wabi-sabi: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect and that is a good thing.

I admit having an obsessive-compulsive loving disorder with anything Japanese (you may already know by now). And I live with someone who is studying Japanese and cooks Japanese dishes every day. Japan inspires me a calming effect, it is the place that reminds me of kindness, tranquillity and the possibility that human beings still take care of not hurting someone else’s feelings. And now I also discovered wabi-sabi. I found this book by Leonard Koren and the back cover stating: “Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional“, already hooked me. “Wabi-sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers” is a little book that you read in a few hours, but one you will love to re-read over time. That inspires creativity.

So what is wabi-sabi? Ask a Japanese and there will likely be a long silence. Maybe because it is not a fixed doctrine, or a religion. It is a concept of Japanese aesthetics characterized by simplicity, asymmetry or irregularity, unpretentiousness, tranquility, imperfect quality and love of old, weathered objects – all leading to a meditative appreciation of the impermanence and transience of things. Here is the wiki definition. The Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi has long been associated with the tea ceremony.

The wabi-sabi is a philosophy, a way of life but also an aesthetic style – that can be applied to photography for example (see below) – and may be also to the way we dress. What I like is that it stimulates to “get rid of the superfluous.” But not of EVERYTHING. A life of privation does not bring happiness. “Wabi-sabi is exactly about the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the pleasure we get from freedom of things.”

Now I would like (to trivialize the matter already) an Instagram profile full wabi-sabi inspired pictures. Which can not be the case, of course. But it is (for me) yet another confirmation that a perfectly styled and designed picture ends up being uninteresting. ““Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The beauty of wabi-sabi is in one respect, the condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace”.

Cover photo by me.

I added the Byredo Super Cedar scent since I started using it while I was reading the book and it was perfectly on point. It reminds of pencil shavings, it is unisex, simple but yet energetic.

Wabi-sabi vs Modernism.