We don’t know

This is a quote from the book The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder.

Quote by Yōko Ogawa, “Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn’t afraid to say “we don’t know.” For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn’t have the answer, it was a necessary step toward the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

The Housekeeper and the Professor – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem–ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him.

And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them.

Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor’s mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities–like the Housekeeper’s shoe size–and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.

Copyright © 2003 by Yōko Ogawa.

Translated by: Stephen Snyder

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

The Professor loved prime numbers

Excerpt from The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

This is an excerpt from the book The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder.

The Professor loved prime numbers more than anything in the world. I’d been vaguely aware of their existence, but it never occurred to me that they could be the object of someone’s deepest affection. He was tender and attentive and respectful; by turns he would caress them or prostrate himself before them; he never strayed far from his prime numbers. Whether at his desk or at the dinner table, when he talked about numbers, primes were most likely to make an appearance. At first, it was hard to see their appeal. They seemed so stubborn, resisting division by any number but one and themselves. Still, as we were swept up in the Professor’s enthusiasm, we gradually came to understand his devotion, and the primes began to seem more real, as though we could reach out and touch them. I’m sure they meant something different to each of us, but as soon as the Professor would mention prime numbers, we would look at each other with conspiratorial smiles. Just as the thought of a caramel can cause your mouth to water, the mere mention of prime numbers made us anxious to know more about their secrets.

Evening was a precious time for the three of us. The vague tension around my morning arrival—which for the Professor was always our first encounter—had dissipated, and Root livened up our quiet days. I suppose that’s why I’ll always remember the Professor’s face in the evening, in profile, lit by the setting sun.

Inevitably, the Professor repeated himself when he talked about prime numbers. But Root and I had promised each other that we would never tell him, even if we had heard the same thing several times before—a promise we took as seriously as our agreement to hide the truth about Enatsu. No matter how weary we were of hearing a story, we always made an effort to listen attentively. We felt we owed that to the Professor, who had put so much effort into treating the two of us as real mathematicians. But our main concern was to avoid confusing him. Any kind of uncertainty caused him pain, so we were determined to hide the time that had passed and the memories he’d lost. Biting our tongues was the least we could do.

But the truth was, we were almost never bored when he spoke of mathematics. Though he often returned to the topic of prime numbers—the proof that there were an infinite number of them, or a code that had been devised based on primes, or the most enormous known examples, or twin primes, or the Mersenne, primes—the slightest change in the shape of his argument could make you see something you had never understood before. Even a difference in the weather or in his tone of voice seemed to cast these numbers in a different light.

To me, the appeal of prime numbers had something to do with the fact that you could never predict when one would appear. They seemed to be scattered along the number line at any place that took their fancy. The farther you get from zero, the harder they are to find, and no theory or rule could predict where they will turn up next. It was this tantalizing puzzle that held the Professor captive.

“Let’s try finding the prime numbers up to 100,” the Professor said one day when Root had finished his homework. He took his pencil and began making a list: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97.

It always amazed me how easily numbers seemed to flow from the Professor, at any time, under any circumstances. How could these trembling hands, which could barely turn on the microwave, make such precise numbers of all shapes and sizes?

I also liked the way he wrote his numbers with his little stub of a pencil. The 4 was so round it looked like a knot of ribbon, and the 5 was leaning so far forward it seemed about to tip over. They weren’t lined up very neatly, but they all had a certain personality. The Professor’s lifelong affection for numbers could be seen in every figure he wrote.

“So, what do you see?” He tended to begin with this sort of general question.

They’re scattered all over the place.” Root usually answered first. “And 2 is the only one that’s even.” For some reason, he always noticed the odd man out.

“You’re right. Two is the only even prime. It’s the leadoff batter for the infinite team of prime numbers after it.”

“That must be awfully lonely,” said Root.

“Don’t worry,” said the Professor. “If it gets lonely, it has lots of company with the other even numbers.”

“But some of them come in pairs, like 17 and 19, and 41 and 43,” I said, not wanting to be shown up by Root.

“A very astute observation,” said the Professor. “Those are known as ‘twin primes.’”

