ganbatte – ryota fujimoto
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— Do you think you will ever reach perfection?
He laughed softly.
— Perfection does not exist. But you get a little closer to it every day.
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Shuhari teaches us that true freedom paradoxically comes from absolute discipline. Those who try to rush the process remain on the surface. Those who accept it eventually discover that they no longer need to think.
They simply do.
And that is the moment they are truly free.
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That is Kaizen: a change so small it seems trivial, yet when accumulated, it ends up transforming everything.
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Then, one morning, a former university professor sent him a letter. One sentence in particular struck him deeply:
“What matters is not your failure, but what you choose to do with it.”
[…]
This is what is known in Japan as hansei. A word that is difficult to translate, but which comes close to “critical self-reflection.”
[…]
hansei is an opportunity to question oneself.
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If I had to sum up the spirit of hansei in a single sentence, it would be this: “Failure is not a wall, it is a mirror.”
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— If you seek perfection, you will hesitate, he said. And if you hesitate, your stroke will be dead. Here lies the true essence of Japanese perfectionism. It is not about eliminating error, but about learning how to elevate it.
[…]
When you observe a piece of calligraphy, that last stroke carries a particular force. It does not merely close the work, it reveals it. It shows whether the gesture was confident, whether the artist was in harmony with the brush, whether he had truly grasped the essence of the character he was writing.
[…]
— Slow down. Respect each stroke as if it were the only one that matters.
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dupa aceste cuvinte de intelepciune, poate ma incumet din nou sa incerc kanji, si reusesc sa trec peste sentimentul ca parca as avea – ce doua maini stangi?! doua picioare stangi! liniile mele sunt tremurate, inestetice, fie prea lungi, fie prea scurte, fie prea sus, fie prea jos, fie prea la dreapta, fie prea la stanga, si-mi iese un ceva monstruos, fie prea mare, fie prea mic. pana si kanji pentru unu imi iese in zigzag – o linie orizantala. atat. dar imi tremura mana de emotie, si nu pur si simplu reusesc – una dintre marile mele frustrari in acest demers de imersiune in japo.
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