Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing shattered pottery with golden glue, inspired me the moment I learned of it. To take a broken thing, to heal it, to make it more beautiful precisely for having once been broken.
Now that’s something extraordinary. And so very illuminating of the human experience.
Kintsugi holds several philosophical interpretations. Here’s what it means to me:
Kintsugi is redemption. It’s accepting regrets and mistakes from the past, learning from them, and walking a brighter path because of them.
Kintsugi is overcoming. It’s integrating one’s misfortunes and blights yet powering through, perhaps surprising yourself with an inner capacity to trudge on head-held-high despite the inevitable weights of existence slung over your shoulder.
Kintsugi is outward inspiration. It’s radiating golden courage to those around you, it’s radically accepting existence's harsher realities so that its countless, indescribable joys may outshine them.
Kintsugi is fearlessness. It’s marching wide-eyed with reckless authenticity into tomorrow, knowing always that failure is a pre-requisite for becoming the best version of yourself.
Kintsugi is the refusal to shy away from opportunities that are difficult or uncertain, embracing them instead, and recognizing what they truly are: pathways into the beautiful unknown, vessels amidst the twisting rivers of fate, rivers that weave like luminous cracks in a once-shattered vase.
Give this life your all. Let yourself break. Let yourself heal.
And find yourself shining in the aftermath.