Today’s blog post is brought to you by the term wabi-sabi.
No, it’s not something you would order at your neighborhood sushi bar. Nor is it a new character in a manga comic book. It’s a Japanese compound word which describes an entire philosophy and aesthetic in four simple syllables.
You’ve got to love the Japanese for being so elegantly efficient.
A little Internet research reveals the inevitable drama and conflict—some say that the two words wabi and sabi should never be used together. (Neither word translates directly into English. Wabi holds connotations of loneliness, rustic simplicity, humility, and quietude; sabi refers to imperfection, the aging process, and the interest these lend to things.) Others decry the new popularization of wabi-sabi in the West, and its commoditization as a new “style” in architecture, interior design, and the like.
So here’s my disclaimer. I’ve spent maybe 30-45 minutes looking into the term, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’m not going to do justice to the subtlety and richness of the concepts involved. But since the object of this blog is to highlight the practice of imperfection, it feels like it would be very humble-and-imperfect of me to continue.
Of all the discussions I found online, this is my favorite. From the first two paragraphs:
Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered—and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. . . . Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. . . . It’s a richly mellow beauty that’s striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time . . .
I started this blog to talk about perfection and imperfection, but in my mind, they keep bringing me back to concepts like clarity, simplification, and authenticity. There’s a close relationship between these things and allowing myself to let go of my need for perfection, and that’s why I was excited to find a strongly resonant term that ties them all together.
But there’s also a paradox. I have a personal aesthetic that is very wabi-sabi on its surface—my dream house, for instance, would contain lots of grainy wood and irregular stone and earthy-looking fabric and soft, natural tones and comfy furniture you could put your feet on, and very little plastic and shimmer and glitter and ruler-straight lines and loud colors and modular, matched fixtures.
My desire to pare down my personal possessions to only those things I truly need, love, or both also seems to fit the wabi-sabi philosophy very well.
But I’m forever wanting to declutter, organize, buy things that look artfully distressed, and otherwise force-fit my space and my belongings into the spare, uncluttered, and peacefully serene picture I have in my head.
In other words, I think I have a romanticized notion of imperfection.
Ouch.
Rather than trying to fit myself into an idealized image of what I think imperfection “should” look like, wouldn’t it be more authentic and humble and mentally/emotionally quiet and peaceful of me to simply accept that my space doesn’t look like I want it to, and make changes slowly as I can without beating myself up over the fact that it’s all . . . erm, not perfectly imperfect yet?
This new revelation actually came about as I was writing this post. Yay! Fresh insight! Now I just have to let it percolate for a while.
I guess what it all means is that (cough) I would like to lobby for making wabi-sabi not just a hobby, but a part of my regular jobbie.
(And if I haven’t just scared you off with that, feel free to comment!)
Tags: aesthetics, authenticity, cherishing, stuff
You want us to accept things as they are? To work at a reasonable instead of frenetic pace? Preposterous. No one would recognize me…..
Christine Martell’s last blog post..Addicted to organizing devices?
Christine–LOL! Reminds me of that old “Pot Shot” by Ashleigh Brilliant (ever see those brightly colored postcards with the line drawings and one-liners on them?).
“Don’t tell me to relax–it’s only my tension that’s holding me together.”
Sounds to me like you are hoping for a lifestyle where the ‘lived and used with daily’ takes on the patina of a well-used and well-loved tool — that was also well designed using honest material from the start. A sort of poetically perfect state of imperfection. But, plastic does not age well — it tends to turn brittle, or photodegrade, or crack under stress, or get scratched in an unattractive way. sigh. But we love our shiny things!
Barbara Martin’s last blog post..Coach Yourself Face to Face
Haha! yes! The perfectly humble, artistically lived-in workspace, or the one dish sitting out you might see in a design magazine….so perfectly imperfect, now buy all of these things to achieve it!
Eileen’s last blog post..The new drug
@Barbara – Yes, that’s exactly what I like. I’d much rather use the one-of-a-kind mug with the wonky handle that I made on the potter’s wheel in college (the one that was intended to be a bowl but had different ideas) than one of a perfectly matched set of store-bought mugs. Or maybe the store-bought mug that has special associations for me instead of the one that simply *looks* nice. “The patina of a well-used and well-loved tool” — yes.
@Eileen – You get the humor of this exactly!!!
)
Michelle Russell’s last blog post..Celebrating the Cracks and Crevices
Wow – I just found you and your blog is just what I need. Wabi-Sabi it is! Perfectionism will kill all growth and innovation, and stop progress, as well as making me f…ing unhappy 90% of the time. At my wise age, I should be finished with it, so it’s on tho wabi-sabi for me! If I may, I’d like to link to your blog.
Thanks!
Taru – Wow! Thanks so much for linking to my blog on your own!
And thanks for saying that this is just what you need. I started this blog because I’m still working through my own control-freaky issues about trying to be perfect all the time, and I wanted to share the journey with other like-minded people. So it’s very heartening every time someone tells me that what I write speaks to them.
Feel free to hang out here and join the conversation as much as you’d like–you’re very welcome here!