Everyone has fallen apart at sometime in their life. The more resilient can use every fall, every breakup and emotional damage, to grow stronger and keep moving on.
We can try to hide these scars with bravado or false narratives. Or if we are brave enough we can wear them as badges of honour, evidence of trying and failing, of loving and losing.
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places
Ernest Hemingway – A farewell to arms
There is an art form in ceramics from Japan that is the perfect example of the resilient approach to life. It treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
It’s called Kintsugi (金継ぎ, きんつぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, きんつくろい, “golden repair”), the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.
This is not only beautiful from an art perspective but valuable to anyone to who has ever failed, been broken hearted, or had to rebuild themself after pain or loss.
The art form and philosophy has zero attempt to hide the damage on the object, on the contrary the repair is literally illuminated.
The breaks, the knocks, are all there to see and add to the beauty and the history of the object. It allows us all to acknowledge we are all a little broken and thats ok.
Sea's The Day 