3 Japanese Words to Live By

Radhika Dirks Uncategorized

 

3 words for every artist
Rules to live by
997 to lay to rest
These to abide by

1. Ikigai: ‘y-KY-gnaay’ is one’s reason in life. Ikigai goes beyond the French raison d’etre because the concept of ikigai includes its discovery. You are not born with it, you don’t chance by it, and definitely no one person or community tells you what it is. One needs to discover = hunt, fail, learn, pursue, fight, and realize, to find it. It is a journey, not a vacation; a derivation, not a multiple choice answer.

Second, the concept also includes a deep satisfaction, a meaning, and a pure joy of life that comes with the discovery and practice of one’s ikigai. Okinawian in origin, ikigai has been linked to a long healthy life and better quality of life. Okinawa is, in fact, one of the world’s blue zones, demographies of longevity rock stars. Okinawa in particular hosts the world’s longest living tribe; perhaps because people know to find and live by their ikigai.

If you had to pick just one word, this is the single most important one to live by. It might just help you from failing retirement, the increasing crowd of those who work hard for decades and postpone living the life they want to after 55 – only to discover they don’t know how and go back to the corporate grind.  Ikigai is your reason to wake up. The sooner you find it, the happier you will be.

2. Kamiwaza: Like every other fascinating foreign word, kamiwaza is hard to translate. The closest is ‘ god-like’. Kamiwaza is where you try to be the myths, the super heroes, and the channel gods, to paraphrase Seth Godin in the Icarus Deception. It’s when you try to fly closer to the sun and become super human. Kamiwaza is the destination in the pursuit of excellence.

Godin ties the notion of kamiwaza to those who can truly make a huge impact in our post industrial world  – the new age artists, including entrepreneurs, even executives, and of course traditional artists. Anyone who dares to destroy, create, and connect.

3. Mono No Aware: A simply beautiful notion that stops you in your tracks, Mono No Aware (‘mo.no.no.ah.wah.ray’)  is a feeling.  It is a feeling that you get when you realize that a gorgeous landscape of cherry blossoms will wither and die and the realization that comes with it. Mono No Aware refers to the ‘pathos of things’ and the gentle longing that comes from the awareness of  their impermanence.  It is knowing that the most beautiful things are those that will fade away, that we know it will fade away, and it’s that scarcity that makes them even more beautiful.

Also from the Icarus Deception, Seth Godin calls it a reverse nostalgia. Mono No Aware is more powerful than the latin ‘memento mori’ (remember, you will die) because there is no creation without destruction – every awe-inspiring entrepreneur, every epoch-defining  artist knows that “The creation of art also means the fading of art, and the realization that the act of making it last forever is also the act of destroying whatever made it work in the first place”, might just be the most beautiful words in the Icarus Deception. What got you here today will not work tomorrow. To keep excelling, you have to keep challenging status quo – even if you are the one that created the status quo in the first place!

To me, taken as a whole ikigai, kamiwaza, and mono no aware form a trinity of Japanese awesomeness to live by;  the later a balancing force between the former two. Three concepts to form a framework for your life – find your reason to wake up, become godlike, and magnify your appreciation of the fleeting beauty around you. If you have the time to just focus on one, pick ikigai. If you can afford two, add kamiwaza. And to live a complete balanced life enjoying every moment as you strive to make it better, add mono no aware.

Fascinating what just three words tell us about a whole culture!