In praise of Japanese culture through few books I read- A love letter to a country I never visited
I was reading The Paradox of Choice (PoC), a cogent and well articulated book whose main message is that even though we live in a world of infinite choices, and objectively our life choices are much more varied than the past, we are fumbling and stumbling through life with a paralyzing confusion about our trade offs, and are not subjectively happier because of them.
It reminded me of a few books by Japanese authors that I have read and how they gave me food for thought about minimalism and paying attention. I am summarizing them below:
1) Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism-
The author, Fumio, was a stressed out adult who was sick of comparing himself with others. He decides to try minimalism and becomes more satisfied with his new lifestyle. For example, he moves into a smaller apartment and feels that he saves time in cleaning it that way and also his house feels more intimate. He snaps photos of his physical albums/greeting cards and discards their physical versions in favor of the digital ones, this way he can summon what he wants at choice and also save space.
I especially liked the idea where he says that we should not rent the additional space in our own houses for items we don't need immediately, supermarkets and grocery stores are already paying the rent for them and won't suddenly shut down. I never looked at my clothes and books and other material as staying at my house without rent. What an interesting thought!
Back to PoC, it says that an average adult is exposed to 3000 ads a day. We get to learn about the world through ads basically, which means where ever we look, people are trying to sell us things!
The sudden rise in philosophy of minimalism evolved as an appropriate answer to wide scale consumerism. I'll give my own example. One day a salesman came to our house and tried to sell my mother a cleaning product that could get rid of stains on our white cupboards. My mother said no and after he had left, got out vinegar and started scrubbing every surface clean. I asked her why she suddenly felt this need and told her she was wasting her time just because a salesman had put an idea in our heads that this was an urgent task. We were doing just fine with rather dull looking cupboards and a tremendous belief that white cupboards shouldn't be used next time as furnishing before he came. However, this new product randomly got into her head and shuffled her daily routine. Time is the real currency so we should focus on how we are spending it after independent choice and not be swayed by the world and its ads.
In the book, a Matter of Death and Life, a psychiatrist and his writer wife after her terminal diagnosis write about life and meaning. In one chapter, the wife says that she is getting rid of her possessions, the memories of collectibles/paintings and items from travel that she curated attaches her more to her life and makes her feel sad that she will no longer be around to use them. It made me think about how my family will feel about my possessions after I die...it will make them sad and they wouldn't even understand my affinity of hoarding travel pamphlets and writing detailed notes on books I read.
I have visited few temples in India, ISKON in Vrindavan, and Dalai lama temple in Himachal Pradesh. These priests and monks look different from other people of their age- their faces are not twisted in worry nor do they have as many wrinkles- the markers of aging and physiological stress aren't there- even though they hardly have any possessions or wealth! It really got me thinking about whether our possessions make us happy or not.
On a different note, Emily Dickinson wrote 1700 poems from a 17 inch desk- constraints also bring out creativity!
After this book, I discarded a dress I had purchased 5 years ago which hadn't fit me then but would obviously fit me after my diet. It fits me now after 5 years but is not my new style at all. I don't know what I had been thinking. I had carried this dress with me for 5 years, while shifting houses 4 times. I am so much wiser now ;)
It also got me
thinking about how many books I own that just sit quietly and never get touched. As if the act of buying is equivalent to having read the book. Something at the back of my mind intuits just how much baggage and pressure I put on myself every time I open this half spilling cupboard and then do nothing about it. It's also the same for the copious amounts of notes I take after reading- I actually never look back at what I write- and am slowly starting to lessen my attachment and discard what I won't use.
Obligatory quote from Fight Club: The things you own end up owning you.
2) The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
Smash hit in Japan and easy to see why. In an articulate and clear manner, the authors give very useful tools on dealing with others and the reasons behind so many of our behaviors.
There is an episode in Black Mirror, the TV series, that I had seen long ago, where people can make people they don't like disappear. In this world, the way to punish someone is not by putting them in prison, but by making them invisible to all the people in the world. I loved that thought experiment- if no one else exists in the world- we may notice a beautiful sunset, but if we can't express and share the beauty with someone, then it will make life vastly less enjoyable. As this book says, all our problems are interrelationship problems.
It gives useful examples of why we are shy, how we should pick a marriage partner, why some people are workaholics, what to do about our anger and how we can get a sense of belonging to the world. I was really shocked by how practical the insights were.
One tip was to never praise or condemn people but just say thanks to them. I loved that and the reasoning behind it. In Anthony Demello's book Awareness, he says this:
"As long as you live to fulfill other people’s expectations, you better watch what you wear, how you comb your hair, whether your shoes are polished—in short, whether you live up to every damned expectation of theirs. Do you call that human?"
So if we praise someone then that makes them think they need to act a certain way- this is not love but cruelty!
3) The Book of Ichigo Ichie: The Art of Making the Most of Every Moment, the Japanese Way
The message of this book is that every moment unfurls as it does only once so we should cherish it.
“Even an elderly person can decide to wipe the slate clean and reinvent themselves, because they, too, have their whole life ahead of them. What matters isn’t how many more years we might live but what we will do with the time we have left.”
I read a tweet about a father whose little baby kept crying all night and kept both parents awake. His wife and he discussed by way of consolation that it was okay, one day the child will turn big and they will miss this time. 6 months later he did a follow up post about his baby who no longer gave them sleepless nights- he was already 6 months old- that time had gone to never come back.
I appreciated this sentiment and sense of wonder and appreciation on how beautiful and fragile everything is.
A loved one is sitting next to us and we are checking our phone. Tomorrow, we will regret not paying attention to that person, and it's too late, they are not on earth any more. This is unfortunately a lesson from a devastating personal experience.
Overall, eenjoyed this short, powerful read.
4) Kokoro
A fictional account of a young man who wants to understand an older man he met at a beach resort. The story, the exploration of loneliness, the sparseness of prose is something that Japanese writers do so well. I may as well be whimsical and say it, the subtlety of fleshing out emotions, the rawness of straightforward, minimalistic words really hit me like a punch. Beautiful read.
5) Ikigai
This one is very popular. A couple of messages that really stayed with me (and I try to implement) where around how our metabolism drops down drastically after an hour of sitting (I think it was 90% down), and even standing up for 5 minutes can reverse that
calamity.
Another one was on how few of us ever raise our hands above our heads, it's a pretty useful exercise and we should figure out ways to do it.
I have been reading a lot and don't remember which book this information was from but I really like it so I am sharing it anyway: It went like this: Old people in Okinawa, after retirement, go and stand at train platforms and help tourists explore the city and even educate them about its nuances. They have a very strong sense of community and of contributing to society. This point made me reflect on the almost bovine like contentment I dream about when I fantasize about my retirement while ignoring the the real tragedy of the situation and loss of identity that will inevitably come from stepping away from the race after a life time of working.
6) In Praise of Shadows
This short book made me realize that nothing in the world is dull. I have an urgent wish to go visit Japanese temple toilets and pay them proper attention as soon as possible now!
***
I enjoyed reading these books and felt that I took away something meaningful from them. It's not an exhaustive list- a few other very lovely fictional reads I am going through- Devotion to Suspect X, Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories, Breasts and Eggs, and Professor and housekeeper. I will review them separately because this post is in danger of having even more words!
All this rambling (most of it admittedly not even related to Japan) to say that I after reading these books, I want to travel to Japan this year and dance whimsically around cherry blossom trees like I were in a Bollywood movie, see why they live have longer lifespans, see for myself how much food they put on their plates, ask them about their views on love, and meet some old people on train platforms.
Ah, my mad, non-minimalistic heart...!