I wondered why ordinary words seemed so exotic when they were used in relation to numbers. Amicable numbers or twin primes had a precise quality about them, and yet they sounded as though they’d been taken straight out of a poem. In my mind, the twins had matching outfits and stood holding hands as they waited in the number line.

“As the numbers get bigger, the distance between primes increases as well, and it becomes more difficult to find twins. So we don’t know yet whether twin primes are infinite the way prime numbers themselves are.” As he spoke, the Professor circled the consecutive pairs.

Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn’t afraid to say “we don’t know.” For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn’t have the answer, it was a necessary step toward the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

The Housekeeper and the Professor – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem–ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him.

And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them.

Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor’s mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities–like the Housekeeper’s shoe size–and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.

Copyright © 2003 by Yōko Ogawa.

Translated by: Stephen Snyder

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Her mind was made up

This is a quote from the book Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot.

Quote by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, “Her mind was made up. Or, more accurately, a stubborn resolve had taken root.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

Copyright © Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Translation copyright © Picador 2019.

Translated by: Geoffrey Trousselot

More details can be found on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

The long-forgotten silence

This is a quote from the book Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Quote by Sayaka Murata, “The long-forgotten silence sounded like music I’d never heard before.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Convenience Store Woman – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world, so when she takes on a job in a convenience store while at university, they are delighted for her. For her part, in the convenience store she finds a predictable world mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the workers should act and what they should say, and she copies her coworkers’ style of dress and speech patterns so that she can play the part of a normal person.

However, eighteen years later, at age 36, she is still in the same job, has never had a boyfriend, and has only few friends. She feels comfortable in her life, but is aware that she is not living up to society’s expectations and causing her family to worry about her. When a similarly alienated but cynical and bitter young man comes to work in the store, he will upset Keiko’s contented stasis—but will it be for the better?

Sayaka Murata brilliantly captures the atmosphere of the familiar convenience store that is so much part of life in Japan. With some laugh-out-loud moments prompted by the disconnect between Keiko’s thoughts and those of the people around her, she provides a sharp look at Japanese society and the pressure to conform, as well as penetrating insights into the female mind. Convenience Store Woman is a fresh, charming portrait of an unforgettable heroine that recalls Banana Yoshimoto, Han Kang, and Amélie.

Copyright © 2016 by Sayaka Murata.

Translated by: Ginny Tapley Takemori

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

I wanted to let her know

This is a quote from the book If Cats Disappeared From the World by Genki Kawamura, translated by Eric Selland.

Quote by Genki Kawamura, “I wanted to let her know what I was thinking right away, but couldn’t. And strangely enough, it was when I couldn’t speak to her that she was on my mind the most.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

If Cats Disappeared From the World – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Our narrator’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat Cabbage for company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can set about tackling his bucket list, the Devil appears with a special offer: in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, he can have one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week . . .

Because how do you decide what makes life worth living? How do you separate out what you can do without from what you hold dear? In dealing with the Devil our narrator will take himself – and his beloved cat – to the brink. Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared from the World is a story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters in modern life.

Copyright © 2018 by Genki Kawamura.

Translated by: Eric Selland

More details can be found here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

A convenience store is a world of sound

Excerpt from Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Photo by Li Lin | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

A convenience store is a world of sound. From the tinkle of the door chime to the voices of TV celebrities advertising new products over the in-store cable network, to the calls of the store workers, the beeps of the bar code scanner, the rustle of customers picking up items and placing them in baskets, and the clacking of heels walking around the store. It all blends into the convenience store sound that ceaselessly caresses my eardrums.

I hear the faint rattle of a new plastic bottle rolling into place as a customer takes one out of the refrigerator, and look up instantly. A cold drink is often the last item customers take before coming to the checkout till, and my body responds automatically to the sound. I see a woman holding a bottle of mineral water while perusing the desserts and look back down.

As i arrange the display of newly delivered rice balls, my body picks up information from the multitude of sounds around the store. At this time of day, rice balls, sandwiches, and salads are what sell best. Another part-timer, Sugawara, is over at the other side of the store checking off items with a handheld scanner. I continue laying out the pristine, machine-made food neatly on the shelves of the cold display: in the middle I place two rows of the new flavor, spicy cod roe with cream cheese, alongside two rows of the store’s best-selling flavor, tuna mayonnaise, and then I line the less popular dry bonito shavings in soy sauce flavor next to those. Speed is of the essence, and I barely use my head as the rules ingrained in me issue instructions directly to my body.

