A person does not know his true motive as far as he is concerned.

Daikichi Irokawa

 

 

A person can not see what moved himself to an act. It is unknown if he wanted to do it or if he was obliged to do so, and he even misreads his motive according to the idea shared by contemporaries. Individual actions can not be understood separately from "something that beats history from the inside" like groundwater. So, the historian of thoughts of the people says that "how you did it" is more important than "what you did." From "Meiji Spiritual Thought History."

 

November 25,  2018

from “Oriori no Kotoba” by Kiyokazu Washida, The Asahi Shimbun"