Jim Morrison, who had made his international breakthrough, exclaimed "Break on through to the other side" on the first song on the Doors first album.
Floating in the darkness, Jim Morrison sang, "Break on through to the other side," with a melancholy, glaring, and somewhat distant look in his eyes.
I was 16 years old when I heard that cry.
His body was long gone by then, but his recorded voice and words were not dead at all, and they skewered me. It gouged my chest.
It gouged me so deeply that I could never get it back.
From that day on, his voice and words remained stuck in my chest.

"Break on through to the other side."

Music, poetry, and expression are piercing.
Music and expression without the will to pierce is meaningless to me.
It is a very subjective thing.
Being pierced by a work or expression makes me a different person.
I can never go back to the way I was. That is the power of music and art.
I have countless marks where I have been stung by many pieces of music, art, and expression.

Jim Morrison may have been the first person to point me in a certain direction with words after I had discovered the joy of being exposed to music and art as a child.
Once I was informed of the existence of the "the other side," there was no turning back. I was awakened by Jim Morrison's one thrust.

"Break on through to the other side."

A long time has passed since I first heard this song.
Now our world, society, and daily life are creaking with strange sounds.
We human beings are now in the midst of great changes and torrents, moving right and left, and are in confusion, baring our feelings of sadness and shallowness.
Every day we feel that something is surely collapsing.
People become hysterical, turn away, or try to escape by forcibly sleeping against the reality that is surely beginning to crumble.
Just as the "here" is about to collapse in this way, his voice echoes again.

"Break on through to the other side."

The world and human beings are crazy and unbelievable.
And I am a part of that stupid humanity.
But that doesn't mean that I will give in to that stupidity.
We cannot escape from the world or from the era, but we will always have the will to break through it.
No matter how futile it may be.
I will not sell my dignity or my soul because resistance is futile.
I can make such a decision because I have Jim's words and countless other pieces of music and art stuck in my heart. The music and art that remain stuck in me will wake me up. They tell me to come to my senses.
His words, "Break on through to the other side," are not a call to escape from reality. Rather, it is a call to face reality head-on and break through to the other side. That is what I believe.
(March 26,2022)