about were definitely not a mistake.

The same thing can be said about lives. At a live, I send my feelings out to everyone there, and is this why they crowd forward? I can't say I know. But, if that's the case, that's not to say that it's ok to stand there and do nothing.

At any rate, me trying to send my feelings out is a very important thing. If I don't, nothing begins, and if I stop doing it, then I will cease to exist.

Even though I perform lives, it's not enough to just say "I want to have a live," and "We'll have a happy live." That is something that I could do if I weren't myself. I wonder, if I wasn't me, what things would I be able to do? I think about that constantly.

In order to send my feelings out, in order to live as myself, I will continue until the end to run towards the possibilities of me being a man who expresses himself. And in order to keep doing that, I will continue to keep doing what I have been doing all along.

As someone who expresses himself, the number one thing that is forbidden me is to stereotype anyone.

In making the movie "Moon Child," I put other actors into my own work, and as time went on, I could not continue to be skeptical about if it would work or not. I had fellow musicians Hyde and Lee Hom collaborating with me, as well as Tarou-san and Toyokawa Etsushi-san and other actors who participated.

There was no dividing line between those of us who were actors and those of us who were musicians. As I had thought, expressing something like that is able to get rid of stereotypes and bring about a feeling of change, and as we became more and more expressive, we started understanding that there was this mountain of things that we needed to study.

We went all over Asia to film. Because of that, I was completely able to place Asia on a field inside of me.

To me, Asia isn't a place for me to promote myself. Asia is my country, the place where I come from, my hometown. I have always wanted to come to the point where I could feel "I am Asian."

Through my music, through my movie, I want to make people conscious of the thought of an Asian brotherhood.

I want to feel that people are not just Japanese, Chinese, Korean, but have a brotherhood among them as all being Asian. I want my life to bring people closer to this realization.

One Asian people. The pivotal point is the people of Asia having this revolution of thought together.

There are more Asians than any other group in the world, more than 20,000,000,000 of us yellow-skinned people. If all of us bonded together like the people in Europe have and made the "Asian Union," wouldn't that be a really great thing?

But even if the country is formed into a single entity and bound together by friendly relations, it means nothing if the people don't feel it. If the people of that country individually could have the walls before their eyes torn down, becoming closer to one another, if they could feel their same customs together, then the country's policies would advance, wouldn't they? I want it to become like this.

Doesn't that sound interesting? One musician, finally tying country by country together, taking them to one place.

I am only a musician. But nevertheless I am a musician. That is the possibility that I have as a person of expression.

Even on movies, I want them not to say "Made in Japan," but instead they should say "Made in Asia." These are movies you can't do in Hollywood. They're not Japanese movies, they're not Hong Kong movies, they're not Taiwan movies. I want to establish that they are all "Asian movies."

Though that is a separate world from Hollywood, we have so many feelings about the things that we carry with us and that we should try to express.

At that time, I will be so happy if circumstances change to the point where I don't say "I'm from Japan" but "I'm from Asia." [trans note: Gackt actually wrote this in katakana, not in Japanese: "'aim furomu japan' de wa naku, 'aim furom ajia' to ieru joukyou…"]

I have talked about many dreams, but my final dream is….well, if I say it, you will probably laugh, but…

I want to buy an island, and then on it I want to build a huge amusement park.

Everyone, you probably think I'm joking, but I'm completely serious.

I want to build this amusement park on this island, then invite all the world's children to come play in it.

Even if there's only one child that comes, that will be all right. I want people to feel the meaning of why I am calling, and also how that leads to our future. That's what I have always thought.

Even if I call to 1,000 people and only one responds, that's fine. If there is that one child who feels me calling, that child will, with his own strength, change the environment around him.

My dream isn't restricted to just saying big things about giving dreams to children. It's more concrete than that.

The child who wonders, "Why exactly were we called?" has had his future and his possibilities opened. I want to create that opportunity.

To say it straight up, it's just untimely interference. I'm someone who, from the beginning, has interefered in a lot of people's lives.

I don't want people to exist in vain. I want people to live their lives to the fullest. I don't want them to throw away any possibilities they may have.

Isn't that way of thinking because people's lives are so short?

There are many people around me who have died. When I think about them, I often wonder, "Didn't they want to do this or that more?"

You cannot escape death. However, that doesn't mean you can simply say "Well, didn't they die?"

I think that there are many people who only feel the true meaning of their lives at the moment of their deaths.

At that moment, the scenes of your life flash by like a revolving lantern, and for the first time, you know the meaning of your existence. I was like that too.

If that is the case, then you will say, "If only I had done more of this!" "If only I had done that!" "If only I had done it like this!"….and then die with regret. That is a very lonely existence.

If there are people who continue to chase after my life and the things I do in the future, those people will surely say "he was a really interesting guy" when I die.

I think this because my life has been filled with so many troubles, beyond the imaginations of anyone out there. Through all that, I felt that I can greatly move people. That is the meaning of my existence.

The me of 10 years in the future, 20 years, 30 years...Right now, that future is too dazzling, and I cannot see it.