‘Ikigai’

Lately, there seems to be a kind of universal Word of the Year that emerges as a concept, catches on outside of its native culture, and spreads out as the word is picked up through books and the internet.

Last year, there was the word “hygge,” found in Danish and Norwegian, referring to a feeling of comfort and wellness and associated with coziness, intimacy, of life together with other people (although the feeling is something you can get, too, even when alone).

There was a raft of books about hygge written around very practical aspects, like knitting and choosing home furnishings that nurture hygge.

Anthropologists look at the social context of the rise of these words. With hygge, for example, its appeal across cultures reflects how, in our world today, we try to balance living in a mass society (just think of Metro Manila with almost 20 million people during the day) with the need for personal space and comfort.

This year, I’m seeing more of the Japanese “ikigai.” Google the word on Amazon or any online bookseller and you’ll find that several books have been written about it. I did notice that they all seem to be written by non-Japanese, so I was somewhat wary. But I did find that there are many publications, too, by the Japanese—but in Japanese.

Again, the phrase is difficult to translate. With Japanese words, I always look up how it is written, and if it uses Chinese characters, I can make some sense of it. The closest English translations that I found were “what makes life worth living,” or, if we want to be fancy about it, the French “raison d’etre,” the reason for being.

I also liked the way some writers put it, with a very loose extended translation: the reason for waking up in the morning.

The appeal of ikigai comes from the fact that our populations are aging, and Japan ranks first in the world with the largest percentage of elderly in relation to the whole population.

Much has been written about why the Japanese live so long—mainly because of their diet, from fish to soybean.  There is particular interest in Okinawa, with a large elderly population that includes centenarians. A book by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles, “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life,” seems to have fostered western interest in ikigai. The book is based on interviews with residents of Ogimi, an island in Okinawa.

Long-lived retirees, it seems, never really retire; they find reasons to keep working and living.  So now, there are guides to find your ikigai (instead of your inner self), with four guiding questions: What do you love, what are you good at, what can you be paid for now and what does the world need.

I suspect some western reinterpretation and intervention in the “what can you be paid for now” question, but, then, why not indeed find ways to do what you enjoy doing and still bring in some income—as opposed to working all your life mainly to earn a living?

The four guiding questions also open all kinds of possibilities, even for nonretired people.  Outside of your formal work, you can find time to do what you truly love, or what you’re good at, or what might help the world become a better place, or all of the above.

Offhand, I  think of the ikigai of some older UP faculty, retiring or retired: organizing clan reunions or events (or rallies?), getting a stall in a weekend tiangge, taking voice lessons or a new musical instrument, training the dog or dogs (or, as a friend said, how about training the newly retired husband?).

People working with the elderly in Japan now try to get their wards to think about ikigai. It’s not always easy, given that they’ve often spent decades at the same job. A current Netflix feature is “Samurai Gourmet”; the first episode shows a man jumping out of bed and panicking because he thinks he’s going to be late for work, only to be told by a companion in the house that it’s his first day of retirement.

What follows are his adventures with food, part of his ikigai.

We might want to think of ikigai for the Philippines. Our elderly sometimes dwell too much on the past, trying to relive personal glory and what they think were better times, losing sight of the fact that, maybe, with retirement and ikigai, life is just about to begin.

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