Kakiuchi Shogo, "The Structure and Means of Human Relations"

Life doesn't operate on logic.
However, logic is important—

In an era where the naked truth that the powerful are strong is increasingly prevalent, the tyranny of "myself" as a describable "bundle of specificities"—attributes and titles—seems to be sweeping away the simple, raw experience of the unique self, which cannot be fully described in words.

This book, by a rising "person of life," freely "poaches" insights from philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, vividly depicting the "structure" of human relationships at every scale. How does a third-person "norm" emerge from the mutuality between two individuals? Understanding this structure, what "measures" can we take to unravel dysfunctional relationships and live our daily lives joyfully?

The author presents a practical framework for maintaining the domain of the unique self that enjoys an individual life without being swallowed by the social "self" in various human relationship scenarios—love, family, friendship, company, and society—through the continuous back-and-forth movement of solitary, self-paced training through reading and writing, and its adjustment through casual "chatter."

This is a guide to navigating the path between being out of sync with others yet still together, neither self-righteous isolation nor naive conformity, and to "falling with style."