
Though having encountered the concept of
ikigai previously, these other select Japanese principles were quite new to us—as presented in this review of the upcoming reflection by linguist
Mari Fujimoto, which mediates on some of the language’s unique terms and phrases that allows one to gain a purchase cross-culturally as well as examining the
deficit in one’s own outlook. All seven of these calming, cardinal notions (plus the thirty odd others covered in Fujimoto’s book) but were especially taken with the aesthetic quality of
shibui (渋い) as a corollary to
wabi-sabi (侘寂, finding beauty in
imperfection) refers to the beauty in things revealed over the passage of time.