Words: Alfie Ward (he/him)
‘It is this awareness of the closeness of death, of the beauty inherent in each moment, that allows us to endure. Mono no aware.’
I’m grappling with the weight and inevitability of a state change. An idea about transitioning from one form onto the next – inspired by a Ken Liu short story wherein a woman’s soul is an ice cube, if the ice cube melts, she’ll die. So, she cuts herself off from the world, experiencing so little as to ensure her ice cube’s survival. In the end the ice cube does melt, coinciding with her own decision to liberate herself.
‘Those vanished years of the past, as if obstructed by an ashen glass window, able to peer, yet unable to grasp. He continually longs for everything past, if only he could break through that hazy glass between, he could return to those long-lost years.’ (Wong Kar-wai, In the Mood for Love.)
So, what does changing state mean for my soul?
Mono no aware, – もののあわれ – is a Japanese philosophy often translated to the pathos of things, mono means things, no indicates something an object possesses, and aware means feeling, sentiment, sensitivity. But the words alone don’t carry its meaning.
At its heart, mono no aware is the tender sadness at the passage of time, not despair, but a kind of reverence. The ache we feel because beauty is fleeting. Because life is, by its nature, impermanent. One could feel it as an awareness of transience, a sensitivity to impermanence, or the beauty found in the fleeting nature of life and its moments. But to me, infusing it with our being transcends definition.
Understanding what it means, was not an answer, but a visceral recognition – a realisation that transience is stitched into everything we long for, woven through the fundamental desires of our human condition.
For those of us finishing our undergraduate degree, can we change state, amid the wave of anguish, melancholy, and fear, hitting like an immovable wave, while coming to terms with loss of ‘the best era of our lives’?
But are these really the best years of our lives? I catch myself wondering. Tearing down the version of me that four years have built – why? Why, despite the image I’m so often reminded I’m perceived as, do I not feel like the charismatic, confident, assured, graduate I’m told I am? Is this reflection or self-destruction?
Coming to realise the depth of this shared experience, we spend our weeknights chasing highs in cheap or trendy bars, inserting ourselves into the vision we hope to materialise, escaping from our fears of the future and sadness at our ‘wasted time,’ feeling alive, only for a sweet few hours with friends. For the night to end. Sharing a bed with the familiar companion of a melancholic comedown, the weight of our desperation for fulfilment and purpose suffocating us, depriving our soul of the lifeblood it needs to invigorate itself.
So how do we cope? By building plans and pushing to “succeed” within the heavy standards of a capitalist western society, avoiding the pain of impermanence by pushing and struggling through the invisible force? Or yielding to it…
Today was a real wasted day. but today was not a bad day. The Waves (by Ken Liu) is a story about an interstellar voyage to a distant universe which will take centuries to arrive, the classic sci-fi end of the world new colony type. On board a virus develops, passengers can decide whether they want to live forever, frozen at their current mental and physical state, and witness all lives, the progression of our humanity, eat from the tree of knowledge, or do they want to simply… live their life? I hope you’d come to the same conclusion as me.
It’s the beauty of the human experience that we can waste time, if time were not fleeting, would it mean anything at all? Its value lies in its limits. A transcendent song in a club, a meaningful conversation in the smoking area, a late-night drink with a friend, the exceptionality of these moments comes in their inability to last.
Because what is life without the mundane? What is life without the spectacular? What is life without love? Love of ideas. Feelings. Experiences. What is life without loss? Loss of time. Opportunities. Emotions. The value of our time spent, and experiences shared is their impermanence.
What remains, if not the connections that we make – fragile, fleeting, and yet the most enduring proof that we were here at all.
But returning to the problem that has lingered beneath it all. The end of this chapter of our lives doesn’t feel like a continuation, it feels like an end.
But maybe there’s another way to see it, to reframe our outlook through mono no aware – understanding that the ache we feel at the passing of time isn’t really about time at all. It’s the fear of losing the versions of ourselves we’ve fallen in love with – the parts that feel fleeting, only existing in the fabric of youth.
So perhaps these aren’t the best years of our lives. Maybe the best years are simply the ones we allow ourselves to feel fully – however brief they are.
When we spend our energy focused only on what we’re missing, on what is slipping away, we miss what mono no aware asks of us. To notice, to hold, to feel the beauty of things as they are – even as they fade.
I’m sure in time to come, I’ll look back with sadness at these moments I failed to see as they happened. Or maybe I’m just overly sentimental.
But how do you want your memories to feel?
I think in the end, we grow by changing state. An ice cube melts, but water is still ice – and water endures. Perhaps our souls are not lost in change, only reshaped.
