From Perfect Lies To Beautiful Truth
Kintsugi Dairy — 4
For my first Kintsugi workshop that I participated in, I did not find any fully broken ceramics to bring, so I took my coffee mug that I used for a long time, which got chipped off at the rim. Makoto, who facilitated the workshop, said it is fine to work on a chipped mug.
At one point during the workshop, after applying the plaster on the chipped portion, Makoto asked what I would name it. I was surprised that we could even name the fracture.
Once we apply the plaster, it accentuates the fractures. It doesn’t hide them. The facilitator invites the participants to observe the fractures and imagine beauty through them. Normally, for a fully broken ceramic, the fractures seem to look like mountains and valleys. Since my mug had a chip on the rim and the plaster slightly raised above the rim, and imagining the gold that I would apply to it later, I called it sunrise.
Isn’t it comforting to know that we can look at our imperfections, failures, and redemptively discover beauty in those fractures? But unfortunately, this is not how we perceive life today. We perpetually seek our worth in perfection that is fleeting, to be recognised and praised by the world that glorifies it. A perfect vacation, a perfect job, a perfect spouse, a perfect family, etc.
By failing to keep up with its demands, we pretend to the outside world that we are perfect, but deep inside feel disappointed; we soothe ourselves by polishing its lies with self-pity and envy and dare not seek beauty through them.
In Pixar’s movie Cars, Lightning McQueen fixed his eyes on the Thing He Wants (winning the Piston Cup all by himself), but when presented with the friendly neighbours of Radiator Springs and their leisurely pace of living, he resists seeing the beauty in front of him. He constantly rejects the truth he needs to know.
Donald Miller writes, “If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo. But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”
How foolishly we strive after things that don’t give us meaning and purpose? In the Story Workshop at the Mountain Retreat, we explore how the lie the character believes keeps him blind to the beauty in front of him.
Kintsugi Story is a wonderful catalyst for personal transformation, to reject the lies of perfection and embrace beauty & meaning.
