The Ikigai Podcast
The Ikigai Podcast
The Life and Legacy of Mieko Kamiya with Kei Tsuda
Have you heard of the Mother of Ikigai
While ikigai has gained recognition in the West, few are aware of the significant contributions made by Mieko Kamiya to its study. Who exactly is Mieko Kamiya, and what impact has she had on the study of ikigai
In this episode of the Ikigai Podcast, join Nick and Kei Tsuda as they explore the life and remarkable achievements of Mieko Kamiya.
Another observation I'm making is I think Miyako Kamiya was already exposed to a lot of cultures and sold the world, and if you bring ourselves back to today, that's what's happening with a lot of young people Now. They may not be going to places, but through the devices and social networks and YouTube and whatever else, and social networks and YouTube and whatever else, they're seeing so many different cultures and you know options. Now the problem is some of them are made up, it's like fake, and they're basically somewhat blown away by it. And you said it today, there are so many options now that I think our young people are somewhat struggling to make up their mind as to what is going to be their Ikigai at ikigaitribecom On this episode of the Ikigai podcast.
Speaker 2:Kay Suter, ikigai scholar, researcher, blogger and facilitator of the LinkedIn Study Group, returns to talk about the mother of Ikigai. Scholar, researcher, blogger and facilitator of the LinkedIn study group, returns to talk about the mother of Ikigai. Welcome back, kay.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, Nick. Pleasure to be back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good to see you, as always. So do you want to give us an update on what you've been doing and what you've been doing on your research with Ikigai and what you've been doing on your research?
Speaker 1:with Ikigai. So I've been reading a lot of books, and I tend to read a set of English books and Japanese books like side by side. Okay, so recently there was a big hype on this book called the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, I see. So I had to read up on that to kind of catch the discussions that's going on in the world. I've also read well, I started reading. Actually, the Mindful Body is written by Ellen Langer, and this is her latest book that was written last year. Okay, then I'm reading up on, of course, mieko Kamiya's works and you know, I know we are going to discuss Ikigai Nitsuite at some point but she's also written a book called Kokoro no Tabi, and also she has a collection of works that's been published as a book called the Observation of the Human Beings, I guess. So those books I've been reading up and trying to come up with a few blog posts and maybe podcasts of my own to share with the Ikigai Study Group.
Speaker 2:Nice, You'll have to share notes on those two books on Kamiya. So Kokoro no Tabi. So that would be the heart's trip or journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would like to translate it as like a journey of your mind, or journey of your heart.
Speaker 2:And ningen no mitsumete that's finding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's basically observing. I mean, observing sounds a little more scientific. Mitsumete is more like, you know, like a focusing on, focusing on To be speaking right. So I think she was asked by some folks that, hey, we would like to publish a book based on some of the articles and columns that she's written way back when she was around, and she's agreed to kind of package together a collection of them.
Speaker 2:Okay, she ended up writing package together a collection of them. Okay, she ended up writing quite a few number of books. I think there's something called the Cameo Collection. Yes, it's all her works into one volume.
Speaker 1:And I think Kokoro no Tabi is part of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, because I think she started writing quite late in her mid-40s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the thing. She started late and she didn't stay around for us too long, so her collection isn't that vast, but I think in my mind a lot of her thoughts are distilled down and encapsulated into these three, four works.
Speaker 2:Well, on the next episode, we'll look at her seminal book Ikigai Nitsuhite in detail, but today I thought we'd talk about the woman who I like to refer to as the mother of Ikigai and how she is clearly under-recognized, not well-known, but she was Japan's pioneering researcher on the Ikigai concept and I think we both agree in that she deserves more recognition.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So I'll give a bit of an introduction and then we'll, I guess, talk about her life. So she was the daughter of a wealthy I guess, diplomat, socially elite parents and they actually opposed her choice of becoming a doctor, and I think it was a real battle for her to become a doctor and her parents trying to stop her becoming a doctor. And she had this desire to help those suffering from mental disorders and also, more famously, lepers, and she also became an author later in her life. I see her as a woman of many roles and talents. Not only was she a psychiatrist and author, she was also a translator, and she also had to be a housewife and mother of two children.
Speaker 2:She spoke and taught several foreign languages, including French and English, and as a translator, she translated Marcus Aurelius' meditations into Japanese, I think, from Greek. She taught psychiatry at several Japanese universities and she was also a private tutor to the princess Michiko, who served as the Empress' consort until 2019. I think she tutored her before she married into the royal family. So quite an amazing CV it is. So how well known is she in Japan today?
