BE PROUD OF YOUR SCARS

In ancient Japanese culture, when some porcelain tableware that has a history or a sentimental value breaks, it must be repaired by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, thus creating a new work of art that aims to restore the beauty of what was broken.

It is a unique method known as Kintsukuroi (golden repair), which is based on the false philosophy that people and objects cannot have intrinsic beauty or that they are useless when broken; a principle that cannot be accepted, as it does not offer the opportunity for repairs or direction, both in the existence of something and in the existence of a person.

The origins of this art are said to date from the Muromachi period, when the Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408) broke his favourite tea bowl and, disturbed by the event, send it to be repaired in China. But, on returning the object, he was appalled by the aesthetic metal staples that had been used to put the broken pieces together and instructed his artisans to create a more appropriate solution. What they created was a method that did not disguise the damage, but made the cup an object of art.

When in a figurative sense, this idea is transferred to human dramas and dilemmas, wound scars can have different shapes and sizes. Some are visible on the body, others are emotional, invisible, but they still have a personal impact. Covering these wounds with the gold of renewal, man continues his life, in a new horizon of comprehension and acceptance. Of everything that has broken, there is still a bit left, and of what is left, the best can be done.

This is a text from a video that I found “by chance” a few years ago and it seemed appropriate for everyone who goes through the difficulties of separation, or something that broke down in the depths of their existence and can serve as a resource or reflection to move on, leaving the shackles of the past, open free, even because the past no longer exists within the context of time and space and one cannot ruminate those bits of the past, which cause us the most harm, and mainly, making us lose the notion of NOW! However, this text does not mean that it relieves the pain of the rupture of that something, but acts as a balm, as a hope of faith.

 

“When a bowl is broken in Japan, it is put back together with the cracks being filled with gold, creating a beautiful lining. This is to emphasize the beauty of what was once broken.

They believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it makes it more beautiful, and the same applies to human beings. Everything that you have been through, everything that you are going through, does not make your life uglier although it may seem that way when we are going through it. It is up to us to choose to struggle or paint with gold and make it beautiful.

You are not broken beyond repair, you can pick yourself up and learn from what's happened and become a better person from it, because of the struggle that you have been through.

You can wear your scars proudly as a badge of honour as if to say look at what I have been through. It's made me who I am today, I can get through anything life puts in front of me now.

Nobody has had a perfect life and nobody ever will. It is only up to us if we choose to paint our broken pieces gold and make it beautiful.

Don't be ashamed of what happened to you. Everything that has happened to you has happened for a reason, so the more we deny, the more we complain and don't accept what's happened to us, then it does not become useful. The moment that we accept and find what's useful in the struggle the things we have been through, that's just like us painting the cracks in our broken pieces with gold, turning something that could be ugly into something beautiful and inspiring when what you have been through is an inspiration for other people then it was all worth it, so do not get stuck on how things used to be.

I once read a quote that said: “Every next level of your life will demand a new you”, and sometimes it takes being broken in order to become a new version of yourself.

So, if you are going through hard times, I hope these words can help you, or somebody that you love.”

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To the interested reader, on the YouTube page, at BE PROUD OF YOUR SCARS ... Lessons from a broken Japanese bowl, by Sean Buranahiran, you can see images of beautiful pieces of broken crockery restored in gold fillets.