Ikigai

What is your ‘thing’? What is your purpose? What is your reason for being? Is your passion for architecture? Is it for snow-tipped mountains? Is it for laughter that cracks a frown? Do you value friendships, or do you value your own wealth? Are you driven by a desire to gain or by a desire to conserve? Do you want to take life fast? Or do you want to take life slow?

My life’s worth is in the little things. The small souvenirs of life. The memories that I alone have possession of to keep in the pocket of my mind. The warm, sweet smell of jam on toast in the morning fog. Brilliant bursts of colour from flowers escaping the grip of winter. Your lips on my forehead. These moments are rich with my happiness, zinging with the passion of shared lifetimes.

I walk through the world with it but also apart. My own personal universe buzzing, glowing, burning in my head. What I want to feel – the desire that presses so much into my core, it gnaws straight through me – is for that sense of belonging. A feeling, which can’t be questioned: raw, pure, real. Real. A kind of undisputed knowledge that carries me through the pain, the uncertainty, the shame. Not a knowledge that thickens my ego, but revives my surety in myself. I want to feel right, not for others, but for myself. Safety. Peace. Hope.

I feel too much pressure to choose. Make a decision, there’s not much time. My life’s choices are particles of sand in an hourglass. I try to catch them, hold them, but something jogs my hand and I’m forced to speak before my calling comes. I forget that the sand - my particles of choices - are mine to make, mine to drop into my timeline when I feel they are right. I lose the understanding of my own power. The power that allows me to make things happen, maybe against others’ wishes, but fully under my own control. I need to remember my control, my special power.

As a child, fairies were like dreams, magic was beauty, innocence was pure. As an adult, that magic has dissolved within reality. Reality that writhes with anger, violence and the colour red. Screams on crackling screens. Powerful people on tabloid papers. I hope there are still embers of my inner child that can be ignited by love and joy. All our inner children are crying, while our present selves throw away the key. Magic now is just in understanding. Understanding of myself, of the world, of my people. The electric eureka moment, when moments crackle with transparency. My magic is in self-discovery.

The definition of adult is as follows: taking the responsibility of weight still too heavy to carry, but taking it with a forced smile as our legs shake. The fluttering creature inside of us fights. Doubt mixed with denial. Insecurity mixed with uncertainty. When part of me refuses to accept what must be accepted to be able to walk on, the other part of me says one thing – capable. You are capable. It’s a reminder again of the power that I have. Why let others make my choices, when I have the power to make them myself? Why let others make my future, when my future is mine to make?

So, when you come and tell me I’m wanted, I get that feeling. The right feeling and the feeling of right. I smile not because I need wait no more, but because you want my time as much as I want to share my time with you. Your eyes shine at my dreamy grin, my eyes shine because of the stability of your soul. Your soul has found it already. That feeling. You radiate contentment, bliss and gratitude. Your feeling stretches to my own soul, silver wisps of energy lacing in an intricate design of connection. My reason for being becomes united with your own. I’m still me though, that is important to keep. My identity is not with you, my identity is with myself, but you are with that feeling. That feeling is with me when I am with you.

When I’m granted this feeling, when I’ve earned it and when I’ve deserved it, I will show thanks. I will show thanks before, during and after. I will say thank you for the chance to learn, the chance to experience and the chance to be. I’ve been given the chance to be me in this life, not you or them, me. Me. A being able to feel passion and pain and beauty. A being that can do what it is meant to do, a being that can give back to the world, a being that can share the realised feeling and let others bathe in its bliss. Why would I lose that chance? Why would I let others take that part of me, wrench it from between my ribs. In truth, this isn’t possible. This feeling isn’t for others to take, it is only for me to find. It can’t be stolen or erased or emptied. When it feels empty, that’s an illusion. It’s still there, it never leaves. That comes as a comfort. It comes as an awareness that it is always there for me to find again.

You read this and you question where it leads. A winding road of metaphors leading where? What am I trying to say? Well, it’s more about what I want you to feel. I want you to feel my passion splashing off the page. I want you to understand the urgency of my purpose surging through my inked letters. I want you to recognise my vocation at where my life stands thus far. My profession I haven’t mentioned, but I want to learn and I want to teach and then I want to learn again. I want to continue to understand the value of myself, of my life, of the world. There’s magic in self-discovery. In this magic, is where ikigai exists.