On Japan

Japanese culture has pulled at me since I was a small child. I used to think that if past lives exist, then in one of them I was a samurai or a shogun. I often dreamed I was wielding a samurai sword like a master — and visualizing that same scene on purpose, oddly enough, was what helped me fall asleep.

Later one of my favorite shows became Shogun, based on the magnificent novel by James Clavell. I sincerely recommend the book.

I’d been planning a trip to Japan for about ten years — there was always another destination, or it was the wrong season. In the end I spent a little over a week there on a hiking tour, and caught the cherry blossoms, sun, rain, hail, and a wind blowing faster than thirty-eight meters per second.

My childhood hunches were partly confirmed: I found a lot in common between the way I think and Japanese culture. I won’t pretend to deep knowledge — I’ll just share the concepts that felt close to me, or simply strange. Maybe you’ll find something interesting too.

1. We are born animals, and only through the striving to make this world better, walking the path of mastering creation, do we become human — and a few even find the way to enlightenment.

2. The mark of a developed person is not intellect at all, but the ability to feel a situation, people, the world, and emotions without words — a finely tuned intuition. An insult in the spirit of “you can’t feel the air” means a person isn’t in the context, isn’t in the know, doesn’t get the gist, and so on. There’s a charming put-down — “you think like a small fish” — for someone stuck on petty, everyday things.

3. The worst thing is to lose face.

4. Marriage isn’t always a union of blazing passion — more often it’s a joint business venture. Usually the man earns the money, but hands it to the wife, who manages the entire family budget, pays the bills, and runs the whole household. A samurai had to be ready for battle at any moment, so he traveled light. To this day many Japanese follow this principle: wives pay the bills, carry the shopping bags, and handle the practical matters. The question “But what if the wife squanders it all?” is now the man’s problem — he’s the one who chose a spendthrift wife. And yet divorces are rare, because men don’t want to admit a mistake — which would mean losing face.

5. The main thing is to find your path and reach perfection in it. Whether it’s a profession, a craft, or a business — what matters is that it resonates in the soul and is something you want to devote your life to.

6. The less you say, the better. The Western world could definitely stand to learn this one! In Japan they believe a spoken word is material — it changes the universe around us. So it’s worth saying no more than what needs to be said, and treating every word with care. They do write letters, though! For instance, openly confessing love to one another isn’t really done. But you can describe in writing some romantic image from nature that hints at your feelings. Even spouses keep writing to each other, and that’s how they show their devotion.

7. Anything not proven not to exist is considered true, and that fact is not up for debate. They lean toward every kind of mysticism, and that’s seen as completely normal.

8. Everything in the world is animate: people, animals, stones, trees, the furniture. But the most interesting part is that the ability to “feel the air” means putting yourself in the place not only of people, but of objects too. When arranging an apartment, for example, you ask yourself: “What will this vase feel if I put it here?”

9. Asymmetry is the harmony of nature.

10. A deal can be discussed at length, its details refined, its possible scenarios analyzed — but once it’s struck, and all the more once it’s put on paper, it takes something extraordinary for anyone to fail to honor their obligations. Keeping your word is a law of honor. Even in everyday matters, like a restaurant reservation, any change to the time or the number of guests is nonsense — unless at least one of them has died.

11. One of the best ways to spend time is alone with yourself in total darkness — that is, alone with your soul. I fully agree with Blaise Pascal, who once said: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

12. There’s no point in hurrying. All of life is a path and a process. So the Japanese, for instance, stand calmly in lines, taking it as a chance to savor the moment.

13. Shinto handles worldly pleasures, and Buddhism handles spiritual aspirations. The Japanese deftly combine both religions at once.

14. Mountains are one of the main sources of positive energy. Trekking and hiking aren’t just a hobby — they’re a genuine cult.

15. “All we have is memory”: our impressions, our knowledge, the emotions we’ve lived through, our traditions. The countless rules and rituals, worked out over centuries for nearly every situation, help save mental resources on small decisions and focus on what matters.

16. It’s always worth carrying something with you that lifts your mood: food from home, favorite objects, or cute little trinkets. It’s perfectly normal to see a respected banker with a toy dinosaur on his backpack.

17. “If you arrive on time, you’re late.” In Japan time is prized to the extreme — your own and everyone else’s.

18. A meticulous attention to small things and details. Every object has its purpose and its place.

19. Fatalism and a disregard for one’s own body, even one’s life. If the body gets in the way of the chosen path, society does not condemn suicide. It’s seen as a chance to start over in another body. The high suicide rate in Japan comes not from depression over overwork, but from cultural particularities.

20. The deities are a mirror reflection of ourselves. In Shinto there are no images of gods. The ones praying look into a mirror, a sign that the requests are addressed to themselves — the creators of their own desires.

Some of these ideas may strike us as radical, but for the Japanese they offer a pragmatic approach to reaching both personal and collective goals, and they nurture harmony and self-development.

Thank you, Japan, for these emotions and these ideas!

Here’s to all of us being a little bit Japanese! 😎