Speaker 1:So some people, of course, know them, but I asked my mother, actually, but she didn't recognize the name and, of course, my mother is of the age that she would have not directly but have heard of her if she was on TV back in the 1960s and 70s. But she didn't recognize. So I think for those people who are interested in psychiatry psychology, I'm sure she has been well known, but in Japan her name may not be as widely known as other giants in the field. But something happened in 2018, and the Japanese broadcast network NHK did a special program on her work and life, and I suspect that was because the attention to Ikigai was coming back right around 2016 and 17. So on the tv show they did a two kind of back-to-back episodes on her background and her line of work, and I'm sure that brought some attention back to, you know, herself and ikigai as a topic I actually saw those.
Speaker 2:I saw two of the episodes on youtube, but they're now no longer available and I think you have.
Speaker 1:They're behind a paywall now yeah they put out paywall, but you can still watch it. It was quite good. I watched it before it was.
Speaker 2:Uh, it became that paid subscription yeah, I believe at the time when she published her book it did become a bestseller. I'm not sure what that really means in Japan, how many sales that equates to, but it is. Yeah, I guess it's a bit strange that no one seems to know her.
Speaker 1:So there's one exception I think seems to know her. So there's one exception I think is among the folks called the Ikigai Development Advisor in Japan. So that's the program I'm going through myself right now, to become a certified health, and Ikigai Development Advisor is what they are called and in their textbook prominently features Mieko Kamiya herself and the works of the Ikigai Nitsute. And with that in mind, I think there is a little bit of a thinking that Ikigai is for elderly or for people who's aged more. Yeah, that sentiment is sort of there and we don't necessarily hear too often about ikigai among, let's say, young Japanese, say college students and others. I mean, it is commonly used word, as we've been saying all along, but how often do they use will probably differ by age.
Speaker 2:Yeah, touching on these health and ikigai development advisors in Japan. So you're currently taking the program and you're in Japan and you're going through it. So how was it when you discovered they featured her work specifically? I know they mentioned her ikigai needs and her definition and also the characteristics Ikigai needs and her definition and also the characteristics so was that sort of refreshing and I guess, something you celebrated Like, oh, they're recognizing her work.
Speaker 1:It was enlightening to see her work is actually being used in something more practical or programmed that designed to prompt action yeah. Or program that's designed to prompt action yeah, Because in the Western world there's a lot of how-to or self-care books and everything out. Well, here it is. I think the ikigai-nitsuite concept is being used and kind of integrated into some of the activities that can be planned and executed among, in this case, the retirees and elderlies in Japan.
Speaker 2:Yes, so briefly touching on this role of being a health and ikigai advisor, what I understand is, as you know, I've got the workbooks myself. I managed to get my cousin to get copies of the workbooks. That is really geared for retirees transitioning from a work life to a new sort of social life where they can serve their community. Is that right?
Speaker 1:Yes, that is correct and really the theme is about how do we be proactive about the hyper well, that's the word I'm using, but I think that appropriate word is super aged or super aging society.
Speaker 2:Aren't they forecasting this significant increase in centenarians over the next 20, 30 years?
Speaker 1:Well, the irony of it all is that by the time I you know if I'm around enough, you know long enough to be a centenarian I will be making part of that peaking effect of the population, because I'm what's called the second wave of the baby boomers in Japan, I see. So the year I was born, there was, I think, 3 million children were born, and ever since that time the number has reduced and nowadays it doesn't even hit like 900,000 per year, I see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's aging population but decreasing birth rate. But that's a good answer, that's it.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's a lot of aging people who are living longer and then the birth rate has gone down, so there's less and less young people coming into the world to support the rest of us.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. Yeah, that was really, I guess, gratifying or satisfying for me when I found out oh, her work's being featured in these workbooks Because, as you know, I use her ikigai needs in my own program. So I thought I'm using the right stuff in my own certification course. So that was like a win for me. Yes, I'm doing the right thing.
Speaker 2:So let's return to the subject of Mikko Kamiya and her life. She had a very unconventional childhood and in the fourth grade she moved with her family to Geneva, switzerland, her father being a diplomat, and she attended I think it's Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Institute, which I think is quite famous and that provided her with a specialised, unique education. And that provided her with a specialised, unique education. And there she enjoyed school life as well as the beauty of nature in Switzerland itself. She was there for three years and during those three years she actually became more comfortable using the French language than Japanese. I guess that's where she got exposure to languages, where she got exposure to languages.