Alerted by a faint clink of coins I turn and look over at the cash register. It’s a sound I’m sensitive to, since customers who come just to buy cigarettes or a newspaper often jingle coins in their hand or pocket. And yes: as I’d thought, a man with a can of coffee in one hand, the other hand in his pocket, is approaching the till. I quickly move through the store, slide behind the counter, and stand at the ready so as not to keep him waiting.

“Irasshaimasé! Good morning, sir.”

I bow and take the can of coffee he holds out to me.

“Oh, and a pack of Marlboro menthol Lights.”

“Right away, sir.” I take out a pack of the cigarettes and scan the bar code. “Please confirm your age on the touch screen.”

As he does so, I notice him glance at the hot-food cabinet. I could ask him whether he’d like anything else, but when a customer appears to be dithering over whether or not to buy something, I make a point of taking a step back and waiting.

“And a corn dog.”

“Right away, sir. Thank you.”

I disinfect my hands with alcohol, open the hot cabinet, and take out a corn dog.

“Shall I put the hot food and cold drink in separate bags?”

“Oh no, don’t bother. Together’s fine.”

I put the can of coffee, cigarettes, and corn dog into a small-size bag. Until then the man had been jingling the coins in his pocket, but now he suddenly moves his hand to his breast pocket as though something has just occurred to him. Instantly I deduse that he will use electronic money.

“I’ll pay by Suica.”

“Certainly, sir. Please touch your card here.”

I automatically read the customer’s minutest movements and gaze, and my body acts reflexively in response. My ears and eyes are important sensors to catch their every move and desire. Taking the utmost care not to cause the customer any discomfort by observing him or her too closely, I swiftly move my hands according to whatever signals I pick up.

“Your receipt, sir. Tank you for your custom!”

“Thanks,” he says, taking his receipt and leaving.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” I say with a bow to the woman next in the queue. “Irasshaimasé. Good morning!”

The morning period is passing normally in the brightly lit box of the convenience store, I feel. visible outside the windows, polished free of fingerprints, are the figures of people rushing by. It is the start of another day, the time when the world wakes up and the cogs of society begin to move. I am one of those cogs, going round and round. I have become a functioning part of the world, rotating in the time of day called morning.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Convenience Store Woman – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world, so when she takes on a job in a convenience store while at university, they are delighted for her. For her part, in the convenience store she finds a predictable world mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the workers should act and what they should say, and she copies her coworkers’ style of dress and speech patterns so that she can play the part of a normal person.

However, eighteen years later, at age 36, she is still in the same job, has never had a boyfriend, and has only few friends. She feels comfortable in her life, but is aware that she is not living up to society’s expectations and causing her family to worry about her. When a similarly alienated but cynical and bitter young man comes to work in the store, he will upset Keiko’s contented stasis—but will it be for the better?

Sayaka Murata brilliantly captures the atmosphere of the familiar convenience store that is so much part of life in Japan. With some laugh-out-loud moments prompted by the disconnect between Keiko’s thoughts and those of the people around her, she provides a sharp look at Japanese society and the pressure to conform, as well as penetrating insights into the female mind. Convenience Store Woman is a fresh, charming portrait of an unforgettable heroine that recalls Banana Yoshimoto, Han Kang, and Amélie.

Copyright © 2016 by Sayaka Murata.

Translated by: Ginny Tapley Takemori

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

If cats disappeared from the world…

Excerpt from If Cats Disappeared From the World by Genki Kawamura

Photo by Roberto Huczek | Accessed on Unsplashed.com

This is an excerpt from the book If Cats Disappeared From the World by Genki Kawamura, translated by Eric Selland.

If cats disappeared from the world, how would the world be different? What wold be gained and what would be lost in a world without cats?

I remembered what my mother said a long time ago:

“Cats and humans have been partners for over ten thousand years. And what you realize when you’ve lived with a cat for a long time is that we may think we own them, but that’s not the way it is. They simply allow us the pleasure of their company.”

