Repairing cracks
Kintsugi: The beauty of the broken
🏷️ Categories: Life lessons, Minimalism, Continuous improvement.
Not everything that is broken is thrown away. No.
Sometimes what is broken can become something even more beautiful. The cracks are a reminder of what was, but also of what has endured, of what has found a new way to exist.
There was a Japanese shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who, centuries ago, refused to throw away his favourite bowl when it broke. He had it fixed, and what came back was not to his liking: metal staples that made the bowl crude, an ugly scar for his most beautiful bowl (Robledo-Cadavid, 2019).
—Unacceptable!
He ordered his servants to find the best craftsmen in Japan, they were to treat his bowl with the respect it was due. The demands were met, when the bowl returned to the shogun's hands, he received a masterpiece, the pieces of pottery had been bound together with lacquer dusted with gold.
The cracks shone like the sun, it had never looked so beautiful.
Thus was born Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art of repairing with gold.
What would a world without cracks be?
There is a Leonard Cohen quote that keeps coming back: There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.
The Japanese understand it well.
The ephemeral, the unfinished, the time-worn, has a value of its own. An old bowl with marks of use, a piece of wood cracked by the sun, a frayed fabric in the sleeves. Things that we throw away without a second thought are actually a source of pride, a symbol of having taken care of something and that deserve to be repaired to stay with us for much longer.
And it's not nostalgia, it's that the passage of time has a story that deserves to be told.
It is the same with people, scars tell a story. Ours.
But we live in times when the cracks are uncomfortable. On social networks no one shows the fractures. There are filters to erase every line of expression, every shadow under the eyes, every mark of tiredness. Instagram is the cult of the image.
Imperfection hides behind a facade built to look flawless.
We are not educated to see what is broken, we are taught to hide it. Let no one see it.
But real life is not like that. Real life is more like a Kintsugi bowl: it has fracture lines, moments of reconstruction, parts that have been lost and parts that have been transformed. We break, we put ourselves back together, we move on. We will not be the same, but perhaps, after each fall, we will be something more beautiful, something stronger. Something with more lived history.
Broken is [ ̶t̶r̶a̶s̶h̶] gold
It is not individual. It is collective. We are used to throwing away.
A phone that is a bit slow, a coat with a missing button, trousers that are out of fashion, a friendship that is going through a difficult time. It's easier to replace than to repair.
—Throw it away, it's cheaper to buy a new one and it's better the latest model and....
—But I don't want another one, I want mine. It's the bond I form with what I take care of.
But no, now what has a history, what stands the test of time, loses value.
Kintsugi teaches us another way of looking. We will break, that's for sure. At some point in life, something will break: a heart, a trust, a dream we were pursuing. There is no way around it.
But there are ways to deal with it.
We can hide, we can deny the wound, we can pretend nothing happened. Or we can do the opposite: accept the fracture, hold the pieces carefully and decide to rebuild ourselves with gold.
It is making art out of disaster.
We will not be the same, of course. But we will be us, with every crack becoming history. And that, in a world of perfection, is a provocative act.
So yes. Let's celebrate the cracks. Not because we like to break, but because in every reconstruction there is the art of knowing how to move on. And, as in Kintsugi, perhaps we will discover that the most valuable thing was not what was intact, but what was reborn with brilliance.
Every scar, a golden line.
✍️ Your turn: What moments of weakness have you managed to overcome to become stronger? During the Covid-19 period, I suffered from anxiety, but I learned to master it. An episode that made me better. One of my cracks.
💭 Quote of the day: ‘Things don't always go according to plan. We have to make room for imperfection in our lives. Those imperfect moments are the moments in which we grow the most.’ Cara Alwill Leyba, Girl Code.
See you next time! 👋
Beautiful article. Thank you, Alvaro. Years ago, a friend of mine said that I was broken. She said it with love, caring for the traumas I'd lived through. Instead, I rankled. There has been a lot of repair and remodeling to this old carcass. I feel that, despite some age-related weakness and influenza residue, I am stronger. I try learning new things instead of giving up and riding it out, getting weaker as the years pass. Old age is a bitch, but old people have a strength and resilience that absolutely amazes me. Some awfully perky 70-somethings out there.
At a risk of being called an "accumulator", I have to say, I love it!