Praise of shadows
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“There are always apparent edges beyond which we can’t see…from within that bottomlessness is born a sense of possibility and discovery. That is the way life is.” —John Daido Loori, The Zen of Creativity
A few years ago I stumbled upon this strange little book called In Praise of Shadows (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0752SDYCB/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) , by Junichiro Tanizaki. In it, the writer draws your attention to a range of Japanese aesthetics—art, food, architecture, among others—from the place and time when it was written (Tokyo in the 1930s).
At one level, it’s a denouncement of what the writer saw as Japan’s slide into Western superficiality (and on that point, don’t miss where he grouses for over three pages about the superiority of the Japanese toilet).
More to the point, he talks about how traditional Japanese aesthetics hinged on the contrast of light and darkness. Both are deliberately chosen.
“The beauty of the Japanese room,” he writes, “depends on the variation of shadows: heavy shadows against light shadows. It has nothing else.”
Without this, he adds, you miss out on what he called the mystery of shadows. “This was the genius of our ancestors: that by cutting off the light from this empty space, they imparted to the world of shadows that formed there a quality of mystery and depth superior to any painting or ornament.”
Art is what you make of it. And what I took away from this book, beyond its Eastern aesthetic preoccupations, was that it’s a study in perception.
We tend to make sense of the world only from what we see and from what we think we know. In a mistaken belief that we can conquer all fears of the unknown, we light up every dim corner of whatever issue we are struggling with.
We problem solve with a mindset that we have a well-understood problem and flood it with spotlights of data, market studies and focus group tests. Instead, at times we are wiser to follow Paul Gauguin’s advice: “I shut my eyes to see.”
Sometimes it’s best to let shadows fall.
Doing so can reveal a different understanding, teaching you that some problems in life are part of a pattern you cannot discern.
Very best, Patrick
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