I consider my biggest - and most long-lasting identity - to be that of a book-lover. I started with stories like Ellie the Elephant and Tinkle and Amarchitrakatha at 6, graduating slowly to Enid Blyton and R.L.Stine (there was a lot of resistance from my side as my dad suggested I move on from comic books to pick up a novel; as a second-grader, all I wanted to do was read comic books my whole life) and then quite gregariously getting to know J.K.Rowling, Agatha Christie, Amish, Suzanne Collins, Dan Brown, Jeffrey Archer, Sidney Sheldon, Ashwin Shanghi and others. Fiction and semi-fiction progressed to Non-fiction and soon I was reading an array of genres and was completely hooked! While I had my own likes and dislikes within these genres, the one unventured genre that remained was: Self-help. That was simply something that I had no interest in getting my hands on, and I did not let any book that claimed to magically better the lives of its readers grace my bookshelf.
As I got to University life, I increasingly started noticing Personal Growth books everywhere - in the libraries, on social media, in people's to-read lists - just all over. I remember feeling a little perturbed that I still had no inclination to read them and 'help' myself in the process of adulting, as everybody else seemed to be doing. As University life got to me ;) and I felt trapped in the world, in existential musings and basically being more unhappy than its much-desired antipode; I found myself walking up to the library and picking "Ikigai: the Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life" by Francesc Miralles and Hector Garcia. Amid an entire row of self-help books (most of which were popular), I decided "Ikigai" was what I needed.
I did not devour Ikigai the way I would a Sidney Sheldon or an Indian Mythology book. Neither did I travel with it with the pace of a boat floating by itself, aided by a gentle breeze, as I do with most of the non-fiction books I read. Instead, Ikigai really did come to me - not at the time when I needed it the most, but rather right after. Right after a tough period, which was worsened by my gloomy, overthinking and 'taking control' attitude. It also came in the middle of an actual life-changing moment - but it has made me realise life itself was not changing, but rather life as I knew it was changing. But retaining the elements that meant 'life' to me was well within reach - it lay in my decisions and my ability to stay stoic.
Of the countless books I've read - novels and novellas, fiction and non-fiction, biographies and auto-biographies, little did I know that Ikigai: the Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life would be the first one I would review. The irony of this still makes me smile in that serene, wise way. Having said that, this post is not as much of a review as compared to simply sharing a few of my musings while reading the book. By no means do I intend to attempt to look at the author's writing process or critique the research methodology. I have only praise for Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles, who have tried their best to help people find their Ikigai.
One thing I've realised on my own, albeit while reading the book, is the difference between taking charge and taking control. The way I see it, I've been trying to take control of everything within and beyond my reach. Be it - the micro-managing I've tried to do in the past few months or to borrow from a beloved movie character (while talking disparagingly of his dad) - 'chisel my life' (translating from Tamil), I should've instead tried to 'take charge'. When you are taking charge, you try to control - but only those things that are in your charge, for you to be able to change it. You cannot be put in charge of what is not your responsibility.
An underlying concept in the book is the concept of existential frustration and related stress, depression or any duress associated with it as spiritual anguish rather than mental illness. This sits well with me because the author's premise is that being lost in life and searching for answers is just another pursuit and not an unproductive activity (staring at the ceiling in vain is NOT what we are discussing here). I am someone who now believes it is best to accept the theory that gives the most comfort to us and is aligned with what we want, of course, with the innate beliefs of our soul guiding the idea. Taking you back to my thoughts on existentialism, in the chapter "Masters of Longevity", Hokusai, a Japanese artist, tells us that all [he had] produced before the age of 70 is not worth being counted. It is at the age of 73 that [he had] somewhat begun to understand the structure of true nature...While his work in making woodblock prints is pretty interesting, what interests me is that a man who lived to a ripe 88 years considers the first 70 years of his creations to be of barely any significance. He has found true meaning in the last 18 years of his life in the same profession he'd been involved in all his (adult) life! As a 19-year-old, this is very reassuring. While this would not dissuade us, youngsters, from trying to find meaning in life and make our best contributions to the world, it is a very powerful statement that gives hope for people who worry about not (yet) knowing what their true purpose is.
While the author insists that we do not create meaning but rather discover the meaning in our lives, I feel that in a number of cases he illustrates, meaning is often created in a bid to see the meaning in a life already lived - like the elderly doctor who lost his wife and 'found' purpose in living longer than his wife and suffering instead of her having to suffer without him. If the meaning in life is indeed discovered, then wouldn’t it be 'discovered' while in the process itself rather than later? Even if so, is that such a bad thing? Are the wisest observations often not made in retrospect? Going over one's life attempting to see where you took the right decisions and where you did not, and where you faltered and where you faced challenges head-on is quite normal. If there is some additional peace it brings, then why not allow it to come when it does?
As a book, Ikigai has done exactly this for me – it brought me some additional peace and led me to adopt a different approach to dealing with life rather than just be a respite from material reality. I often tell myself that living life unfigured is fun at times as I keep trying to fathom every little thing. However, if the self-imposed pressure to figure out things instead becomes a gentle nudge to discover my Ikigai, that could make a huge difference instead. To this end, thanks are in order to Garcia & Miralles.
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