個人を超えるもの - りか - CLUB 一休・イッキュウ - 蕨のキャバクラ

秀吉について考えていた。
秀吉はなぜ、天下を取れたのか。
農民に近い低い身分から出たとされる人間が、どうして天下人にまでなれたのか。
調べていくと、秀吉の強さは単純な武力ではなかったように思える。
備中高松城の水攻め、鳥取城攻め、中国大返し、小田原征伐etc

大名を、兵士を動かし、食料を金を動かす。そして情報を掌握する。
秀吉本人の腕力なんて、この規模になればほとんど意味がない。
秀吉の本当の能力は武力ではなく、人を動かすことなのではないか。
でも、秀吉は、何のためにこれほど多くの人を動かしたんだろう。天下、権力、秩序。秀吉には確かに巨大なものがあったけど、秀吉の中にはどうしても秀吉自身が見えてしまう。そこが私が秀吉をあまり好きになれない要素なんだよなぁ。。



そしてまた信長も強力な個人だった。信長は圧倒的に強かったけど、信長という個人が突然死んだら、信長の天下構想も途切れた。
秀吉はさらに天下統一までやった。でも秀吉が死ぬと、幼い秀頼を残した豊臣政権は急速に不安定になる。


そして、家康のことを考えた。
2人亡きあとに続いた江戸幕府。
江戸幕府は1603年に開かれ、1867年の大政奉還まで、260年以上続いた。
260年、一人の人間の寿命なんて遥かに超えている。
家康は信長を、秀吉を見ていた。
どれほど強烈な個人でも、死ぬ。
信長ほどの天才でも、秀吉ほど人を動かせる人間でも、死んだら世界を動かすことはできない。
家康が実際にどう考えていたのかは分からないけど二人の死と、その後を見てきた家康が、自分だけを考えていたようにはどうしても思えない。
家康は1603年に征夷大将軍になったのに、わずか2年後にはその座を秀忠に譲っている。
もちろん自分はまだ生きている。
これはすごく象徴的なことに思える。
自分が天下を治めるのではなく、徳川の将軍が天下を治める。
自分が生きているうちに、自分の次を始める。
信長と秀吉は強烈な個人だったなら、家康が作ろうとしたものは個人亡きあとも続く型だったのではないか。
人は死ぬ。
でも、型は人から人へ渡せていける。




私たちが触れているものには、そういうものがたくさんある。作った人間はとっくにいないけど、型があるから何百年も人から人へ渡っているものがある。
誰かの考え方、振る舞い方。そんな些細なことも。
それを次の人が受け取り、また次の人に渡していく。
そう考えると、人間が自分自身を超える方法って、案外日常に溢れている。
もちろん私は幕府なんか作れないし、歴史に名前を残したいわけでもない。
でも、自分の寿命より長く続くものを、何か一つくらい残したいとは思う。
それは後世に渡す考え方かもしれないし、今書いてる文章かもしれない。
仕事なのか、人との接し方なのか。
今の私には、まだ何を残せるのか分からない。
でも、自分がいなくなったあと、誰かの中でそれが生きていて、その人からまた誰かへ渡っていく。
そんな型を一つでも作れたら、自分の寿命を超えられるような気がする。



Something That Outlives Me
I’ve been thinking about Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Why was Hideyoshi able to take control of the country?
How did a man who is believed to have come from a low social background, close to that of a peasant, rise all the way to become the ruler of Japan?
The more I read about him, the more I began to think that his true strength wasn’t simply military power.
The flooding of Takamatsu Castle.
The siege of Tottori Castle.
The rapid return from Chugoku after Nobunaga’s death.
The siege of Odawara.
Hideyoshi moved feudal lords and soldiers.
He moved food and money.
And he controlled information.
On that scale, Hideyoshi’s own physical strength hardly mattered anymore.
Perhaps his greatest ability wasn’t fighting at all.
Perhaps it was his ability to move people.
But then another question came to me.
What was Hideyoshi moving so many people for?
The realm. Power. Order.
There was certainly something enormous driving him, and yet, whenever I look at Hideyoshi, I can’t help seeing Hideyoshi himself at the center of it all.
I think that is one of the reasons I have never been particularly fond of him.
Nobunaga, too, was an extraordinarily powerful individual.
He was overwhelmingly influential, but when Nobunaga suddenly died, the vision of the realm that had revolved around him was interrupted.
Hideyoshi went even further and succeeded in unifying the country.
But after his death, the Toyotomi government, left in the hands of his young son Hideyori, quickly became unstable.
And then I began thinking about Tokugawa Ieyasu.
After those two men were gone came the Edo shogunate.
Established in 1603, it lasted until the return of political power to the emperor in 1867.
More than 260 years.
Far beyond the lifespan of any one human being.
Ieyasu had watched Nobunaga.
He had watched Hideyoshi.
No matter how extraordinary an individual may be, they die.
Even a genius like Nobunaga.
Even a man like Hideyoshi, who could move enormous numbers of people.
Once they die, they can no longer move the world themselves.
Of course, I don’t know what Ieyasu actually thought.
But having witnessed the deaths of those two men—and what happened afterward—I find it difficult to believe that he was thinking only about himself.
Ieyasu became shogun in 1603, yet only two years later, he handed the title over to his son, Hidetada.
And Ieyasu himself was still alive.
That feels deeply symbolic to me.
Not:
I will rule the country.
But:
The Tokugawa shogun will rule the country.
He began what would come after him while he was still alive.
If Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were extraordinarily powerful individuals, perhaps what Ieyasu tried to create was something different:
a form that could continue even after the individual was gone.
People die.
But a form can be passed from one person to another.
There are so many things around us that have survived in exactly this way.
The people who created them are long gone, and yet because a form remained, they have continued to pass from person to person for hundreds of years.
A way of thinking.
A way of behaving.
Even something as small as that.
One person receives it and passes it on to the next.
When I think about it that way, perhaps the ways in which human beings can transcend themselves are scattered all through ordinary life.
Of course, I’m not going to create a shogunate, and I have no desire to leave my name in history.
But I do want to leave behind at least one thing that lasts longer than I do.
Maybe it will be a way of thinking that gets passed down to people in the future.
Maybe it will be something I write.
Maybe it will be something in my work, or simply in the way I treat other people.
Right now, I still don’t know what I will be able to leave behind.
But if, after I am gone, something of mine continues to live within someone else—and then passes from that person to another—
if I can create even one such form,
I feel as though, in some small way, I might be able to outlive my own lifespan.