Speaker 2:But she also had some struggle during this time in her life because she was being singled out as a child of high society and she became acutely aware that she was, I guess, different and being judged simply because she came from a wealthy or affluent family. And, interestingly, she grew ashamed of her status as a high member of the high-ranking elite. And, yeah, at such a young age she became aware or paid attention to individuals who were not as wealthy or as fortunate as her, and I find that fascinating. And in her book she wrote there is no denying that my brief stay in Switzerland has left an indelible mark on me. I've become un-Japanese. Even today, it is in French that I think, read and write with the greatest ease, and I'm still inclined towards European culture. So that's something she wrote much later in life. So this, this time in Geneva, had a lasting impact on her. Yes, what are your thoughts about that?
Speaker 1:so I can draw a lot of correlations to what I discuss or my daughters are bringing up. It has to do with the timing of their upbringing and the location, place and, of course, the language. So I believe Miyako Kamiya spent good enough years in Switzerland, the French region, the speaking region of Switzerland, so our mind and the thinking was already kind of formed using that particular language. And there is actually another study that shows that if you spend your adolescence, let's say like between the age of nine to 14 years of age, in some place, that environment is going to have the biggest impact in your character and identity development.
Speaker 1:And that is so true because I can relate to this un-Japanese feeling, because both of my daughters say, especially when they visit Japan, they do feel this un-Japanese-ness. They know they look like Japanese and they understand the language, they can speak pretty well too, but something that nags them and say I'm not truly Japanese is how they feel. Now the funny contrast is myself, and of course my wife also, have lived in Japan until, let's say, the age of 15 and 16. Then moved to the US and spent a lot of years. Then moved to the US and spent a lot of years. We actually still think we are Japanese and we don't have much of this un-Japanese feeling. When visiting Japan or even being outside of Japan, we kind of recognize ourselves or identify ourselves as Japanese.
Speaker 2:So we have this firsthand experience of knowing what this un-Japanese business is they're perceived as Japanese, and maybe when Japanese find out, oh, you're not really Japanese, it must be hard for them to navigate those interactions.
Speaker 1:So they're older now and they can honestly articulate some of their feelings and what they're thinking about in this kind of subject. And they say that it is a little bit of this fear that when the Japanese person approaches them and talks to them, when I'm going to uncover or disclose that I'm not truly Japanese, and is that certain level of fear that they feel?
Speaker 2:It reminds me of this idea of purity that comes to mind with Japanese nationality or Japanese-ness. And yeah, I'm not sure if it's a good thing, this idea of pure Japanese. I think famously it came out with Naomi Osaka when she started winning Grand Slams and she was representing Japan, and I think there was some debate in the media as to, you know, whether she really Japanese because she grew up in the States and all that sort of thing. Was that a concern for you and your wife with your children and how they'd be perceived eventually when you take them to Japan? Or did you just think this is a normal part of our family and you didn't worry too much about it To?
Speaker 1:tell the truth, we didn't think ahead or think that farther into the future, right. So when they were growing up, I wanted to make sure they understood the Japanese way of growing up to a certain extent. So I almost forced them to go back to Japan every summer during the grade school and they went to school with their cousins for two to three weeks. So they understand, you know how to get together and serve meals right for lunch, and in Japan, japanese schools, you also know that the kids clean up after themselves, and every day they clean every portion of the school grounds too. So they've had those kinds of experience and exposure. But it didn't carry enough. I don't know the power to create an identity. I don't know the power to create an identity. This identity itself was still coming from where they lived, which is the United States. But now I think we can appreciate those kind of things, as you know as, hopefully, daughters and parents and do something about it.
Speaker 2:Well, let's return to Kamiya's life and her first encounter with lepers, which had this strong influence, this profound influence on her. It was in 1933 and a few months after graduating high school, at a Christian meeting with her uncle she was there to play the organ. She saw these people, or these patients with leprosy, and it shocked her initially. Some were legless, armless and others had these serious skin inflammation. But she was moved and impressed by the devoted care and professionalism of a nurse called Chiyo Mikami, and this made her think that she too could and should dedicate herself to the sick.
Speaker 2:And later, in another book, her autobiography Henneki, which I think means Wanderings, she wrote in 1979, she said, or she wrote I would like to work for these patients like her, this is just the place where I should work. This strong will welled up in my mind the only place where I can stay is where people mourn and suffer. I made up my mind in a flash. So so this is someone who's 19. Yeah, I have to do the math too, yeah, so what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:Immediately, my thought was like what was I doing when I was 19?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was probably worried about something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was still in school, and it just so happens, I think, when I was probably worried about something else, yeah, I was still in school, and it just so happens, I think when I was 19, as part of my school program, I was visiting Australia. I did a summer study, or actually winter study, in Australia back then. Okay, study in Australia back then. So my probably thinking is okay, I'm trying to become a mechanical engineer. What would I do after I graduate? That's probably the most I would have thought about the future.
