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What Japanese Reverence for the Seasons Can Teach You About a Joyful Life
Awe for impermanence can make life more joyful
What is ‘mono no aware’?
When I first moved to Japan, I didn’t quite understand the attention placed on the seasons. People talked about the changing seasons over tea, during phone calls, and even in emails like it was gossip: The coming and going of sakura season, the subsequent onset of the rainy season, the humid yet peaceful hot summer nights, the build-up around the chill of autumn and changing leaves, or the charm of silent winter snow. These conversations were ubiquitous, no matter who I spoke to.
And while I was never dismissive of the importance of taking the time to value nature, sometimes the attention felt really over the top. Why were people so preoccupied with the seasons?
I later realized that it’s not necessarily the seasons itself that moves so many Japanese, but it is how these shifting seasons serve as reminders of the natural impermanence of life.
Often referred to as mono no aware, the phrase encapsulates the bittersweet realization that nothing is made to last forever. How we seem to be growing older faster with every passing year and the fleeting nature of our most precious memories, this bittersweet…
