How did you become interested in philosophy?
“I was a philosopher child. When I was in elementary school, around ten or eleven years old, I began to reflect on what would happen if I died. I imagined death as being in a state of nothingness, and that image scared me. I think I became a philosopher then. From that moment on, the thought of death—and therefore of life—has never left me. My philosophy has a concrete aim: to clarify the mysteries of life and death, and everything connected to them. In high school, I thought that to answer these questions I would have to become a physicist and use mathematical methods. Only later did I realize that physics was not enough.”

The children of Gaza, the elderly affected by the Noto earthquake in Japan, who are still dying a year later. Why?
“I don’t have answers, but I believe philosophy must keep asking these questions and try to find words for those who are suffering so immensely. I think the most important thing in life is to share a small happiness with someone we love. The role of politics should be to ensure everyone has that opportunity—security and peace, not conquest and domination.”  

In the article “The Sense of Someone Appearing There” (2023), you write about everyday encounters with those who are no longer here—even with dogs, cats, little birds…
“I shared the experience of encountering a semblance of my late father's soul—a sensation of warmth in which I felt protected by him. For ten years, my wife and I had a little bird. We adored him, and we spent wonderful days together. Even now, I still feel his spirit around me. I call both of them—my father and the bird—“animated persona,” that is, the emergence of a person-like something, appeared activated by context and by my emotions. The spirit of a kitten exists between the kitten and its carer, within that special relationship. It can still be animated even after the kitten’s body has died. The “animated persona” is not an illusion. And that’s a thought we should take comfort in. All of us, sooner or later, will have to part with our loved ones—it’s the fate of our lives. We don’t know if we’ll meet them again in the next world—perhaps not. It’s a hard truth to accept, but if we can, it will bring us consolation.”

Have you ever experienced trauma?
“My traumas are mostly those caused by what I did to my loved ones—the memories come to me suddenly and torment me.”

Could you explain further?
“When I was young, like many men of my generation, I was affected by toxic masculinity. I hurt my parents, the family I love, and my friends. When I remember what I did to my loved ones, I’m overcome with panic, and I think that a universe in which I had never been born would be better than the one that exists now.”

Is this where your partial antinatalism comes from? And what exactly is antinatalism?
“Antinatalism has two pillars: the negation of birth—the idea that being born is fundamentally wrong—and the negation of procreation—the idea that we should not bring children into the world. I agree with the first, not necessarily with the second. Every time I recall the moments in which I hurt my loved ones, I can’t help but wish I had never been born. However, through long conversations with them, I came to understand that I had to free myself from that former version of me and become more mature. I was—and remain—guilty, but I’ve changed a lot since I was young: I’ve improved. I appreciate them deeply for this. So, I have sympathy for the idea of the negation of birth, but I want to go beyond it and reach a state of birth affirmation.”

Is that why you wrote a book and essays on “herbivore men” (2008), where you denounced the crisis of contemporary masculinity?
“The herbivorization of men can counter the plague of toxic masculinity. A herbivore man is a gentle, peaceful, and inexperienced young man who wishes to date a girl. My goal was to reassure young men that they don’t need to fall into machismo in order to have successful romantic relationships. They should try to understand female psychology and the gender gap. What surprised me was that many Japanese women loved my book—proof that they would prefer a herbivore kind of love. Riding the wave of that book, ‘herbivore men’ became one of the buzzwords of the year in Japan.”

Cryopreservation, genetic manipulation. Our anthropological fear of death and illness is bringing us closer and closer to the idea of “radical longevity.” The Japanese, thanks to a healthy lifestyle, are among the longest-living people in the world. Yet more and more often, society sees them as a burden. An assistant professor at Yale, Yusuke Narita, even suggested the mass suicide of the elderly through seppuku, the ritual self-disembowelment of dishonored samurai—or mandatory euthanasia. What do you think?
“Even the idea of living forever in this world would, I believe, be very painful and intolerable. It would be a dystopia. There are people who are not afraid of death—these are happy people. Most of us could not bear the weight of an eternal life filled with pain and recurring traumatic events. Narita’s opinion was harshly criticized in Japan, including by myself. Romanticizing suicide is a mistake. I think of the film The Ballad of Narayama by Shohei Imamura (1983), in which an elderly mother decides to withdraw to the mountains in winter and let herself die, so as not to be a burden on her son. Here, the themes of nature and life return: by dying in nature, the spirit of the mother will be saved. It is a poetic image—but a very sad one. I fear that Japanese society will become increasingly intolerant toward the elderly, who do not want to cause problems and already think it might be better to simply let themselves die.”

Meanwhile, apeirophobia—the fear of living forever—is becoming more widespread. Is it another side of the fear of death?
“Aristotle believed that true happiness—the highest good for human beings—was the flourishing of one’s being. In the age of science and technology, the opposite concept—withering—might be important. Every creature begins to wither after passing the zenith of life. Science and technology regard the conquest of nature and naturalness as the triumph of intellect, the proof of civilization’s progress. But is that really the case?”

Today, young people spend their days on DeepSeek and ChatGPT. Can artificial intelligence answer questions about the meaning of life?
“For the moment, no. AI cannot pose such existential questions to itself, nor try to solve them on its own. But in a distant future, it might become possible. At that point, yes—we could have philosophical conversations with artificial intelligence. That would be very interesting.”

If life is full of suffering, then what is happiness?
“When I think of happiness, the first thing that comes to mind is the small happiness I can find in a corner of my everyday life. Even when we are on the verge of despair, the possibility of finding this small happiness still remains, and we can feel protected by our relationships and by society. Happiness is encountering a small beauty, a small pleasure, a brief stillness in time. It is a quiet affirmation of life.”  

-- Corriere della Sera, founded in 1876, is Italy's leading and most read daily newspaper. 7 is Corriere's weekly newsmagazine.