Speaker 2:I think I was working in kitchens or just looking for work, so I certainly wasn't thinking of helping others, I was more focused on myself. So it's quite profound because I mean leprosy at the time and for many decades was considered a shameful disease and we we kind of know the history of how lepers were treated right in japan and I guess in most other countries too. And here she is, at 19, having this desire to work with them and this sort of compassion or wanting to understand their suffering, so quite unique and mature and compassionate, well beyond her years. And then she had her own health issues with tuberculosis and after her education, her school education, her secondary education, at the age of 21, she was diagnosed with having tuberculosis and she was lucky in that her parents owned a cottage in Karuizawa, that's relatively close to Tokyo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's well known to be kind of the summer getaway place for the wealthy.
Speaker 2:I see.
Speaker 1:From the old days and today.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so, with permission of her family and doctor, she was allowed to live there alone and immersed herself in reading English literature, including Shakespeare, books on English history and linguistics. And while she was recuperating she actually studied for a national examination for a teacher's certificate in higher education. And, yeah, she recovered and then also took the examination and passed. So quite the academic.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:But then the following year she contracted tuberculosis again and this obviously made her realise, you know, about her own mortality, that she could die. And she returned to the cottage and then, amazingly, she taught herself Greek and Latin, read these classic literature works by Plato and Homer and so on, and somehow managed to read and translate Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. So you're thinking, how's that possible? I mean back then, in what the 19, would have been in what the 1930s, I think? Yeah. So tuberculosis gave her the time and freedom to study what she was interested in and I find it astonishing that she could teach herself Greek and Latin and then translate Marcus Aurelius' meditations. So, yeah, she was quite the student. I think she was quite unique.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And again, she may have had quite a bit of influence from her upbringing and the fact that she continued to think in French. I guess over the years I think that kind of the fondness towards the European culture was already ingrained in her. So I bet she didn't even feel any stress learning these additional languages or reading these you know great works of the past. So she kind of probably found her ikigai already at that point, whether she realized that or not, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So obviously it was a very good way for her to spend her time while recovering. And then I think, through her studies, kami was also attempting to discover not only the meaning of life itself but more specifically how she should use the rest of her own life with this. I guess this discovery, specifically how she should use the rest of her own life with this, I guess this discovery that you know, she might have a short life with the illnesses she was having. And then it was written that by devoting herself to reading the classics, she was able to forget her worries and the fear of death. And this anxiety was further eased by her eventual recovery of tuberculosis. So I guess these bouts of tuberculosis gave Kamara a glimpse into her own mortality, and I think it's well known, feeling close to death makes one feel close to life also. So do you think this is when she started to think about Ikigai in general and maybe what her Ikigai could be?
Speaker 1:My thought about that is she probably was starting to get interested in people's mind or even her own mind at that point. So maybe her interest for psychiatry maybe already coming together. It could include Ikigai, but it's more towards okay, understanding how the mind works is probably more of that interest or the intriguing point that she was discovering using herself as the subject. And another interesting thing about is you know, I've seen this with other people too but when you are having an illness there's kind of two ways to go about it. One is really concerned about the illness itself, trying to do everything possible so that you get kind of sucked into the illness itself. But then in her case it's the other way. She's basically trying to use that kind of time affluence in a creative, positive way and that helped her overcome the illness itself. And we've seen those things over and over, I think, in other people.
Speaker 1:But one more thing is I think it's the timing of her illness too. When people are young and have this kind of illness, they kind of are forced to look at their future. There's not much to look back in their past or not much of the accomplishment right past or not much of the accomplished accomplishment right. So in a way, themselves or the people around them will tend to point them towards the future. But unfortunately situation's not that helpful for people who are like middle-aged or maybe you know our age. If we become super ill, then we start to kind of latch on to those accomplishments and things in the past and that might drive us farther down into the hands of the illness. Yeah, so I think in a way. I mean she was unlucky to have TB, but the timing of her illness also actually worked towards forming her life perspective for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess in a way she could have, and I guess we could interpret that it gave her this clarity and direction on what she wanted to do with her life and directional that she wanted to do with her life, and gave her this yo-yo, this freedom or time to study. Yeah, this time affluence to study, and it sounded like she was quite a natural at languages, maybe going back to her time in Geneva, and obviously she was incredibly well-read too. Yes, yeah. So after she recovered in 1938, again with her family, they all moved to New York and there she entered Columbia University to study classical Greek.
