Today (and yesterday) is dedicated to the study and contemplation of wabi-sabi. Not being very in-tune with Japanese culture, except by proxy and study, wabi-sabi, as I understand it, is a concept surprisingly close to my everyday existence. Perhaps since I am a country boy (Frostpocket) at heart, but wabi-sabi is already part and parcel of my actual personality matrix.
Wabi-sabi (in Kanji: 侘寂) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic system, and is difficult to explain precisely in western terms. According to Leonard Koren, wabi-sabi is the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of what we think of as traditional Japanese beauty and it “occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection in the West.” Wabi-sabi is the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is the beauty of things modest and humble. It is the beauty of things unconventional.
