“Wabi-sabi means treading lightly on the planet and knowing how to appreciate whatever is encountered, no matter how trifling, whenever it is encountered…. Focus on the intrinsic and ignore material hierarchy.”
“Wabi-sabi images force us to contemplate our own mortality, and they evoke an existential loneliness and tender sadness. They also stir a mingled bittersweet comfort, since we all know existence shares the same fate.”
Wabi-sabi is a unique concept to our Western predispositions. In our society, we are taught to believe, to feel as if we are individuals, competitors, “rat- racers” on this quest for success, security and ultimate fulfillment. Our culture tends to highlight the part about what we do. what job we have, how we appear to others. These measurements of success are material, surficial, in nature. These concrete possessions deem us worthy or unworthy of validation from our surrounding culture. We are warned through Wabi-sabi that this material hierarchy- these pretenses of objectional admiration- will be the death of ourselves- ourSELVES- for who we truly are and what we truly feel.
I feel as though Wabi-sabi evokes a sense of cooperation. Perhaps not because the Japanese discovered the secret to world peace, but because there is a somewhat universal understanding of mortality. The idea that we are all hurtling towards the same fate can be a unifying realization. This realization is nothing new. We choose to suppress it, to assimilate and ignore the ways we can express and realize ourselves. We fear what we don’t know. yet, we fear not knowing the most.
I want to never be suppressed in my expression to the point where I lose myself. I don’t want to be suppressed at all, but i feel like we all make sacrifices to satisfy the super-ego we all find ourselves enslaved to at one point or another. I have found that my constant, my tool to always bring me back, is music.
Maybe it is that “attunement”….that fleeting moment where the chords and timbres resonate within my subconscience, crescendo and resolve over and over, letting me explore my own database of memory, feelings, desires, and personal truths. Music will always let you know who you are. It’s reflection is truer than anything you have ever known.
A mirror repeats what you are. Music inspires who you are. It challenges you, questions you, and can throw you into turmoil… It is the only reflection that reveals the soul. And it changes with you, in spite of you, and because of you.
Sigur Ros is an icelandic band. Saying anything more would not do them justice.
for some of you, this will be the only- and one of the coolest- exposures to Sigur Ros you will have. one of the best films:
