Kintsugi
The link
What it is
Kintsugi is the art of fixing broken
pottery with a mix of lacquer and gold. The cup or plate not only becomes usable
again, it has a whole new aesthetic due to the unique pattern of the repair. The
Wikipedia page has details on the history of the concept. It’s easy to find
pictures of the process and its results on the internet as well: Pinterest, an
image based social network, is particularly good.
There are often local Kintsugi
courses you can take, where you start by smashing up the object yourself!
What it means to me
I love the
idea of repair moving something forward,
being an addition rather than a return to previous form. This way, an object shows
its history and becomes unique. Kintsugi shows that breaking is an end only
if you want it to be.
I’m fond of
‘buy it for life’ style items, particularly if they age well. The patina of
aging and the subsequent repairs become part of the object, and make it
uniquely yours, which I find satisfying.
Well-worn denim, for example, has the same aesthetic. I used to own
an expensive pair of gloves whose stitches kept ripping, and I specifically
asked for visible repairs to show the gloves’ use (and, I admit, to spite the manufacturer
in a minuscule act of defiance).
Kintsugi is
a wonderful metaphor for personal development. Hemingway famously wrote in
“A Farewell to Arms” that “The world
breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places” (the
full quote is worthwhile too). We all get hurt; what counts is how we handle ourselves after.
In a job interview
I once discussed that for some jobs you need to have suffered – your boss or
your client wants to see experience that’s been lived rather than read about. Similarly,
I recently discussed with colleagues that “learning by making mistakes” also
applies in places where you’d really prefer not to make mistakes in the first
place, such as personal dealings with other people.
To me, all
of this comes together in Kintsugi. Hardships you’ve been through change you, and thereby leave
a mark. Kintsugi gives a hopeful message of being
able to repair anything, and emphasizes that how you treat this mark is up to you: you can deny it, hide it, or be
proud of it and show it to the world.
Show your
scars, people.
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