In Japan so far, I can’t help but feel this sense of spaciousness within the small. It’s difficult to describe without comparison. In the city I’m from, one block will most often contain a few ground level stores, cafes or restaurants. In Paris, you might find that above the restaurants and stores there are several levels of apartments and offices. In Tokyo, there is a whole tower of possibilities. Restaurants, bars, cafes, shops, offices and living spaces packed into a building. You need to look at the sign outside so as to know the floor plan before you can find a particular place you may be looking for. In places like this, they do a lot with a little. It reminds me of a sign that I saw in Hong Kong one time long ago, I can’t remember the exact words but it went something like: never underestimate the space you take up. These words have stayed with me until now.
Even though I am living in a town far smaller than Tokyo, I still feel this contradictory sense of spaciousness and restriction. There are no skyscrapers here, but there are homes of two or three floors packed together, lined up along straight edges. Like little cities of Lego. Even the cars here look like little boxes. When looking down at the roads of this town from a height, it feels as if it could be a toy set in the display window of a fancy store. There is a place for everything and a perfect distance in between. In short, it’s aesthetically satisfying in a way. I hazard a guess that it is much like Japanese culture, a superficially perfect beauty visible only after superimposing layer upon layer of complicated, humanistic detail.
Even just observing the simple things around me teaches me a lot. I am reminded of the power of restriction when it comes to beauty and creativity. As Orson Welles once said the enemy of art is the absence of limitations. Of course, I enjoy my freedom, but I also can’t deny the importance of restraint. Sometimes in life, I feel as if I get to choose when I restrict myself. Other times, it feels less like a choice and more like a prison. Yet both are situations in which there is a lot of room for growth and innovation. A sense of spaciousness within the limits of a small space. That’s why when we are faced with difficulties in life, I believe that there is always a perspective which we can take that gives us the room necessary to open up and blossom.
Not an easy skill to learn, but useful, and one worth persistently trying to master. I feel that I couldn’t have chosen a better place to learn more about how restraint can still be useful in a world where everything is possible in an instant. In a world that is driven by money and accumulation, I feel that Japan still represents a culture that values something other than the desire to simply have more. Even with all its faults and problems. It has only been a few days, but I already feel the self-discipline that I’m surrounded by is starting to gently enter my life. It’s not my aim to be Japanese of course, but I know that I will end up taking a part of Japan away with me. As I have done, no matter where I’ve gone.
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