Speaker 2:So that's quite a niche subject. And at this time her father was aware that she wanted to become a doctor and obviously was telling her no, you know, you can't do that. Then one day she went to a fair, the 1938 World Fair in New York, and she stood for hours with her eyes fastened on specimens of human anatomy in this medical pavilion and her father, observing this, realized, okay, his daughter really cares about this and really has this incredible desire to study medicine. So he gave her permission to do so, on the condition that she would not go into the field of leprosy.
Speaker 1:So there's going to be more on this later.
Speaker 2:And so yeah, camille happily changed her major from classical Greek to medicine, but secretly kept her determination to work with lepers, obviously concealed.
Speaker 1:Her father should never have put that condition in place.
Speaker 2:So you have two daughters, Kay. Can you relate to the father-daughter relationship?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, my daughters act like that too. If I set some kind of condition, of course they'll come up with ways to go around it. I'm sure.
Speaker 1:No one thing I'm kind of drawing a correlation is the fact that it's not something we say that impacts our children, and it doesn't matter if it's a daughter or son, you have a son, it's what we do, you know, even before they're bored. That impacts their life, and I've come to that realization a little late, with help from my daughters. I guess they are pointing that out for me, our younger folks who are considering to maybe move to some other places, place to do work or live. Well, it's time to start thinking about okay, what would that do if you're planning to have children to your kids? To be honest, I never had that kind of thought. I was so focused on where I'm going to bring myself and learn the subject I wanted to learn and find a job, that I wanted to have a job. But then fast forward to now all those actions that I've taken does have an impact on my children, does have an impact on my children and that's part of the reason that they're coming up with multiple identities in their mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a valid point. Our own life, well before they're born, has some influence.
Speaker 2:Yeah and obviously me marrying a Japanese and then having my son in Japan. If I thought about it, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have probably really known at the time, but it would add, I guess, both these sort of unique opportunities. But also there's, you know, been, I guess, not so much problems but concerns we had to make decisions on. You know, where do we educate our son? And in Australia, where there's a multicultural, he's kind of a normal person, but in Japan he was always going to sort of stand out as being half and we had to make decisions based on those things. And I never considered those things before, you know, before, even when I was married, sort of only after that he was born, yeah. So it's interesting how these you fall in love and get married and then you have these decisions to make, these really important decisions because they involve these little people in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think Japan is a bit I don't know what's the word to use unique or, you know, outlier of an environment, because you know you kind of touched on this earlier how kind of a monoculturalistic or the consideration of like a who who is truly japanese right kind of gets into play. Where united states, australia, it's already somewhat mixed culture at different degrees. Now those cultures have their own issues too. You know, with okay, is there racism and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:Well, japan's form of the challenge is really this concept that you know what's the definition of true Japanese and even you know today I'm really excited to see a lot of us you brought up Naomi Osaka earlier but a lot of the sports players who has basically parents from Japan and non-Japanese countries now, and their names and everything is also starting to show that fact and I think our younger generations, I'm hoping, are going to basically take that as normal. Yeah Right, you can have people who doesn't look like Japanese to be in a under U23 soccer team who, by the way, who just made their Olympics participation today or yesterday, and in the roster will include people who does not look like traditional Japanese and that's okay or that should be normal moving forward.
Speaker 2:I think it will be and hopefully my son will go to Japan and will feel he's a part of the country and hopefully he won't be continually asked where he's from or where his parents are, or that sort of. Thing.
Speaker 1:That's going to still continue to some extent.
Speaker 2:We just have to get used to. So, returning to cammy's life again after, uh, I think obviously her family probably had to move back to japan because of um, you know, the the onset of the Pacific War before the Pacific War. After things were clear that war was on their doorstep. So she returned to Tokyo and finished her medical studies and a year before her graduation, kami asked the National Leprosy Area to allow her to go there as part of a research project to learn about leprosy and to also meet someone, I guess a pioneer authority in the field of leprosy, mitsuda Kensuke, and I think they formed a pretty good working relationship. So she was there for 12 days and she was shocked to find the conditions at this leprosarium were horrible no effective medicines, no suitable treatments and most of the patients were suffering from malnutrition.
Speaker 2:And yeah, because of all of this, she felt this greater sense of responsibility towards the patients and she actually wrote a poem about it that I found a translation of, and this was what she wrote, I think, probably in her diary why you lepers, not I, you carry all the burdens lepers carry. Being deprived of all that makes a comfortable life. You are constantly in torment, agony and desperation. I promise you that I will stand by you, support you and comfort you, pray to God for you every night and morning. But at the same time I feel guilty about mentioning all these sweet words because they sound vain to you. You, lippers, are the ones who really know what hardship is. Yeah, so quite profound again that she had this deep affinity or compassion. Why do you think she had this connection to lepers? Why did she feel so strongly towards them?
