There’s a scene that quietly lingers in my memory.
Not a moment that held any particular meaning—just the wind blowing, someone laughing,
a few fleeting seconds where I felt something, for no specific reason.
And yet, it's often these vague, wavering moments that come back to me later.
Why is that?
Even though it wasn't complete or perfect, it felt like something was truly there.

Encountering the Words of Okakura Tenshin

There’s a book that might hold an answer to this feeling.
The Book of Tea, written in English in 1906 by Okakura Tenshin.
Rather than asking “What is correct?”, it gently asks, “What do we value?”
Through the culture of tea, he speaks of a worldview that strips away excess
and embraces stillness—with a kind of quiet, compassionate gaze.

Why We Are Drawn to Imperfection

Tenshin writes of the beauty found in cracked vessels and distorted teacups.
Not the perfection of something brand new,
but something that remains slightly unfinished.
These things have room within them.
Space for time, memory, and touch to gently seep in.
Perfect things ask nothing more from us.
But imperfect things leave a place for us to enter.

The Aesthetics of Wabi and Sabi

“Wabi” is the richness found within insufficiency.
“Sabi” is the depth that comes with the passage of time.
Like a worn wooden floor or a slightly tilted chair, aged through long use.
Each holds traces of the time spent with them.
Things that are not pristine.
Things that transform over time.
Rather than reject these traits, this perspective embraces them as beautiful.

Stillness as Negative Space

A tea room is striking in how little it contains.
And yet, it’s this emptiness that allows each object’s presence to stand out.
A single flower. The sound of boiling water. A breeze passing through.
A stillness—quiet, yet charged—of perfectly composed emptiness.
In daily life, this may be
an uncluttered space, or time without notifications.

The Time Sense of Ichigo Ichie

In the world of tea, there is the phrase ichigo ichie:
"This moment will never come again."
That’s why we treasure the person and the experience before us now.
Not a digital memory preserved through a screen,
but time felt through the air, the atmosphere, the presence.
It’s not so much about “recording” something—
but about truly living it.

I wonder…

What stays in our hearts isn't always what's neatly composed.
It’s often the irregular, the ambiguous—
those moments where something spills over—
that remain with us, long after.
To love imperfection as it is,
unfinished and unpolished.
There is a beauty that only appears in such things.