Ikigai
I recently read a short book about the Japanese concept of Ikigai. It hails from a time when publishers were scrambling to find the new Hygge.
The book is okay but a bit dashed-off and unfocussed. The key concept, however, is worth some thought. Ikigai is about the search for a personal meaning — a raison d’etre — in life.
The diagram above (oft-used when explaining Ikigai online) makes it look more complicated than it is.
The authors claim that healthy, long-lived people (including those in the world’s “blue zones” where lifespans regularly exceed 100) generally have a strong sense of Ikigai. I can see how a sense of mission would keep a person going strong. Not that we should think of Ikigai as a means to an end.
I have noticed that Escapologists are often quite driven to find the right path, the one that leads to a truer purpose in life. It’s why we quit our day jobs: while rotting in an office, we often experience profound separation anxiety from the (often unlikely, often poorly remunerated) thing we’re really supposed to be doing in life, i.e. from our Ikigai.
The concept is not so far removed from the “life audit” I encourage people, in Escape Everything!, to make as a way to brainstorm how to spend one’s time on Earth.
Do you have Ikigai?
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Letter to the Editor: To Make The Trap Seem Inevitable
To send a letter to the editor, simply write in. You’ll get a reply and we’ll anonymise any blogged version.
Reader B writes:
I purchased a used copy of Escape Everything! and am devouring it. It’s remarkable how much I can read once my time and attention are not being sucked into The Trap.
I have also ordered copies for my parents — for them to acquire the understanding and vocabulary your work establishes — and for my classmate who is taking a “mini-retirement,” and whom I think would really be guided by your writing.
May I ask a question that you are uniquely able to answer, as both the editor and a former librarian? From page 92 of your book: “An Escapologist is a person who has become aware of The Trap, who has considered its mechanisms, and has resolved to escape.”
You acknowledge that most people are unaware of The Trap, but does your work analise the mechanisms through which The Trap keeps itself obscure? I found a partial answer on page 154: “The reason so many people think they need to work full-time is because of the staggering number of obligations they have: television licenses and/or satellite television packages need to be paid for, as do cars; home entertainment;…
This makes sense, but surely there are other strategies the ruling class uses to make The Trap seem inevitable — like school curricula and Hollywood — that normalise the consumer economy. But what else do you see that keeps The Trap so undetectable?
I suffered for decades from what I believe is toxic indoctrination first in the Northeast USA and then in a multinational professional services firm, and had to overcome resistance before I even knew to seek out works such as The Idler and the New Escapologist. My goal right now is to better understand how The Good Life was hidden from me to find any remaining “manacles” that still limit my thinking.)
Admiringly yours,
B
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Wow, what an email. Your question, alas, is huge and all-encompassing. The Trap captures us as soon as we plop out of our mums. I remember a “Tom the Dancing Bug” comic from about 2002 (I tried to find it today but couldn’t) depicting a baby with a barcode on their forehead and someone off-screen saying “don’t worry, little consumer, we’ve got it all planned out for you.”
You mention school. Yes, that is one way. They say school is there to prepare us for life and yet most of it is algebra and gym class and oxbow lakes and all manner of nonsense that will never come up again. It’s a very surreal place really. We aren’t generally taught how to cook, to change a lightbulb, to respect our lovers, to balance a household budget. Whether its by design or simply how it has gradually evolved, school basically gets us used to the idea of sitting still, doing what we’re told, and not thinking about whether this experience makes a blind bit of sense. Just like at work!
I suppose television is another thing. Ever since starting the magazine, I’ve suggested people don’t bother with TV. Read books instead. You’re more likely to come across a plurality of ideas in books than on TV, which (high-quality dramas, comedy and documentary aside) tends to parrot the usual old shit without question.
Social media obviously. Much has been written about that and how it establishes and distorts norms. Supermarkets because they present a limited choice and too many tempting ultra-processed foods that are bad for you. Toxic masculinity. Advertising. Certain phrases in language (“there is no alternative,” “it can’t be done”) that people parrot unthinkingly. Urgh. The list goes on.
It’s best not to get paranoid about this stuff though. Escape it the best you can, look into (or invent) the alternatives, and move on.