Speaker 1:I think it is the combination of, you know, the fact that she's already formed this highly nuanced, multicultural kind of mind, mind, was you know two or more kind of value structures already at that point. Second is, I think that her own experience was tuberculosis, yeah, and the fact that she's already realized how, you know, she was in the elite group and she was given the type of care and options of going to these, you know, karuizawa and other places to, you know, get better, yeah, I think she must have contrasted that with the experience of the lepers well, it's amazing she um didn't take all her opportunities and wealth for granted.
Speaker 2:She could somehow found it in her to be compassionate, understanding, because I think very few people would, you know, have the heart that she had. And then, moving on at the leprosarium, she began to hope she could work there and devote herself to these leprosy patients. And again she faced opposition from her father and, you know, basically he said no. So her decision was overruled and I think this caused a lot of frustration in life and in her later life she wrote about her frustration. So between the years of 1944 to 1949, she did become a student of psychiatry at the University of Tokyo. There she married her future husband, kamiya Noburo. They got married in 1946. And for the next decade she played the role of housewife and mother, while also teaching foreign languages and correcting the English language papers of her husband and his students. And she did not like that.
Speaker 2:So in several diary entries from 1954, she expressed her frustration at being unable to pursue perhaps her most important source of ikigai due to these commitments. She wrote every day I get so frustrated with my English correction to the point I want to kill myself. Is life the experience of doing things you don't want to do. How long do I have to be a language teacher? Languages you are the curse of me. If I spend so much time on these things, I will never be able to stand on my own as a psychiatrist. I don't know how many times I have the thought of giving up my full-time job and becoming a lecturer. How can I manage the responsibilities of a full-time job, my family and my studies? It's a very human thing to do. Oh God, please give me the strength I need to climb these mountains forever and ever and ever and ever. So very frustrated writing that diary entry. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this was taking place at the post-war Japan too. Right, the war ended around 1945. So the country was in the mode of rebuilding, trying to find its footings, and that's when she was also trying to find her footings.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is kind of interesting. It kind of you know those overlaps, but those words and the struggle is something that I think a lot of the folks, even today, especially the mothers, will probably share. I mean, it's been 50, 60 years since her time and the household responsibilities and how those things are arranged, especially in Japan, I think still has a long way to go. Yeah, so in a way she was already kind of pointing out the movement that's kind of later become the feminist movement, also the rights for women in.
Speaker 1:Japan, even though I don't think there's any record of her being directly participating in those activities. But I'm sure she may have influenced a lot of folks who may have come up, grown after her, to voice their perspectives, a lot of folks who may have come up, you know, grown after her to, you know, voice their perspectives on these matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also think the entry indicates this struggle from a lack of shimekan like a sense of purpose.
Speaker 2:And you know some people might think, wow, she was already successful in achieving so many things and, who knows, maybe someone in her position might have enjoyed correcting English and teaching languages, but it obviously didn't give her the sense of purpose she was seeking, obviously related to psychiatry and helping lepers. And there is a book, a biography on her life, called A Woman with Demons, and I was a bit shocked by the title of the book, but it was inspired actually by one of her diary entries where she said you know, my demons are raging again today and she was frustrated with life. And yeah, she had this incredible desire to you know, my demons are raging again today and she was frustrated with life. And yeah, she had this incredible desire to, you know, really do something with her life and help others, help others less fortunate than her.
Speaker 2:But she also suffered a lot of loss and pain. So she even had several decades of depression due to the loss of her first love. She fell in love with a young man who was one of her brother's friends and she really didn't even know him. She kind of just only had a few encounters with him but fell in love with him and he died of tuberculosis, I think. Then she battled, obviously, multiple illnesses tuberculosis, later cancer and she obviously lived almost two decades, or at least a decade, living with the frustration of not being able to pursue work as a scholar and writer, and also the battle she had with her father on wanting to help lepers. So I think we could say she struggled in her life with a lack of ikigai for extended periods of time. So do you think all these life experiences and all this frustration helped her understand the multidimensional nature of ikigai?
Speaker 1:Surely right. More certainly, I know we'll be discussing ikigai nitsuite, the book, in another episode, but the way she writes the book, yes, she does use the phrases as if she's kind of uncovered the phrase is as if she's kind of uncovered it through certain studies, but I feel that she is including her own experiences over it, even though she doesn't clearly state those things.
Speaker 1:So you know, especially so there is, I don't know, can I bring up a passage from the book People know this is not about the book so there's a passage where she says right, so the people encounter obstacles akin to wolves blocking their path in different forms and at different times throughout their lives, and they come to realize their power. Those wolves are really powerful. Come to realize their power. Those walls are really powerful.
