This is April. Cherry blossoms all over the timeline. I saw a post mentioning “Mono no aware” (物の哀れ). I had never heard this phrase before. I had read about Wabi-sabi… beauty in imperfection. But not this. It’s not about how beautiful they look, but about how they’ll be gone in two weeks. And they have a name for it. Mono no aware, the ache of being moved by things that won’t stay.
Why do the Japanese have words for things the rest of us just feel and forget? Mono no aware. Wabi-sabi. Different phrases, circling the same idea that nothing stays. They don’t just experience it. They study it. Name it. Build a culture around it. Why?
Is it the geography? Earthquakes? Typhoons? The four seasons? Maybe all of it. When the ground beneath you keeps shifting, maybe you stop building things meant to outlast you and start building things meant to be felt right now. Moments instead of monuments. A tea ceremony, not a pyramid. Because the land keeps reminding you that nothing lasts. You can’t stop the earthquake. But you can name the feeling. So it’s not just yours anymore. And somehow, that name crossed an ocean and a thousand years to find me in Chennai.
And it works. Because the moment I read “mono no aware” and its meaning, I realized I already knew that feeling. I just never had a word for it.
Why do we take photos? To remember the moment or to hold on to something we already know is leaving? We say “capture the moment.” Capture. A strange word. You capture something that’s trying to escape. Maybe the photo isn’t the point. The reaching for the phone is. Our small reflex against loss.
Once you see it, you start noticing it everywhere. It’s the last evening of a holiday. You’re still there, but something has already shifted. You’re already missing it.
The spinning top at the end of Inception. The whole theatre is holding its breath. Will it fall? It feels like it’s starting to wobble… and then cuts to black. The whole theatre wanted one more second. Just one more second with that spinning top. But Nolan doesn’t give it. And that ache of not getting it… is what made it more beautiful than any answer could have been.
If cherry blossoms bloomed all year, nobody would look up. If a song never ended, it would just become noise. If a holiday never ended, it would just become another Monday. We need the ending to feel the thing. Maybe beauty doesn’t fade. It only exists because it fades.
The petal is most beautiful between the branch and the ground.
The blossoms are still on my timeline. For now.
物の哀れ。