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More-akami
Here’s some more from that Murakami book:
However, there isn’t just one reality. Reality is something you have to choose by yourself, out of several possible alternatives.
He’s talking about a mysterious semi-fictional town that appears in his latest novel. But he’s also talking about free will. Every choice you make creates, in a way, a new reality.
Escapologists are keen to choose one of the myriad paths into a reality of self-directed fun and to avoid one of the myriad paths back into The Trap.
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Cheaper Than a Life on Land
This couple — who met on a cruise ship and later got married on one — sold their homes and possessions to book fifty back-to-back cruises.
Neither of our families thought it was strange that we were now living full-time on cruise ships. With our savings we were able to fund our life onboard, which, thanks to loyalty discounts and the rising cost of living, is cheaper than our life on land.
One cruise sounds like a nightmare to me, never mind fifty. But it’s amazing to know this could be done. To live in a state of constant voyaging” And in luxury too.
At 54, I’m living my dream. Soon we’ll be heading to Europe, Mexico and Bermuda, and I can’t wait. I hope our life on the water goes on for ever.
I wonder if many other people do this. Is there a whole population of cruiseniks out there, drifting around the world’s seas and oceans without a care?
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Nothing Could Convince Me to Stay
Here’s a nice description of a Tokyo job quit from Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, The City and its Uncertain Walls:
And then one morning I handed my boss a letter of resignation. I couldn’t go on doing this job. I had to remove my body and mind from the track I’d been on — even if I hadn’t found a new track to try.
My boss was surprised by my sudden request. Up until that moment, I’d given no indication that I was unhappy. He thought I’d been recruited by a rival company. I tried to explain as best I could. Not an easy thing to do, but somehow I did end up convincing him. His next gambit was speculating that I must be having some psychological issues — a breakdown or midlife crisis.
“If the work’s wearing you out, you should take some time off,” my boss said, calmly trying to convince me. “You have a lot of accrued paid vacation time, so why don’t you go to Bali or somewhere for a couple of weeks, let your hair down, recharge, then come back? And then you can think it over again?”
I had a pretty good relationship with my immediate boss, and I think he kind of liked me. So I felt bad telling him this. But nothing could convince me to stay. This was as clear to me as the first rays of morning light.
After a brief period of indolence (“I thought about nothing, and did nothing, just hanging out, alone, in my apartment”) our narrator takes a job in a small rural library. He reduces his expenses massively by leaving Tokyo and can therefore shoulder the reduction in income. He also sells off or gives away most of his possessions:
everything I had fit into a small moving van, and I felt, for the first time in ages, free.
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Solitude, Compassion, Friendship, Introspection, Contemplation
Here’s the author Elif Shafak on Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing (2021), a book we also liked and reviewed at length in New Escapologist Issue 16.
It is a fascinating take on how and why we need to resist the relentless demands of our hyper-information society. It reminds us that our value as human beings is not dependent on our productivity levels or amount of consumption on any given day. It recognises that solitude, compassion, friendship, introspection, contemplation – all these universal and ancient qualities – are inalienable rights. Inviting readers to become better observers, better listeners, it encourages us to slow down. To pay more attention to the seemingly small, “insignificant things”, reconnect with each other, with nature and with ourselves. In a world where there is constant clamour, too much rigidity, polarisation and tribalism, this book shows us that you can be gentle, calm, nuanced and still be political, attending to the local, to the humble, and to what makes us human.
She’s right, you know. Not just about Odell’s book but about things of value in life.
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The Outdated World of Work
In the news:
An “anxious generation” of young people is struggling to adapt to the outdated world of work, according to the government’s jobs adviser.
Alan Milburn, a former Labour health secretary, will say this week in a report that businesses must adapt by offering more flexibility and mental health support for young people to stave off an “economic catastrophe.”
It’s interesting. We’ve finally been heard. It has taken generations of objecting to work but Gen Z might have finally broken through and pushed over the line the idea that Wage Slavery isn’t all it cracked up to be.
That the UK government are worried about “economic catastrophe” tells us an interesting thing. That they know we can say no. That they know we can walk away, escape. If we did this en-masse, there probably would be an economic catastrophe. And there should be one really. We need to stop growing, stop fretting about GDP, and start measuring value differently.
