Wabi Sabi – Philosophy of Imperfection in JAPAN

Wabi Sabi侘寂 is something very characteristic of Japanese culture. It is something that seems simple on the surface but when you dig deeper it is something that is very intrinsic in the whole society of Japan, in every detail, in the modern and in the traditional.

Wabi sabi is beauty in the imperfect, it is the philosophy of thinking that nothing lasts, that nothing is perfect and nothing is stable, everything is temporary in this life, everything has some degree of error or pure imperfection.

This philosophy is somewhat linked to the Japanese mentality of minimalism . Being able to find beauty in the minimum, beauty in the natural detail of things, without overloading, without working too hard. It is closely linked to Kintsugi, which is to rebuild something that is broken and paste it with gold and this reconstruction, although it may not look as aesthetic, is to repair the object with something better (gold) regardless of whether the lines and breaks are seen, providing a new story and giving it a “natural vein” feel.

You can see the passage of time in objects that makes them imperfect although it makes them more attractive at the same time and it is also easier for us as human beings to identify with a situation based on Wabi Sabi because we are not really perfect . Technically speaking we are not symmetrical, we are slightly deformed beings and within that deformity we are beautiful as beings and so we also want to reflect it in everything.

In Buddhism there’s a lot of talk about the idea that because we’re not perfect, we’re not even the person we were a year or ten years ago, we’re not even the same person we were a few seconds ago. We are constantly changing and that is the beauty too. The Wabi Sabi has to do with the fact that things do not last, but that they disappear before becoming perfect and that is also beautiful. Although an object or a moment has not been able to become perfect, although it ended and disappeared being imperfect, it is still beautiful.

This philosophy can also be seen in Ikebana , the flower arrangement in Japanese, in which symmetry is not sought but a balance between the living and the dead, between movement and static. Where sometimes the shape of the branches looks like they are falling, there seems to be an explicit and implicit movement within the still figure.

Also in ceramics you can see the work of the craftsman for example in a glass or bowl. This is not perfectly cylindrical or symmetrical and you can see the trace of the craftsman’s work so also from the artistic concept that comes there is already a search for the imperfect, that is, from what was made “perfect” and over time becomes imperfect , there is a change.

We see the Wabi Sabi in architecture, in ceramics, in the arts, in handicrafts and it is always sought from the beginning that the result be aesthetically imperfect. Even in industrial design, in high technology. The Wabi Sabi philosophy understands beauty and aesthetics as something a little different from the West. For example, the classical Greek sense of beauty was understood through perfection: perfect features, perfect proportions, etc. On the other hand, in Japan it is understood as an imperfect beauty that governs part of the design, part of the time and the movement of things.

There is a type of Japanese handicraft that is made with “urushi”, it is the sap of the urushi tree that is used on wooden objects. When this lacquer is applied, it begins to be very dark, practically black, and as time goes by it becomes increasingly reddish, then the designs behind it begin to come to life within the object, which after 30 or 40 years is already a totally different object than when you bought it. It is expected that there will be that change, that distance from the original, that passing of time.

In musical terms, when we are going to compose music, we must think from the simplest since we know that it is going to become more complex, so engineering designs are also like that, it is thought that it is the minimum that I need to make this design and from there how it will become more complex because it is inevitable that it will highlight the imperfection of the design, so it is something that you are going to have to deal with sooner or later.

In the world of music, not only does the difficulty come from the process of composing or working with performers, but it also implies the difficulty in the concert hall, the audience that touched you, the day, the humidity, the heat, so many stuff. The same in industrial design, for example, if you are developing a wheel, it also implies the difficulty of the type of path, the ascent, the descent, the material you are using, the temperature, etc. and these are going to be factors that will affect the performance of your design so you can’t achieve perfection per se, you have to face that in the most positive way, you have to accept it as wabi sabi .

This experience of beauty within imperfection sometimes also goes hand in hand with isolating yourself a little bit from everything, from excess. In Buddhism and Shinto there is this idea of ​​living without reaching the limit, living with what you need to be happy that even you can carry it out you don’t need to be here in Japan.

It is important to understand how wabi sabi works or what it is because, for example, in your work you have many things to deliver, many projects to carry out, you have to move from one place to another, you have many things on your mind but thinking about the simple what work is, that is, your work, what you have to do, all the delivery dates and all the projects is what is going to become more complex and it is easier to think: “I have to do this work and you accept that there are going to be these unforeseen changes in your work, which you can no longer control because, if that day it decided to rain meteorites, it is something that you could never have predicted and you will have to improvise at the moment and it will be part of that beauty in life, that imperfection in that which could not have been perfect in your project, in that part of your work.

I remember a lot that I had this discussion with master composers, it was a teaching that has made it very clear to me that one as a composer in this case but like any art you never finish a piece, it is never perfect, you are never totally satisfied and you have to accept as an artist in Wait a minute, you don’t finish the pieces, but you abandon them and when you abandon them you give them a title and someone else will say I like it or I don’t like it and that abandonment is part of wabi sabi .

This is noticeable in society even in the simplest. In your things there is that charm, that added value that when you have to get rid of them when you no longer need them, you thank things and let them go valuing each one of the things even if they are imperfect. This helps you a lot as a person also because you value your neighbors, your friends, your relatives, everyone more. You say: “Yes, I know that I am not perfect and I know that you are not perfect but you are still a beautiful person, because beauty is in imperfection.

Did you know this Wabi Sabi philosophy or way of thinking? Tell us in the comments!