“Happiness is something that needs to be considered in terms of ‘area’.”

I never would have thought that the day when I got to interview GACKT-san would come. I must have accumulated some great virtues in my past life for this. Past life, you have my thanks.

“GACKTの勝ち方 (GACKT’s Way to Win / GACKT no Kachikata)”, the book that was released this August and, within 2 months, sold over 100,000 copies. It was an exceptionally rich volume which covered GACKT-san’s “Growth Philosophy” and “Way to Make Money”, but at the end were these profound words…

“There are many who have ‘achieved success (成功 / seikou)’, but there are few who have ‘achieved happiness (成幸 / seikou)’. There’s a big difference here.”

Male singer, songwriter, and actor born in Okinawa Prefecture in 1973. Presently residing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The first Japanese winner of the “Best Asian Rock Artist”, he is also active as a businessman in real estate businesses catering to the wealthy, restaurant businesses, and others.

GACKT-san, who has been so successful, is saying, “Happiness and success are two different things”. Well, so just what is “happiness” to GACKT-san…? I am all too curious to find out the answer to that.

With that said, this time, we’re intruding into GACKT-san’s private studio (what’s a private studio?) to speak to him directly about “money and success”…!

〈Interviewer: Sano Tomoki〉

Where on earth is this… Is this paradise…?

GACKT-san says, “The path is not split between ‘success’ and ‘failure’.”

Sano (S): Ga…GACKT-san, thank you for having me here today! (Standing at attention)

GACKT-san (G): Thanks for coming. Don’t just stand there. Well, sit down.

H-his handshake is… His frankness and grip strength can only be described as ‘unexpected’

S: Today, I wanted to talk to you about “money and success”.
I’ve read in GACKT-san’s book that you’re successful in numerous business which includes industries like real estate and food and beverage (F&B). With words like, “To sustain my lifestyle, I need 200 million yen a year”…
Why are so capable of succeeding in just about anything?

G: Hmm… With regards to that question, those are the words of someone who thinks, “When I take on something, there are two paths; either ‘success’ or ‘failure’.”

What. Is there something other than that…?

G: In the first place, I personally don’t think that it’s split into two paths of ‘success’ and ‘failure’.
‘Failure’, ‘Failure’, ‘Failure’, ‘Failure’ … ‘Success’.
Things do not branch into either ‘success’ or ‘failure’. The path simply continues on until you succeed. That’s how I think.

S: In other words, does that mean that even GACKT-san has failed in business too?

G: About that. There are so many (occasions) that words cannot describe it (lol).
During those times, I’d bow numerous times to the successful people and listen to what they have to say.

S: Ga-GACKT-san would bow to people and ask them for advice!?

G: I did that a lot. I’d somehow get myself introduced to people who have done well in business and talk to them endlessly about “how to make sure things go well”…

The ones who seize opportunities are not the ‘amazing fellows’ but the ‘lovable fellows’

G: When I was young, I never had the thought that “That person is busy, so I’ll refrain from contacting them myself”.
It is a big mistake to think like this.

S: Whaaー…? But if I’m actually considered as annoying I’d feel regretful too…

G: The strange thing about this is while someone is contacting me and asking me, “Are you free this week? Are you free next month?”, there will be a point when “This person’s obstinate” turns into “This person’s lovable”.
There are a lot of young kids around me, but when it comes to the kids who keep conveying their enthusiasm to me regardless of how many times they get rejected, I’d end up going, “I got it, I got it. What about this particular day then?”.

S: So, it’s not anything like someone saying, “I want to talk about this with you, so please meet me”, and then deciding to try meeting them because you’re intrigued by the content of that conversation?

G: No, no, it’s not that complex a reason (lol).
Because I’d only get the feeling of ‘This person’s interesting’ or ‘Maybe there’s something I can leave up to them’, and so on after I actually meet the person. In the first place, as a busy person, I don’t expect anything from kids.

S: (Ouch)…
I got the feeling that, “(you) won’t meet this other party unless there is something to gain from meeting them or unless they have already achieved results in life”.

G: Nope. These people get more turns at the bat because they’re ‘lovable fellows’, and thereafter, they turn into ‘amazing fellows’.
The ones who seize opportunities are not the ‘amazing fellows’ but the ‘lovable fellows’

To think that GACKT-san ended up talking about the importance of ‘being lovable’…

G: The bemoaning that “there aren’t any generous seniors who are willing to help” is nonsense. Your actions are what creates the “generous seniors who are willing to help”.
How much effort have you put into obtaining this “lovability”? Isn’t this fundamental to making things happen?