“Almost 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds,” the article says, or “about one in eight” are “not in education, employment or training” because they’ve secured doctor’s orders to stay at home.
Said jobs advisor has observed: “a rising tide of mental ill-health, anxiety, depression [and] neurodiversity” is driving the abandonment of economic activity.
Not to imply than a single one of these kids is faking mental ill-health (who could possibly feel mentally well given the squandered world they stand to inherit?) but, you know, one probably could. Escape route identified! Wibble.
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Like Rose Petals
The more we engage with real things the more we can remember that we are not machines.
The machine does not want you to have the full set of stimuli or emotions. Real life has such a rich variety of experience.
Thus spake blogger Alastair Johnston who, in a rage against the machine, says some beautiful things about his dog, Benson.
The dog lovers amongst you will be able to deduce that he’s a Whippet from his photograph. You can recognise his breed by his bony shape, long legs, pointy head and beautiful curves over his back and under his flattened but enlarged chest. He’s quite a goer.
But what you can’t do is hear the whining he makes when he’s desperate for a walk or his “happy growl”, which sometimes scares people, but in reality means he’s full of joy and really pleased with you. You cannot feel how soft his ears are, like rose petals, and perfect to stroke during stressful times.
Remember the real. Go to live music. Read real books. See real paintings. Hear real birdsong. Feel the connection to other people, other creatures, other times.
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No Schedule, No Plan
I’ve always been a traveller. Not full time or all the time, but every ten years or so my feet start itching and I want to quit the job, flat and place I’m in and head off somewhere entirely new.
This comes from Fergie, someone I used to work with in real life. We sometimes snuck off for forbidden pints at lunchtime, and she was the one person in the office I could talk to about escape. We were both heavily depressed, I think, but at least we’d both seen other parts of the world. You could hold that inside yourself when listening to the thrum-thrum of the photocopier and the glubble-glubble of the watercooler.
Apparently her itch to “head off” happens every ten years. I expect that’s natural and actually true of everyone, only it takes someone like Fergie — someone who sees that the bars of the cage are largely imaginary — to actually act on it.
Today she posted a nice long rumination on her various escapes, starting with an impromptu trip to America in the ’90s:
Exciting, terrifying, I almost chickened out at the airport. Once there, I adored the freedom. No schedule, no plan. A couple of days in New York then heading to the Greyhound station with my backpack and seeing where the buses went. This was back in pre-internet days when you couldn’t spend hours and days poring over websites to see where you might want to go, which buses go there, when they leave and arrive. You couldn’t scrutinise online maps and book accommodation. Instead, you’d have a Lonely Planet guidebook – mine likely covered the entire USA – and a long distance phone number to call a hostel ahead.
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Time is Running Out for Issue 18
Just a quick note to say I’m running out of Issue 18. If you’d like a copy in print, now’s the time to strike!
In Issue 18: The Time of Your Life, we look at time: how to spend it, what to do with it, how to win it back from The Man. We interview August Lamm who is working to set up her own print magazine and offline community in New York, and Dickon Edwards who is a ‘90s indie heart-throb, dandy and diarist who has barely worked a day in his life. Hero. Heather Delaney writes about her American van life, Jon Ransom escapes jury duty, Steve Light finds freedom in curbing his ambitions, and Robert Wringham (that’s me!) vows to escape death or die trying. We review Jenny Odell’s Saving Time, Albertine Saranzin’s Astragal, and Clare Baglin’s On the Clock. The Idler’s Tom Hodgkinson finds a cheap alternative to the pub, Apala Chowdhury goes dancing, and Journal Club looks into research on work-related deaths.
What an issue. 88 very high-quality pages, none of which has been replicated online.
In the old days (Issue 1-13), we used a print-on-demand system and we’d keep our back issues available indefinitely. The model since Issue 14, however, has involved selling all stock. When they’re gone, they’re gone.
This is fine and all and the reasons for it are sound, but whenever we sell out there’s a lot of people asking “why can’t I get X issue?”
So strike now or forever hold your peace! Issue 19 is coming soon.