Speaker 1:At such moments, the issue of finding Ikigai inevitably arises Is a life filled with such sadness and suffering still worth living? What should one live for from now on? And to your point, I think this was in her mind, if not all the time, a lot of the time over the course of her life. And another thing I'm kind of drawing a correlation to is based on some of the readings I've been doing is that it's the concept of resilience. Right, you know psychologists and others cover it, but I think this Ikigai perspective is very similar to how the concept of resilience is discussed today that the more often you encounter these kind of life situations, the more resilient you encounter these kind of life situations, the more resilient you become. So, essentially, the people who face the disadvantages and challenges in their life situations especially like earlier in their life tend to develop resilience much faster, and that's, I think, what took place here with Miyako Kamiya herself.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've spoken to several researchers, who one in particular relates ikigai I mean to intrinsic motivation, but also existential positive psychology and this idea of bouncing back or overcoming a challenge. Or even in the midst of going through a challenge, you begin to understand what matters to you and you can feel ikigai through the challenge. And then, once you've overcome the challenge, under reflection you realize that challenge, that suffering was, was worth it because it uncovered my Ikigai, or it made me a stronger person and I discovered things I thought I wasn't capable of. I guess an easy life, a simple easy life, wouldn't uncover these different sources of Ikigai or we wouldn't gain this resilience, right? So, yeah, I always like to say you guys, it's not about you know, really, it's not about happiness. Happiness is a byproduct of Ikigai, but it's a meaningful life and I guess to have a meaningful life we have to be challenged every once in a while. That's right.
Speaker 2:And Kamiya obviously wanting to find meaning through this desire to work with lepers, eventually had the opportunity to undertake a research project in 1956 that gave her this opportunity to return to a place called Nakashima ASEAN, which was an island where lepers were shipped to. Returned to a place called Nakashima ASEAN, which was an island where lepers were shipped to, and I think we mentioned before when she went there for the first time she was shocked by the conditions they had since improved and there she did research that eventually led to her writing her dissertation to find employment as a professor and then I think this gave her the freedom to then become an author and write her seminal book. So this opportunity was a psychiatric study and survey of lepers, and so she went there really to interview lepers and they were given questionnaires and psychological tests and her research revealed an important issue related to psychological aspects and treatments of of leprosy for these patients, and what stood out was this sense of meaninglessness that so many of the patients felt about their lives and their widespread despair about their future. So no future because of this disease and, yes, despite them. I mean all their basic needs were met, apparently. So they had shelter, food, clothing, but, yeah, they didn't have much more than that, but I think we'll talk about this later. But she found some of these patients could find a sense of meaning in Ikigai, despite, you know, lacking, I guess, a sense of purpose or lacking the opportunity to find a sense of purpose or find sources of Ikigai. So we'll talk about her book on the next episode.
Speaker 2:But eventually this did lead to her father's approval and after the research project and at this time she was a mother of young children she finally got approval from her father to go and, do you know, work with lepers. So she she won that battle in the end. That was in um 1957. So a brief summary of her work there. She worked for about 15 years there, from 57 to 1972. She usually worked every other weekend. She would sometimes work there for a full week during summer vacations to cover colleagues who were, I guess, on holidays, and she became the chief doctor in psychiatry and, yeah, spent quite a bit of time there and it was also very far from where she lived. I think she would take a train and then have to take a ferry or a boat to the island. So quite a lot of work involved for this commitment. And also she had children and so she was.
Speaker 2:This reminds me of Gordon Matthews and the podcast I did with him and he said you know, Eureka guy, he believes E Ikigai is ultimately one thing Is it your work or is it your family? And it does sound like Kamiya was, you know, leaning on one more than the other. And it was her work. She desperately wanted to do this work. Yeah, so Ikigai can result in, I think, difficult choices, because meaningful role, a very important role of a mother, but also this desire to help others. So I guess we're sometimes faced with choices of ikigai.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's something to think about in today's world, right? So I mean, when she was growing and also, you know, working with lepers this is still the time that again, you said it travel was not that quick. This is before Shinkansen or the bullet train, so there's no like well, hop on the train an hour and a half and you go right 200 miles or 300 kilometers. It's not that it took a lot more effort.
