Live to Bet, Lose to Funny: Confessions of a Man Who Threw Everything He Had into a Boat Race Ticket Called Editing (1974).

Live to Bet, Lose to Funny: Confessions of a Man Who Threw Everything He Had into a Boat Race Ticket Called Editing (1974).

When I was in college, I went to the Amagasaki Racecourse with 50,000 yen in my pocket, and the money disappeared in two days and never returned. Even so, I held on to the boat tickets until I ran out of money for the train fare home. It would sound like a movie if I told you that I walked back to Osaka, but the reality is exactly the same. I pawned my shoes, sold my encyclopedia, and cried to my friends because I still didn't have enough money. It was the height of self-indulgence.

But that feeling is the same as editing. When buying a boat ticket and when betting on a manuscript. In both cases, whether or not you "win" depends on your mood, and even if you predict it incorrectly, you will always be betrayed. In other words, this is life in miniature. To put it very simply, it is the funny thing about being alive.

Even after I became an editor, I could not get rid of that feeling. I would ask for manuscripts, only to have them rejected; I would run away just before the manuscript was due; I would take a gamble that the circulation would be unreadable and plunge an entire book into it. In each case, if I won, I was in heaven; if I lost, I was in hell. But even so, I still end up grabbing the next boat ticket (magazine) again. Why?　Because I have learned the pleasure of losing continuously.

In 1974, Japan was in the final stages of its rapid economic growth, and the turmoil of the first oil crisis was still lingering. The shadow of unemployment and high prices hung over the city, and the student movement had come to an end. Nothing was believable. Therefore, the only way to feel alive was to "bet on something. Not a movement, not a revolution, but a gamble, even if it was the gamble of publishing.

When the idea of launching the magazine "Funny Half" came up, I thought, "I can buy a boat ticket again. I knew that readers would laugh, they would be angry, or no one would pay any attention to me--I had no choice but to put myself in the editorial position, even though I had anticipated it all. A man who had given up gambling bet again on the "never-ending race" of editing. That's me.

Looking back now, I find the defeats of those days funny and endearing. Life is always a record of failure, no matter how far you go. I think this country needs idiots who still continue to buy boat tickets. If someone laughs, that's all that matters. That was publishing. No, it was a gamble.