Building Your Foundation
— Learning to Love the Self You Have Become —
A Sandcastle Named “Buzz.”
I wonder when it happened. At some point, I lost all interest in things that are merely “popular” or the transient phenomenon of “going viral” on social media. When friends bring up these topics, I play along for the sake of the conversation. But the moment the talk ends, the information vanishes from my memory. The phrase “Don’t be number one, be only one” was once trendy, but ironically, reality has been swallowed by a wave of homogenization—where everyone flocks to a “version of uniqueness” decided by someone else.
Leaning on the “foundation of others”—the approval of the majority—provides a fleeting sense of security. I cannot help but feel a deep sense of discomfort with this paper-thin culture, even if I am labeled a contrarian.
「バズ」という名の砂上の楼閣
いつからだろうか。世間で人気を博す流行り物や、SNSで瞬く間に消費される「バズ」という現象に、一切の興味が失せてしまったのは。大多数の賛同という「他人の土台」に寄りかかって安心する。そんな薄氷のような文化に、私は「天邪鬼」と言われようとも、違和感を禁じ得ないのだ。
From “Who I Want to Be” to “Who I Have Become.”
Once you pass fifty and witness the passing of those close to you, you are forced to become conscious of your own mortality. In your twenties and thirties, you run through the season of believing in “infinite possibility,” dreaming of an ideal self. But the cruel truth is that only a handful ever reach the person they “wanted to be.”
In the end, we are simply left with “who we have become.” In English, perhaps we should say, “I am who I have become.” Running aimlessly without a destination, fueled only by fleeting interest, eventually leads to exhaustion—or worse, a fatal injury like a stress fracture. If you have a vision of who you want to be in the future, I want you to stop and think: Is that blueprint aligned with the foundation of your own “history”?
「なりたい自分」から「なってしまった自分」へ
人間も50を過ぎ、近親者の死を多く見届けるようになると、自ずと自らの「死」をも意識せざるを得なくなる。残酷な事実を言えば、「なりたい自分」に辿り着ける者は、ほんのひと握りしかいない。 結局のところ、私たちには「なってしまった自分」があるだけなのだ。 英語で言えば “I am who I have become”（私は、私が積み重ねた結果そのものである） と表現すべきだろうか。
My Battle: Starting from a Fragile Foundation.
I have written before about how I wanted to be a composer. At eighteen, driven by the naive passion of “wanting to know the structure of music and the world,” I aimed for music college. After a year of being a “ronin” (waiting for admission), I finally got in. I felt I had finally reached the starting line. But that feeling was short-lived. I soon realized how agonizingly fragile my foundation was.
While I was celebrating reaching the start, my peers were already miles ahead. I was laps behind the moment I stepped onto the track. Not just one or two laps—ten, maybe a hundred. It was clear the distance was insurmountable. My classmates had been drilled in the fundamentals since childhood. With my brittle foundation, I tasted hellish struggle and a crushing sense of defeat. Those with similarly weak foundations couldn’t bear the gap and vanished into other paths.
The reason I have been able to work at the forefront as a sound designer for so many years is due to the mentors I was blessed with—and the fact that, through the clumsy act of “composition,” I was desperately, albeit unconsciously, building a foundation in the “structure of sound.”
貧弱な土台から始まった、私の戦い
入学して直面したのは、至極貧弱な私の土台だった。周りは幼少期から音楽的基礎を叩き込まれてきた猛者ばかり。土台の脆い私は、当然のように地獄のような苦労と挫折感を味わった。私が今、サウンドデザイナーとして長年第一線で活動できているのは、ひとえに師に恵まれたこと。そして、つたなくとも「作曲」という行為を通して、無意識に「音の構造」という土台を必死に構築し続けてきたからだと思っている。
The Stakes that Support the Structure.
My close friend Alan Rankin, a world-class Hollywood sound designer who worked on John Wick, also dreamed of being a guitarist in his youth. In the end, he didn’t become a professional guitarist. Yet, the reason he excels at the top of the world as a sound designer is that the “sense of sound” he cultivated as a guitarist became his peerless foundation. It is a prime example of turning the “failure” of the self one wanted to be into a formidable stake that supports a massive subsequent structure.
構造を支える強固な杭へ
私の盟友であり、映画『ジョン・ウィック』のサウンドデザインも手掛けるハリウッドのトップクラス・サウンドデザイナー、アラン・ランキンもまた、若い頃はギタリストを目指していた。彼は結局、ギタリストにはならなかった。しかし、一流のサウンドデザイナーとして世界の頂点で活躍できているのは、ギタリストとして養われた「音への感覚」が、彼の比類なき土台となったからだ。
Resonating from Your Own Foundation.
If you have lived for twenty or thirty years, a “foundation” exists within you in some form. If you have a firm foundation, good. If you feel it is lacking, find a way to reinforce it yourself. There is no need to decorate yourself with “borrowed building materials”—the trends or evaluations of others.
There is no need to lament “who you have become.” What matters is how you make your current self ring. What will you allow to resonate atop the one-of-a-kind foundation you have built? It is your own foundation, built over a lifetime, that allows you to truly resonate without being swept away by the times.
Five years, ten years from now. My sincere hope is that atop that misshapen, yet immovable foundation, the existence that is you is resonating loudly and clearly.
I am a Structurer.
自らの土台で、自分を鳴らす
なってしまった自分を嘆く必要はない。 大切なのは、今の自分をいかに鳴らすか。流行や他人の評価という「借り物の建材」で自分を飾る必要はないのだ。5年後、10年後。 その不格好で、しかし強固な土台の上で、あなたという存在が高らかに響いていることを、私は切に願っている。