Pointlessly increasing your options leads to the wasting of time

S: It is honestly unexpected to hear that you’ve asked for advice. Because it seemed like you were someone who broke through and surpassed everything with your own ability.

G: Nope, and that’s because life has an expiration date.
It’s far quicker to learn from someone who has made it than just thinking about things on your own.
Those who have a sense of urgency about their own expiration dates will never be able to pick the option of doggedly forging out on their own.

G: But, you know, this sense of impending crisis towards “time” varies from person to person.
Even if you say, “I don’t have time!”, you won’t be able to convey it to people who don’t get it at all, and from what I can see, everyone’s making use of time in extremely wasteful ways. Most people are spending too much time with detours…
Shall I try drawing it out in a diagram?

S: Huh!?

G: Say, for example, if you enter a “good middle school”, your options of “good high schools” thus increases. And similarly, choices for a “good college” by going into a “good high school”, and by going into a “good college”, you’ll have even more choices of “good companies”.
The common school of thought in Japan is, “Please get into a good school for that to happen”.
In other words, everyone thinks that “having lots of choices” is a good thing.

Here, we have GACKT-san’s hand drawn diagram. At the bottom is “self (自)”, referring to oneself. From there, it is connected to numerous options in the form of middle school, high school, college, and companies.

S: That’s… right.
Uh, is it wrong?

G: Looking at this at a glance will seem correct but… In reality, you’ll only have more and more options to worry about the more you postpone making your decision.

Ah, now I understand… This is another stab in the heart…

S: Though it’s true, this state of “I tried increasing my options, but in the end, I’ll try everything out because I can’t decide which is ‘the one’”, people probably face that a lot at their milestones in life… Like when job searching and so on.

G: Everyone’s only looking forward to the ‘next thing’ while thinking “If I do my best now, maybe it’ll lead to something”.
As a result, the only thing that will steadily inflate is the amount of time you spend worrying about your countless choices while taking detours that are unrelated to your own ‘happiness’.

S: The abundance of choices backfires…
So, just how did GACKT-san decide on what path to take?

G: For me, I start planning from my goal.
From there, I draw a “straight line of reverse assessment” down towards my present position.

“Result → Z → Y → X → → → A → Self” are connected by one straight line.

G: To reach by goal, the result of “Z” is needed. To get “Z”, I need “Y”. To get “Y”, I need “X”. And so on… Working backwards like this, you’ll know what you need to do right now, which is “A”.
All that you need to do now is to execute it.
People who have a set goal don’t worry about choices because they will only follow one straight line. This completely changes the amount of time that they can use in their lifetime as compared to those who only continue to increase their options.

S: I see…
But I think that “deciding on a goal” itself is really difficult. Like, I don’t have confidence in this goal that I’ve drawn up so, in any case, I’ll just increase my options, and things like that…

G: It doesn’t particularly matter if you change your goal while you’re on the move. Whatever it is, the most important thing is to “decide and draw up a goal that belongs to the present you”.
If you do that, your “value of time” will drastically change as compared to simply doing whatever is presented in front of you now.

G: There are those who say “culture is life”, but life is very simply “math”.
For people who want to treasure “time”, it’s better if they start deciding on an aim of their own now and drawing things up to derive a formula towards achieving that.

S: Though, it’s true that until it’s typically human to worry indefinitely about things until you’ve resolved yourself to something…

What you consider to be your happiness needs to be considered in terms of ‘area’

S: One more thing I wanted to ask you about is with regards to the words “success is not equal to happiness” that you’ve written.
This is coming from GACKT-san who says, “To sustain my lifestyle, I need 200 million yen a year”, h-honestly, it doesn’t add up…
So, what is happiness…?

G: Everyone expects that “Once I succeed at something, I’ll become happy”, but that isn’t true.
I, too, meet a lot of people who can be said to be happy, but… If you were to ask them whether they are ‘happy’, then, not at all.

G: In the first place, regarding your question, “What is happiness?”, there’s no one answer to that.
Happiness is something that needs to be considered in terms of ‘area’.

S: Area?

G: Say, for example, ‘happiness’ to me consists of ‘money’, ‘friends’, and ‘time’. It is decided by the area of the ‘triangle’ that these three elements form.

G: 1.To have ‘money’ that allows me to do whatever I want to do.
2. To have ‘friends’ who will fight alongside me to get that ‘money’.
3. To have ‘time’ that I can share with ‘friends.
When these three form a perfect equilateral triangle, that, to me, is the state of ‘happiness’.
Also, there’s the question of how big can I get this area to be… That’s all.