Cabbage was curled up and asleep. I lay down beside him and gazed at his face. Such a peaceful face. Never in his wildest dreams wold he ever imagine a world where he had disappeared. I wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up at this very moment, speaking like a gentleman and demanding to be fed. But as I stared at his sleeping face I could also imagine him saying like a faithful friend, “I would gladly disappear for you, sir.”

On the one hand, they say that only humans have a concept of death. Cats don’t see it coming. It doesn’t cause them fear and anxiety like it does humans. And then humans end up keeping cats as pets, despite our angst over mortality, even though we know that the cat will die long before we do, causing the owner untold grief.

But then again, human beings can never grieve their own death. Death is always something that happens to others around them. When you boil it down, the death of a cat isn’t so different from the death of a human. When I thought about it this way I finally understood why it is that we humans keep cats as pets. there’s a limit to how well we know ourselves. We don’t know what we look like to others, and we can’t know our own future, and we can’t know what our own death will be like. And that’s why we need cats. It’s just like my mother said. Cats don’t need us. It’s human beings who need cats.

As these thoughts were going round and round in my brain I suddenly felt a sharp pain in the right side of my head.

Feeling powerless I curled up in bed, trembling, just like Lettuce when he was dying. I felt so small and helpless in this body of mine, this body no dominated by death. I felt a heavy weight pressing down on my chest.

The pain in my head was getting worse. I went into the kitchen and took two painkillers, washed them down with water, and then went back to bed. I fell into a deep sleep.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If Cats Disappeared From the World – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Our narrator’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat Cabbage for company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can set about tackling his bucket list, the Devil appears with a special offer: in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, he can have one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week . . .

Because how do you decide what makes life worth living? How do you separate out what you can do without from what you hold dear? In dealing with the Devil our narrator will take himself – and his beloved cat – to the brink. Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared from the World is a story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters in modern life.

Copyright © 2018 by Genki Kawamura.

Translated by: Eric Selland

More details can be found here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

On the way to Granny’s house

Photo by Greg Rakozy | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Deep in the mountains of Akishina where Granny and Grandpa live, fragments of night linger even at midday.

As we wound our way up steep hairpin bends, I gazed out the window at the swaying trees, at the undersides of the leaves so swollen they looked as though they would burst. That was where the pitch-black darkness was. I always felt an urge to reach out to that blackness, the color of outer space.

Next to me, Mom was rubbing my sister’s back.

“Are you okay, Kise? These mountain roads are so steep, no wonder you’re feeling carsick.”

Dad gripped the steering wheel, saying nothing. He was driving slowly to keep the car as steady as he possibly could, glancing anxiously at Kise in the rearview mirror.

I was eleven and in year five of elementary school. I could take care of myself. Looking out of the window at the fragments of the universe was the best way to avoid getting carsick. I’d worked that out when I was eight and hadn’t been sick on this road since. My sister was two years older than me, but she was still just a child and wouldn’t survive the journey without Mom’s help.

As we drove up and up around endless bends, ears popping, I felt like I was gradually moving toward the sky. Granny’s house is high up, close to the universe.

I hugged my backpack to me. Inside it was my origami magic wand and my magical transformation mirror. At the very top of the backpack was my best friend, Piyyut, who gave me these magical objects. Piyyut can’t speak human since the evil forces put a spell on him, but he’s looking after me so I won’t get carsick.

I hadn’t told my family, but I was a magician, a real one with actual magical powers. I’d met Piyyut in the supermarket by the station when I was six and had just started elementary school. He was right on the edge of the soft toy display and looked as though he was about to be thrown out. I bought him with the money I’d received at New Year’s. Piyyut was the one who’d given me my magical objects and powers. He was from Planet Popinpobopia. The Magic Police had found out that Earth was facing a crisis and had sent him on a mission to save our planet. Since then I’d been using the powers he’d given me to protect the Earth.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Earthlings – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Natsuki isn’t like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the two children forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.

Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki’s family are increasing, her friends wonder why she’s still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki’s childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?

Copyright © 2018 by Sayaka Murata.

Translated by: Ginny Tapley Takemori

More details on Goodreads can be found here.

Tips for finding your purpose in life

Have you heard of the Japanese term Ikigai?

