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practice an animist religion that features long-haired forest sprites called bunagaya—with our cameras and recording devices in hand. As soon as we arrived we could sense the incredible friendliness of its residents, who laughed and joked incessantly amid lush green hills fed by crystalline waters.
ikigai, your existential fuel.
Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.
To be in a distraction-free environment To have control over what we are doing at every moment
This unity with the object that they reach in a state of flow takes on special meaning in Japan, where, according to Shintoism, forests, trees, and objects have a kami (spirit or god) within them.
When someone—whether an artist, an engineer, or a chef—sets out to create something, his or her responsibility is to use nature to give it “life” while respecting that nature at every moment. During this process, the artisan becomes one with the object and flows with it. An ironworker would say that metal has a life of its own, just as someone making ceramics would say that the clay does. The Japanese are skilled at bringing nature and technology together: not man versus nature, but rather a union of the two.
Miyazaki is an artist capable of becoming completely absorbed in his art. He uses a cell phone from the late 1990s, and he makes his entire team draw by hand. He “directs” his films by rendering on paper even the tiniest detail, achieving flow by drawing, not by using a computer. Thanks to this obsession on the director’s part, Studio Ghibli is one of the only studios in the world where almost the entire production process is carried out using traditional techniques.
Studio Ghibli
Can someone really retire if he is passionate about what he does?
It is not only the Japanese who have this capacity; there are artists and scientists all over the world with strong, clear ikigais. They do what they love until their dying day.
pleasure in routine tasks.
Life is inherently ritualistic. We could argue that humans naturally follow rituals that keep us busy. In some modern cultures, we have been forced out of our ritualistic lives to pursue goal after goal in order to be seen as successful.
When doing business in Japan, process, manners, and how you work on something is more important than the final results.
by going deeper into what you like by spending more of your time in the activities that make you flow.
Montana
Art, in all its forms, is an ikigai that can bring happiness and purpose to our days. Enjoying or creating beauty is free, and something all human beings have access to.
Ryukyu
According to this ancient faith, the world is populated by an infinite number of spirits divided into several types: spirits of the home, of the forest, of the trees, and of the mountains. It is important to appease these spirits through rituals and festivals, and by consecrating sacred grounds.
Mabui Every person has an essence, or mabui. This mabui is our spirit and the source of our life force. It is immortal and makes us who we are. Sometimes, the mabui of someone who has died is trapped in the body of a living person. This situation requires a separation ritual to free the mabui of the deceased; it often happens when a person dies suddenly—especially at a young age—and his or her mabui does not want to move on to the realm of the dead. A mabui can also be passed from person to person by physical contact. A grandmother who leaves her granddaughter a ring transfers a part of her
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Looking back, our days in Ogimi were intense but relaxed—sort of like the lifestyle of the locals, who always seemed to be busy with important tasks but who, upon closer inspection, did everything with a sense of calm. They were always pursuing their ikigai, but they were never in a rush.
Washington Burnap stated two hundred years ago: “The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”2 On our
“The best way to avoid anxiety is to go out in the street and say hello to people. I do it every day. I go out there and say, ‘Hello!’ and ‘See you later!’ Then I go home and care for my vegetable garden. In the afternoon, I spend time with friends.”
“Here, everyone gets along. We try not to cause problems. Spending time together and having fun is the only thing that matters.”
Blue Zones suggest that the people who live longest are not the ones who do the most exercise but rather the ones who move the most.
Bhakti yoga: the yoga of devotion and surrender to the divine
To control movement through stillness To overcome force through finesse To move second and arrive first To know yourself and your opponent
Zeno abandoned its teachings to found the school of Stoicism, which centers on the idea that there is nothing wrong with enjoying life’s pleasures as long as they do not take control of your life as you enjoy them.
The key is to accept that there are certain things over which we have no control, like the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of the world around us.
Once you discover your ikigai, pursuing it and nurturing it every day will bring meaning to your life.