S: GACKT-san’s way to achieving happiness is super easy to understand…

G: A lot of people don’t know what is their own ‘shape of happiness’. That’s why they feel uneasy when they see other people looking happy.
You have to be aware of what the shape of your own ‘happiness’ looks like and what elements it is made up of.

S: That’s true… By the way, is there any particular reason why it has to be a triangle with ‘equal sides’?

G: Personally, I believe that “the law of achieving happiness (成幸の法則)” is to expand your shape of happiness as large as possible while maintaining balance as a ‘regular polygon’.

G: For example, when you’re a student, you have ‘friends’ and ‘time’, right? But because you’re severely lacking in ‘money’, this turns into a very small and distorted triangle.
At that point, you’ll desperately work towards getting ‘money’, but suddenly, you’ll realise that you lost sight of everything except earning ‘money’ and have ended up sacrificing ‘friends’ and ‘time’. There are a lot of people who are like this.
They chase after only one thing and end up neglecting everything else. That’s not right. You have to think of a way to achieve balance between everything.

S: That really, really hits home…
Even though we think that we’re chasing after happiness, we’re only steadily heading towards unhappiness. This is definitely how the cogs run…

G: Whether the shape of your happiness is a pentagon or a hexagon… I believe that everyone has their own shape, and that is up to them to freely decide for themselves.
However, maintain that ‘regular polygon’ as much as possible and grow that ‘area’ while keeping that balance. This is something that I hope everyone will keep in mind.

G: In this world, there are many who yell out “the law of achieving success”, but don’t you think that we have to think about being happy more than being successful… This is how I’ve always felt.

I don’t think that those who say that “happiness has nothing to do with money” are ‘serious’ about life

S: If I were to draw my own shape, I think I’d definitely put ‘money’ in there, but…
I have this feeling that it’s difficult to talk about money in Japan.

G: Yeah, that’s a fact.

G: There are quite a lot of people who say that those who talk about money are things like “a person driven by greed”, or “a bad person trying to take from the weak”, and things like that but… That’s not the case.
To live in Japan, ‘money’ is an element that must be part of your shape of happiness.
To ignore this fact in this era of modern capitalism is extremely childish.

S: But, when we talk about musicians, don’t the artists who say, “I want to make good music rather than earn money” sound cooler?

G: Nope, if they don’t have money, they can neither play lives nor record.
If they want to continue delivering music to their fans, they can’t ignore money.

G: In the past, it’s alright for us to simply leave the difficult things to the recording companies and on our end, we’ll just devote ourselves to making music.
However, now, there’s no such thing as “I’ll be safe as long as I’m signed with a recording company”. You have to survive by thinking with you own head.
That’s why, for me, all there is to my branching out into business is for the sake of continuing to deliver music.

S: I guess the fact that we have to think about ‘money’ on our own makes us the same as business people.
It used to be an era where your status is guaranteed through lifetime employment but now, if you don’t think for ourselves we’d be in trouble…

G: I wouldn’t say that you’ll become happy as long as you have money.
But those who say that “happiness has nothing to do with money” don’t come across to me as people who are ‘serious’ about life.
Those who are committed to themselves and the people who are precious to them won’t be able to be disdainful of money.

S: GACKT-san, thank you so much for this precious dialogue today…!
Somehow, I really feel like a switch has been flipped!

G: No, no, no, no matter what I say, the only one who can flip the switch for you is yourself.
No one can push you forward. And I’m sure that even the readers of today’s article will definitely feel something and read it on their own volition.
Life is made up of these “moments of inventiveness/imagination/creativity” piling up together. Even the question of what this present moment of your meeting me through this article will turn into is completely dependent on you.

With yet another firm handshake, the interview concludes. Thank you!

We often ask, “What is happiness?” But it truly is characteristic of him to turn “the shape of happiness” into a principle and verbalise it as such…

First of all, I, too, shall try and form my own polygon of happiness. Then, I’ll work backwards and decide on what needs to be done at this present point in time.

GACKT-san was a wonderful gentlemen who interacted with me very frankly and as if I were his equal.

But for such a heated conversation to unfold before me in this space that is simply too out of this world, the weariness in me as a result of my nerves is no joke…!

〈Interview/text by: Sano Tomoki (@mlby_sns) ／ Editing by: Amano Shunkichi (＠amanop) ／ Photography by: Ikeda Hiromi〉

Source: r25.jp

Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team

Translation © GACKT ITALIA