Ikigai is basically a Japanese word for your purpose in life or a happy life. “Iki” means to live and “gai” means reason, so the word literally means the reason to live. It’s a combination of what you’re passionate about, what you’re good at, how you can help the world, and what kind of job you can have. As I was reading the book The Little Book of Ikigai by Ken Mogi to understand more about about this concept, I learned a bit about how to do what makes you feel fulfilled.

Photo by Dil | Accessed on Unsplash.com

Main impacts

Here are the aspects of the book that resonated the most with me:

  1. Five pillars of Ikigai.
  2. Doing what you love without expecting recognition.
  3. The interaction of language and culture.

Five pillars of Ikigai

Ken Mogi starts off by introducing the five pillars of ikigai, and constantly refers to them throughout the book. The five pillars are a good way to get an initial idea of ikigai.

The Five Pillars:

  1. Starting small: This pillar focuses on just finding a way to start, that any small step is progress and it doesn’t need to be monumental. It can be doing something small towards your goal or finding ways to incorporate it into your life. This also included focusing on all the small details to improve performance or quality, such as perfecting every step of a process.
  2. Releasing yourself: The goal is to release yourself from judgement or from the goal of being successful. With this release, you give yourself permission to focus on your interest simply because you enjoy it, you’re not doing it to prove your worth or your success to others. When you change your motivation to be entirely internal rather than external, then you gain more joy from it and it becomes more sustainable (see other pillars).
  3. Harmony & sustainability: A key part of ikigai is to ensure that what you’re doing is both sustainable and long-lasting. Most of the other pillars support and enable sustainability, such as having internal motivation (releasing yourself), and enjoying the process (joy of little things). But make sure to consider how you can incorporate your ikigai into your life for the long-run and make it sustainable.
    • An incredible example of sustainability discussed in the book is the Ise Shrine. The shrine is dismantled and rebuilt every twenty years. This rebuilding process has been going on for the past 1,200 years! To ensure this is possible, there are many details that need to be planned ahead and considered, such as planting a specific tree far enough in advance that there will be enough of the exact size needed, and having access to individuals with special carpentry techniques that are past on from one generation to another. The sustainability is embedded directly into the processes and culture of the shrine.
  4. The joy of little things: The goal is to find joy in the process and all the details. If you’re able to enjoy what you do and all the stages of it, it will help keep you consistent and make the process more sustainable. The more sources of joy you have, the more likely you’ll continue to pursue an interest. It’s similar to the cliche of make sure you’re enjoying the journey, not just the destination.
  5. Being in the here and now: For this pillar, you need to focus on what’s happening in the present. Don’t get all caught up in the past or the future. This goes hand in hand with releasing yourself, so you’re not too preoccupied with becoming “successful” in the future, and the joy of the little things, so that you find joy in all the steps of improving your craft or career.

Example of the Pillars

As an easy way to show how all of these five pillars can interact, let me share with you an example that Ken Mogi shared for how they manifest in a sumo wrestler’s career. A sumo wrestler must start small by focusing on every little detail of each technique in their training to perfect the skill, such as where to place your feet. More amateur sumo wrestlers often have to attend to the needs of a more senior wrestler, which requires them to release themselves by focusing on another’s needs and desires. The overall harmony and sustainability of the sumo wrestling practice is upheld through the many rituals and traditions that maintain a consistent culture. There are many ways that wrestlers find joy in the little things, such as the taste of chanko (a dish unique to sumo wrestlers that helps them gain weight) or hearing the cheers of fans, and these enjoying each of these helps make their career more sustainable. During a match, a wrestler needs to be completely submersed in the present moment, aka being in the here and now, for their optimum performance.

Doing what you love without expecting recognition

This aspect is kind of a combination of pillars two and four, the releasing yourself and finding joy in little things. When you release yourself from judgement of others and are simply doing it because you love it, you also usually find joy in the little things. These two pillars together help you do what you love without expecting recognition. Most people who have become successful, have been consistently practicing the same skill simply because they enjoy doing it, and eventually they get so good other people start to take notice. Look at famous authors, artists, performers, and others, a lot of them became successful because they just kept practicing their skill at any opportunity they had.

