Tag: dailyprompt-1939

Are you a leader or a follower?

It was the kind of question we used to get in school, right before they handed out some color-coded personality test and told us who we were supposed to become. Red if you were bold. Blue if you were thoughtful. Yellow for the dreamers. Green if you followed the rules.

I never knew how to answer it. I still don’t.

I’ve followed people into places I didn’t belong, just to feel less alone. I’ve led people into situations I wasn’t ready for, just because I couldn’t bear to disappoint them. Some days I move like water, adjusting to every curve. Other days, I am the stone that refuses to shift.

And I’ve come to believe the question itself is flawed.

Most of us aren’t one or the other. We’re just trying to find our footing. Some seasons we lead. Some seasons we follow. Some seasons we just try to stay standing.

I was thinking about all this the day I found myself in the Mori Art Museum.

It had been one of those shapeless afternoons—too early for dinner, too late to go home. I wandered into Roppongi Hills with nothing in particular to do. The mall was pulsing with soft jazz and the gentle perfume of polished ambition. Shoppers moved like they had somewhere to be. I didn’t. So I kept walking.

Past cafés where the chairs were too elegant to sit in for long. Past boutiques filled with linen shirts folded with the kind of reverence usually reserved for scripture. Up escalators, through corridors, following signs not because I was curious, but because it was easier than deciding.

And then: the museum. Tucked into the sky like a secret only the quiet ones find.

Admission: 2,000 yen.

I hesitated. That was two meals. That was laundry money. That was more than I’d usually spend on something with no tangible return. But something inside nudged me. A quiet, unreasonable voice. Not logic. Not budget. Just… go.

So I went.

And what I found wasn’t just art. It was a recalibration.

Large-format canvases that seemed to breathe when you blinked. Sculptures suspended mid-air, defying gravity and reason. Video installations that washed over you like dreams you didn’t know you remembered. Rooms built to confuse your sense of time. Light bent in ways that made you question whether you’d ever actually seen it before.

One piece was made entirely of steel thread. Just lines and tension. But it hummed with presence. It had no meaning unless you stood still, unless you offered it your time. And I did. Not because I understood it. But because it asked nothing from me except stillness.

I thought about that question again.

Leader or follower?

But what if the better question is:

Can you be led by wonder? Can you follow beauty into places where logic says you don’t belong?

I remembered being younger, broke, anxious, always calculating. Always hungry—for certainty, for validation, for meaning. I remember passing galleries with my head down, pretending I wasn’t curious. Pretending I couldn’t care less. Because I thought beauty was something you earned. Something reserved for those who had already made it.

But there I was, high above Tokyo, standing face-to-face with art that asked nothing of me. No degree. No credentials. No invitation.

Just 2,000 yen and a willingness to be moved.

And in that moment, I realized: the doors aren’t always locked. Sometimes we just forget to knock. Or we tell ourselves it isn’t meant for us. Or we wait for someone to lead us inside.

But the truth is, we’re already allowed.

Even if we’re lost. Even if we don’t know what the piece means. Even if we feel small, or uncertain, or unworthy.

Especially then.

Because some things—some true, unforgettable things—aren’t waiting for leaders or followers.

They’re waiting for you to stop walking past. To stop saying maybe next time. To stop assuming that a masterpiece requires a map.

And sometimes, all it takes is 2,000 yen and the courage to be a little foolish. To stand still in front of something you don’t understand. To follow the part of you that doesn’t speak in logic.

And maybe that’s leadership too.

The kind that starts with admitting you don’t have the answers.
The kind that dares to follow awe.
The kind that leads you quietly back to yourself.

No spotlight. No applause. Just a long hallway, a silent room, a feeling you can’t quite name.

And a version of you—older, maybe—who finally steps in.

I was standing in the Mori Art Museum, five floors above Tokyo. Maybe more. High enough that the windows looked like they had given up trying to frame the city and instead just surrendered to it. The view stretched past Shibuya and beyond, all silver angles and blinking lights, like the inside of a machine trying to dream.

The entrance had cost me 2,000 yen.

World-class art, the sign said. And it was true.

Large-format pieces that took up entire rooms. Sculptures with their own gravitational pull. Video installations that whispered strange truths in half-languages. One wall pulsed with projected light like a living organism. Another held a canvas so quiet you could barely look at it without blinking too fast.

But what struck me wasn’t the art itself.

It was how close I was allowed to stand.

No velvet ropes. No glass. Just me and a work someone had maybe poured years into. Inches apart. I could see the cracks in the paint, the hesitation in the brushstroke. I could feel the heat of a thought made visible.

And for 2,000 yen.

A bowl of ramen cost almost the same.

I stood in front of a piece made entirely of steel and thread. The kind of thing that made no sense unless you stood very still for a very long time. And there was something so unbearably human about that—how the piece asked for your attention, not your approval. How it didn’t try to sell you anything. How it just… existed.

And I remembered a time, years ago, when I couldn’t have afforded even that.

Back then, I’d walk past galleries with my head down. Pretend I wasn’t interested. I’d eat convenience store bread in Yoyogi Park and wonder how people made it work. How they got inside the buildings with warm lighting and clean bathrooms and drinks that came with napkins.

I thought, then, that access came after success. That beauty was something reserved for later.

But now I know—sometimes, it only costs 2,000 yen.

Not everything worthwhile is behind a gate.

You just have to know when to stop walking past. When to go up. When to pay attention.

And maybe that’s the secret of it all.

You won’t always be able to afford everything.
But there will be moments—small, quiet ones—where the world opens up and says, this one’s for you.

Even if it’s just for an afternoon.
Even if you leave with nothing but a softened heart and a little less noise in your head.

Some days, that’s the masterpiece.