Speaker 1:Another observation I'm making is I think Miyako Kamiya was already exposed to a lot of cultures and sold the world, and if you bring ourselves back to today, that's what's happening with a lot of young people Now. They may not be going to places, but through the devices and social networks and YouTube and whatever else, they're seeing so many different cultures and options. You know options. Now the problem is some of them are made up yes, it's like fake and they are basically somewhat thrown away. I mean blown away by it, and you said it today. There are so many options now that I think our young people are somewhat struggling to make up their mind as to what is going to be their ikigai.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right. It's kind of like walking through a supermarket aisle, and I'm going to use the American example on this one. You go to a cereal aisle and you see so many different options. Or in Japan it's equivalent would be you try to pick a tea at a convenience store. There are so many different options, and then you just kind of have to stop and say, okay, what do I want and for what reason? Yeah, and that's what's happening, I think. I think the situation is in the past there was fewer options and that may have created challenges, but today I think it's the opposite it's too much options or too much information that's made available, especially the younger people.
Speaker 2:I agree totally. I think we could call it the paradox of choice Too many that you choose none, and then there's a lot of distraction with this ability to watch any kind of entertainment through multiple screens anywhere you know, and one concern I had as a father was will my son lose his creativeness?
Speaker 2:and well, you know all this time on screens or steal time that he would use for creativity. Fortunately he's quite creative and he makes music, but he, I guess as a parent I still have concerns about how much he is attached to his phone, but it seems normal now. But on this theme, actually on creativity, that was something Kamiya encouraged patients to pursue or seek to sort of find or express their ikigai. And she encouraged the lepers to develop their creative abilities by writing compositions or poems, drawing pictures and playing musical instruments so they could release their sorrow and worries and establish a meaningful lifestyle within the lapisarium. And she helped one of the patients who was teaching himself French and donated musical scores and instruments to patients so they could take an interest in music. And one of her patients, a man, a young man called Kochikondo, who became a patient from the age of 11 and lost his eyesight at 19, wrote the following about Kamiya Dr Kamiya sometimes came to our meetings, so the meeting for blind patients.
Speaker 2:As soon as she sat down at the table, everybody got together to talk to her and listen to her. She spoke in a soft and kind way. There was not any difference between her and us. It was not merely sympathy or pity, but she was always. But she always talked to us as if she were in the same situation as we were. She did not look down at us out of compassion at any time. This is why I think dr camille was really great. So she yeah, it sounds like she eventually did the work that mattered to her and had this beautiful and positive impact on these people. And, yeah, she seems to matter to these people there. So there is some perception that she was the Mother Teresa of lepers in Japan, which is probably a romantic exaggeration, but clearly this work was important to her and perhaps I'm not sure if it was a source of ikigai or if it was her shimeikan, like a sense of purpose, or maybe it was both. What do you think? Or maybe it was both? What do you think? I think it was both.
Speaker 1:She certainly had this strong sense of purpose we call it the shimeikan but also in the process of doing or carrying out the tasks, I'm sure she was feeling ikigai-tan. Yeah, you said it before. She had to travel a long ways to commute to locations. Dealing with lepers or the people with different degree of issues is not for the faint-hearted. I mean, you have to observe them on a daily basis. You encounter new and maybe worse situation for these patients, but somewhere, somehow, she doesn't have much writing about her getting depressed about the situation of these patients or having been frustrated. I don't think she's left much of that kind of writing and that kind of tells me that she was really feeling haekigai, as she's engaging directly with these patients.
Speaker 2:Well, she actually wrote on that. So in 1972, when she was 57, kamiya retired from Nagashima, I say because of failing health, and at the time she expressed her feelings about the patients at the leprosarium, I imagine, in another diary entry and she wrote I feel a profound affinity with the patients now. It was my lifetime pleasure that I could visit them for about 15 years. I might not have done much for them, but it was an honour to be a friend to them. It deepened my conviction that the people whom we should care about the most are the ones at the bottom in society. And yeah, it's interesting she refers to them as friends. It was an honour to be a friend to them. So that was how she perceived her relationship with them. And after retirement Camille had heart conditions and she was hospitalised several times and she still maintained her correspondence with the patients, so obviously was writing letters. And then she died in 1978 of heart failure at the age of 65. So quite a young age if we think about it, but quite a full life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in today's life expectancy that is quite young. But just so you know, around the wartime or the post-war Japan, the average life expectancy was actually around that age 65. Expectancy was actually around that age 65. It's only in 1980s and into the 90s that Japanese started to live longer and crossed the 80s. Nowadays we're talking about 90 and 100.
Speaker 2:Yes, so quite an amazing person, and on the next episode, we will explore her book. So I look forward to talking with you, kay. On the next episode, we will explore her book. So I look forward to talking with you, kay, on the next episode about Ikigai Nitsute, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 1:Thanks, nick, that was a pleasure.