Ads and social media show us a perfect life. All we have to do is buy that particular brand of anti-aging crème, a new gas guzzling SUV, or the latest fast fashion clothes, and we will be perfectly happy. In commercials life is predictable (unpredictability = stress), a stylized version of reality. The people we unconsciously identify with in these commercials are all meticulously coiffed and manicured, and - oh wonder - somehow manage to always be the only people enjoying beach life in a tourist hot spot. It’s an instagrammed, illusory world where people are always happy and smiling and where unpleasant emotions, failures or just plain bad luck and ugliness don’t seem to exist.
Wabi-Sabi is the antithesis. A Wabi-Sabi life is a simple life without pretense, according to the principles of the Taoist and Zen philosophies. A life in which people and things are simply what they, no more and no less. Wabi-Sabi is bitter sweet. We have to come to terms with our own decay and eventual death, while at the same time appreciate the beauty of this natural and timeless wisdom.
Perfection doesn’t exist, only in the minds of man. To strive for perfection, therefore, is frustrating, useless and stressful. For someone raised in a Western culture that is difficult to understand. To aim for perfection is in our genes, so to speak. The word utopia means “perfect place” in Greek. Etymologically it consists of u, meaning “no”, and topic, “place”. So the perfect place is no place.
Wabi-Sabi is the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It’s a fundamental Japanese aesthetic that has its roots in Taoist and Zen philosophies. It is strongly based in nature, where everything is in flux, for ever changing and moving, and in a constant state of growth or decay. It is an infinite work in progress.
A rusty headlamp in the Namibian desert
When you ask Japanese people what Wabi-Sabi is, you get an evasive or hesitant answer, and no two answers are the same. Everyone knows the term - it is a fundamental concept in Japanese culture - but it is difficult if not impossible to put it into words. In Zen Buddhism (and Taoism before that) words are considered a disturbing filter between man and his perception of reality. Eastern philosophy is based on experience, not on language and ideas. Essential knowledge is transferred and learned through experience, one on one. As a Taoist saying has it: “He who knows doesn’t speak; he who speaks doesn’t know”.
Wabi-Sabi is best described with a popular quote from Leonard Koren’s Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers:
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
Old steps in a Kashba in the Moroccan Sahara
Wabi-Sabi is not just accepting imperfection, but appreciating the beauty of it. In Wabi-Sabi we find beauty and interest in unexpected places, and learn to value life as it is, not as we would like it to be. We discover the beauty of decay and we realize that getting older, weaker and with all the signs of physical and mental decline, doesn’t make us less loving and beautiful. Wabi-Sabi is the moss on a stone, a fallen branch, withered flowers. Wabi-Sabi is the beauty of the cycle of growth, decay and death.
Wabi-Sabi is more than an aesthetic concept. It’s a philosophy of life, of how we live, and about our relation to nature. It’s about accepting the transience of things, to embrace and value it. Wabi-Sabi makes us humble and learns us to be satisfied with what with what we have and who we are. The Stoics would say: “Learn to want what you already have”. In a Western society based on growth and hedonistic consumerism, this is a welcome and even necessary antidote. “Material poverty, spiritual richness” would be a good Wabi-Sabi slogan.
Wabi-Sabi teaches us not to be focussed on success, status, luxury or power, to enjoy a carefree life which the rhythm of nature, and to appreciate without judging. We are humble passersby, or as Macbeth says: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more”.
Writing on the Berlin Wall
In Buddhism the Pali word Dukkha refers to our suffering (or better: our frustration) for always wanting more or something else. When we have what we desired there’s always new things that our desires are aimed at. With this never ending cycle of hedonist adaptation we create our own frustration and unhappiness. We suffer because we cling to something impermanent. The more we do that, the unhappier we become. Everything perishes, even the universe and immaterial things like love, art, literature. Panta Rei. From the moment we are born we are gradually returning to the dust we came from.