The Freedom of Enough
I just reread this 2023 post about a neighborhood Tokyo izakaya (and my related thoughts), spurred by a conversation w/ my friend Andrew about what makes for good work, a good life, and a good society. It dovetails with this podcast conversation between Rich Roll and Craig Mod, which I listened to on the plane to Japan and which tore me into about 1000 pieces. Craig talks about what it means to have “enough” and the Japanese term yoyū:
Pondering the shrinking communities and advanced decay he saw during the trip (documented in photos of shuttered main streets and nature vigorously reclaiming the landscape), Mod thought back to his childhood home: a blue-collar American town where the factories had closed, replaced by poverty, drugs and violence.
“The inspiration I’ve always drawn from Japan is that the lowest you can fall is not that low,” he says. “Whereas I grew up watching people fall really, really low — frequently, and kind of hopelessly.”
His explanation for why similar levels of economic decline produce such different outcomes hinges on the Japanese term yoyū, which conveys a sense of sufficiency: enough time, enough money, enough energy. As Mod puts it, yoyū is “the space in your heart to accept another person… another situation, another context.”
“As the economy changes in those rural areas, I think you see a kind of grace because the foundations of support are still there, right?” he continues. “They’re not losing health care. They’re not losing social infrastructure… And that gives them the yoyū to be able to accept the fact that their towns are disappearing, without degrading into substance abuse or violence or whatever. The contrast being in America, there’s none of that sort of protection enabled, so you have none of that excess space.”
As an American, it’s tough sometimes even to conceive of having that excess space (except what you’ve been able to cobble together on your own, a jury-rigged safety net one medical crisis away from collapse). I always notice its presence when I’m traveling — like, oh, this society takes care of its people. Huh.
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This is wonderful and I appreciate you sharing. I'm going to listen to the podcast now.
I don't know if this is related but it feels like it is to me. The term I've been thinking about a lot this year is grace. I grew up in a religious environment, and the idea of giving grace feels essential. Maybe it's just me trying to soften my temper when someone cuts me off or is rude to me, but I find myself saying I need to give grace to them. After covid and then the LA fires earlier this year and then the ICE raids, I just assume many people are struggling in ways I can't understand. I assume they have possibly lost someone close to them. We're all strained and hurting, and I'm worried it's going to get worse before it'll get better. So I'm trying to doll out grace wherever I can, however I can.
To me, grace feels a bit like the western version yoyū — but the Japanese term is a more expansive idea of it. And I love it. Thanks for sharing.
Something that helped unlock more space for others was surprisingly Stephen Colbert talking to Anderson Cooper about grief. In the episode, Colbert talks about his father and two brothers dying in a plane wreck when he was a boy, how he lived through the experience and thinks of it now. Listening to his grace at handling the situation then and now, how he has continued to work through it in his own ways, this made me realize I needed to work on myself a lot more. That there was a lot I was holding onto.
In the episode, Colbert says, "Grief is a natural process that has to be experienced. I'm hesitant to use the word endured, because endured sounds like resistance — and you can't win against grief, because you're the one doing it to you."
When I heard that, I just had to let a lot of things go. And maybe sharing it here can help others find more yoyū or grace too. 💙
lol I'm 11 minutes into the podcast now and Craig is talking about grace!!!
Well, I've finished Craig's episode on RIch Roll and I found it moving and thoughtful. That final third connects the whole of his life (and their conversation) in unexpectedly beautiful ways. I'm so happy for Craig and how it all worked out. Thanks for sharing, @Jason!
It always strikes me as a deep cultural landmark, this American concept that the USA is so great because it holds this ideal that anybody can become so successful.
Regardless of the fact that it's blatantly false, It feels so wrong to me to measure the greatness of any country by how high the most successful individual can get, instead of how low the less one can fall.
It's, also, so clear to me that the highest a society allows anybody to reach, the more it lowers the bottom for anybody else.
Japan it's not without its problems. It has many, and they're no joke. But having a culture not rooted on individualism is a real strength that I envy.
My son has lived in Japan for 20 years and we have a granddaughter there. We visit often. It is a totally different to experience a society/culture that is based on community vs the individual as primary. It’s taught from birth and inbred in their culture/society. Japan seems to accept the changes gracefully vs with anger.
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