It’s more than acceptance, its saying its the little imperfections that make something even more endearing than if they were perfect. A bit of wabi-sabi gives character, or makes things feel less sterile, or more natural. Perfection can be less pleasant than imperfection. Not always, I want my airplane engines made perfectly. But something like handmade clay plates and bowls with wabi-sabi are great.
Huh, it’s got some similarities to the Persian flaw, thinking about it. The intentional inclusion of an error in Persian rugs as perfection is for God alone. Imperfection is human.
I’ve had conversations with people about “how can you love the news so much? It’s so negative and depressing!”
The best I’ve explained it is first and foremost you need to understand and appreciate we are a deeply flawed creature and there’s a beauty in that. How could someone not love life for that? I am in a dingy alley having a tea right now I can smell garbage, I can hear the drone of the city around me, everything is stained. But if I look up the sky is beautiful and blue, cute girls are walking by, someone is smoking a flavoured cigar.
If you’re unwilling to appreciate it all, you will struggle on appreciating any of it. Happiness is what you make of the world around you and if you are not willing to be happy inside no external event will change that.
FYI, one could also interpret Cindy Crawfords’ nævus as wabi-sabi. Also we find slight asymmetry more pleasing for the eye. E.g. pictures of faces which are built up by mirroring one half appear as artificial. The scroll of a violin is also slightly asymmetrical.
This is vaguely a thing in Japan, but let’s not fall into the eastern mysticism trap, where Asian things are completely divorced from what goes on in the West. It’s sort of like saying America has the “fuck it, good enough” aesthetic worldview of accepting the imperfect things about the world.
The real trap is assuming anything from a culture applies to everyone, or even the majority, of the culture.
America definitely has a “fuck it, good enough” worldview for a lot of things and institutions. It isn’t universal, but it does apply where you see a bunch of half assed infrastructure or shelves upon shelves of cheap low quality products that a ton of people spend money on knowing it is poor quality.
so… would the fact that wasabi paste isn’t actually made from wasabi root count?
real wasabi root is a bitch to farm, so if you buy wasabi paste and it’s not expensive, or if someone serves you more than a tiny dollop of it, it’s probably actually horseradish paste with wasabi root extract.
not that it matters, clearly people enjoy the horseradish paste.
Real wasabi paste sounds like a poor value, wasabi doesn’t age too gracefully when grated and you’d presumably pay a markup for the packaging and grating
For those who live in areas with good Japanese grocery stores, I highly recommend looking for some rhizomes and grating it at home. Super easy, less than $10 for several servings, and lasts a couple weeks. If anyone is interested but doesn’t wanna Google it, feel free to reply or DM me and I can send my grater/process.
There are a lot of foods that aren’t quite as good out of their home country, but American grown wasabi is excellent. I’ve had someone tried to gatekeep me but like, I coincidentally am very into sushi and am reasonably friendly with a couple ***/Tabelog gold sushi chefs that I visit when in town, some of the best in the world with access to the highest quality ingredients. I’m not eating the wasabi directly but I can’t tell a difference between theirs and the American one from half moon bay. It’s definitely worth trying if it’s available in your area, you aren’t missing anything by doing it yourself and it takes minutes.
