Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced [ikiɡai]) is a Japanese concept that means “a reason for being.” It is similar to the French phrase Raison d’être. Everyone, according to Japanese culture, has an ikigai. Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self. Such a search is important to the cultural belief that discovering one’s ikigai brings satisfaction and meaning to life.[1] Examples include work, hobbies and raising children.[2]
The term ikigaicompounds two Japanese words: iki (wikt:生き?) meaning “life; alive” and kai (甲斐) “(an) effect; (a) result; (a) fruit; (a) worth; (a) use; (a) benefit; (no, little) avail” (sequentially voiced as gai) “a reason for living [being alive]; a meaning for [to] life; what [something that] makes life worth living; a raison d’etre”.[3]
In the culture of Okinawa, ikigai is thought of as “a reason to get up in the morning”; that is, a reason to enjoy life. In a TED Talk, Dan Buettner suggested ikigai as one of the reasons people in the area had such long lives.[4]
The word ikigai is usually used to indicate the source of value in one’s life or the things that make one’s life worthwhile. Secondly, the word is used to refer to mental and spiritual circumstances under which individuals feel that their lives are valuable. It’s not necessarily linked to one’s economic status or the present state of society. Even if a person feels that the present is dark, but they have a goal in mind, they may feel ikigai. Behaviours that make us feel ikigai are not actions we are forced to take—these are natural and spontaneous actions.
In the article named Ikigai — jibun no kanosei, kaikasaseru katei (“Ikigai: the process of allowing the self’s possibilities to blossom”) Kobayashi Tsukasa says that “people can feel real ikigai only when, on the basis of personal maturity, the satisfaction of various desires, love and happiness, encounters with others, and a sense of the value of life, they proceed toward self-realization.”[1][5]
A boy, 10 or 11, weeping on the lawn in the park. He is there with his dad, they were flying an impressive handmade remote control airplane made of cardboard that looked like it took them a lot of time and care to make. After about 2 minutes, as they landed it, a huge husky bounded up to it and tore it into pieces.
The dad said, to no one in particular, but loudly, “goddamn dog owners” (it is past the time when dogs are allowed in the park off-leash), which prompted an instant, louder, response from the woman who owned the dog chastizibg him for giving a wrong message to the child.
He is still crying, inconsolable .
things really are simpler when I am somewhere else
Why, why did I drink all this coffee at 5 and at 10am?
Now that I can finally sleep I cannot.
Ineffectual and useless as usual
goodnight
nothing much going on this week, or weekend, so looking at (now) old photos
tinfoilparachute 