Abstract
Influenced by modernization since the Meiji era, “time shared in common” by people has transformed to “discretionary time by individuals”. This phenomenon has lead people to “future minded” attitude, which generated uneasiness and fear toward their future. In such context, the author intends to discuss the issue of “people who became unable to live the present”, in relations to individualization and fear towards future.
According to the research by the Cabinet Office of Japan, some 70% of Japanese live their lives with uneasiness and fear towards their future. This suggests the magnitude of people’s stress to live on self-responsibility, with loss of communities to belong to, and such stress amplifies fear toward their future. This tendency is apparent to urban young generation, and is considered to be one of the main causes of their high suicide ratio. Fear toward future is the cause of pulling down people’s objectives of everyday life to mere money making means, and there lies the structure of impediment. Needless to state, such structure is not limited to young generation but is shared by all of us living in modern world. In this text, the author endeavors to search the possibilities and means to extricate us from this “present under the reign of future”.
