"You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life"
About this Quote
Ikeda’s line doesn’t merely encourage perseverance; it issues a moral directive disguised as self-help. “You must not for one instant” is the key tell: creativity, for him, isn’t a leisurely talent or a mood you wait to feel. It’s a discipline, almost a vow. The sentence turns “build new lives” into an active construction project, implying that the default state of existence is unfinished and that leaving it unfinished is a kind of surrender.
The metaphor does the heavy lifting. A “heavy, groaning doorway” suggests resistance baked into the world itself: tradition, circumstance, trauma, social expectation, even one’s own habits. Doorways are thresholds, not destinations; Ikeda frames life as something you enter repeatedly, not something that simply happens to you. The sound of “groaning” makes the struggle audible, insisting that friction isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong - it’s proof you’re meeting reality’s weight.
The subtext is distinctly Ikeda: as the public face of Soka Gakkai International, he’s long argued that inner transformation is inseparable from social change. So “new lives” reads both personally and collectively - remaking the self as an antidote to the stagnation of institutions, cycles of defeat, and inherited narratives. It’s also a quiet rebuke to passive spirituality. Enlightenment here isn’t escape; it’s leverage. Creativity becomes the tool by which you pry open a future that will not politely open itself.
The metaphor does the heavy lifting. A “heavy, groaning doorway” suggests resistance baked into the world itself: tradition, circumstance, trauma, social expectation, even one’s own habits. Doorways are thresholds, not destinations; Ikeda frames life as something you enter repeatedly, not something that simply happens to you. The sound of “groaning” makes the struggle audible, insisting that friction isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong - it’s proof you’re meeting reality’s weight.
The subtext is distinctly Ikeda: as the public face of Soka Gakkai International, he’s long argued that inner transformation is inseparable from social change. So “new lives” reads both personally and collectively - remaking the self as an antidote to the stagnation of institutions, cycles of defeat, and inherited narratives. It’s also a quiet rebuke to passive spirituality. Enlightenment here isn’t escape; it’s leverage. Creativity becomes the tool by which you pry open a future that will not politely open itself.
Quote Details
| Topic | Never Give Up |
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