Usually, when you do something because you genuinely love it, you want to continue doing it no matter what. You find pleasure in the details and you continually try to improve. The focus on improving yourself instead of who is taking notice, helps make the process more sustainable (pillar three) and enables you to continue perfecting your skill while finding joy in the process.

The key is to stop thinking about the judgement of others, don’t get caught up in what others think about you or how you compare to others. When you are only focused on what you’re doing, then you can truly embrace who you were meant to be, and do all the things that you want to do.

An Example

An incredible example of this is the world-famous sushi chef, Jiro Ono, who developed his sushi skills simply because he loved it. He did it without worrying about the expectations of others or what was the typical way of starting a sushi stand/restaurant. In this way, he developed multiple tools and processes unique to himself, which are now used across the world and are attributed to his ingenuity. Despite this incredible success and impact, he didn’t design any of those tools for others, but simply to make his craft better and help himself while continuing to learn.

The interaction of language and culture

A fascinating part of this book, was highlighting the strong connection between language and culture. One often reinforces and reflects the other, and you see it manifested and embodied in both.

Ikigai is a common word in Japanese, considered a part of everyday life, but it’s not always given that much thought. But its concept is seen throughout the country, in the way that people find joy and purpose in their work, and the efforts people go to perfect what they focus on without aiming for recognition. This language and practice have become so intricately intertwined, that it’s become a part of the Japanese culture. Interestingly, individualists (like Steve Jobs) are not usually fostered in this kind of system, but rather the type of people more commonly found are those with passion and mastery of their craft.

Another interesting example is the link between onomatopoeia and sound symbolism in the Japanese language and culture. In Japan, there’s a dictionary of onomatopoeia sounds that includes 4,500 examples of onomatopoeia expressions, as each sound has a distinct meaning. For example, ton ton vs don don, a simple change in one letter changes from a light tapping (ton ton) to a heavy, thudding one (don don). Japanese manga authors use these types of expressions extensively, with each one adding more nuance to the story. This type of sound symbolism is so embedded in the Japanese culture that they are also commonly used in professional contexts to highlight nuances.

Final Thoughts

This book was quite interesting, and I learned a lot about Japanese culture and life through the exploring the concept of ikigai. The book isn’t really an instructional guide on how to find or develop your ikigai, but it does act as a great introduction the concept. I feel like this book gives you the ground work to understand the concept and helps you start contemplating what your purpose in life is. You can use the pillars to assess your current or future interest, helping to shape them into something more sustainable.

There are many more examples of how ikigai can manifest in people lives in the book. If you’re interested in this topic, I would recommend reading the book to find out more.

I would love to know your thoughts on this concept, do you think you have an ikigai in your life and what is it?

References

  • You can buy the book on amazon here.
  • You can see Ken Mogi talking about the five pillars here.
  • If you’re interested in Ken Mogi, you can find links to his work and blog here: http://www.qualia-manifesto.com/
    • And his twitter is here.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot.

Her mind was made up. Or, more accurately, a stubborn resolve had taken root.

Kazu just stood there impassively. Fumiko could imagine that if she had instead told her, Sorry, I can’t go through with this, her reaction would have been the same. She briefly closed her eyes, placed her clenched fists on her lap, and drew in a deep breath through her nostrils as if trying to centre herself.

‘I’m ready,’ she announced. She looked Kazu in the eye. ‘Please pour the coffee.’

Giving a small nod, Kazu picked up the silver kettle from the tray with her right hand. She looked at Fumiko demurely. ‘Just remember. Drink the coffee before it goes cold,’ she whispered.

Kazu began to pour the coffee into the cup. She gave off an air of nonchalance, but her fluid and graceful movements made Fumiko feel like she was observing an ancient ceremony.

Just as Fumiko noticed the shimmering steam rising from the coffee that filled the cup, everything around the table also began to curl up and become indistinguishable from the swirling vapour. She began to feel fear and closed her eyes. The sensation that she was shimmering and becoming distorted, like the rising steam, became even more powerful. She clenched her fists tighter. If this continues, I won’t find myself in the present or past; I’ll simply vanish in a wisp of smoke. As this anxiety engulfed her, she brought to mind the first time she met Goro.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Book Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

Copyright © Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Translation copyright © Picador 2019.

Translated by: Geoffrey Trousselot

More details can be found on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

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