The Social Need for Ikigai: Ted Bonnah on Living in a Neo-Liberal Society

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Distinguish Ikigai and Yarigai

Ted explains the difference between yarigai and ikigai; yarigai is something worth doing and can be the work people enjoy doing. However, for some people who don't find joy in the work they do, they seek hobbies that can give them satisfaction, and that can be their ikigai.

Ikigai can be a lot of different things

Nick: What I've learned from a lot of my Japanese friends, it's something quite small and humble: a hobby or pets, grandchildren. And I did actually read or hear someone say, in my act as a coping mechanism, if it's their private little hobby, it gets them through the day, it gets them through their week. 

And it's certainly not something grandiose and ambitious like it is perceived in the West. So yeah, do you think for the most part, it is something small and private for most Japanese?

Ted: I think you make a couple of distinctions here. So let's talk about work first. So yarigai is something that's worth doing. So yarigai ga aru shigoto, what's worth doing is something that makes you feel good and pays the rent. 

Kore wa ikigai, that's a job that pays the rent that feels good to him, but then maybe contributes to the world, helps cure cancer or whatever, right? And so that's Ikigai. 

And then we're talking about people who have what I'd call soul crushing jobs, but the Japanese just kind of seemed to grin and bear it. Their ikigai could be their hobby, right?

In obon, all these construction worker guys are pushing these like two-storey high floats through the streets and playing flutes and stuff and drinking alcohol and just going nuts. 

And so that's their once a year pressure release ball, so that's their ikigai. So yeah, ikigai can be a lot of different things. It can be the hobby that gets you through a nine to five job.

It can be the ones like you work like a dog and you sweat, and then once a year, you're on the festival, holding fireworks in your hand and getting burned up, but you don't care because this is the one day of the year you feel alive.

Unique Sources of Ikigai

In Japan, families pass down their crafts from generation to generation. Hence, the younger generations have something to hold onto that can be a source of their ikigai. However, Ted shares that for some, it is hard to find ikigai in their work, which is why it is essential to have hobbies that can keep them motivated in life.

People have their different sources of ikigai

Ted: What I find interesting here is you see people who are in the arts or crafts and they're like, fifth generation doing it. So they've got this ikigai, but ikigai is part of their family structure. So it's pure support and encouragement the whole time. 

The hard part of finding an ikigai and going with it is coming from a background of blue collar workers. It's not yarigai no shigoto, it's yarushikanai, you got to do it to survive. So those are the levels; the lowest level is yarushikanai, I got to do this job or else I'm gonna starve.

Yarigai garu, I'm gonna have a good lifestyle, but it's also, I feel like I'm doing good enough, it's not my dream. And then you get ikigai, it's my dream. But that dream thing, that start is to realize that that's what you have to face.

So you've got a family. Like this ebizo, who is the traditional Japanese Kabuki guy. And he sells out, he refreshed Kabuki and all this stuff. But he's like fifth generation. And he went through a period of getting drunk and getting in fistfights in Tokyo 15 years ago, because he had the reverse pressure.

He's like, well, I'm supposed to be fifth generation Kabuki actor. But is this my ikigai to just do what my dad and my granddad and his granddad do? Is that an ikigai?

And I think, Japanese on the whole, because this society has existed for so long, and you have these 1000 year old hotels, and tea salons that are older in my country, public washrooms that are twice as old as Australia.

Because you have these really long traditions, then if part of your family tradition is ikigai then you're gonna go with that easier, but on the reverse part is if your family have been poor who are disenfranchised and have been factory workers, it's going to be harder to break out of that, too.

Making An Impact Through Meaningful Work

People can feel ikigai by having meaningful work that impacts other people positively. In Ted's case, having a son with autism, he found ikigai by helping people with children with special needs, educating them on how to deal with and take care of their children.

People can feel ikigai through meaningful connections

Ted: So another thing that has changed my ikigai is that my son has autism, and he's going to a Japanese school that's just not meeting his needs. So three days a week, I go in and teach my son in a Japanese school and I haul all the stuff he's opposing and all the socialization he refuses. 

They're trying to hammer him down, to get back to the initial metaphor. He's just saying, nope, get your hands off me. And so I connected to a Facebook group of people with disabled kids here in Japan.

Everything that I would do with my son, I would put it up. And someone said, hey, could you write a book chapter about this? And I said, sure. So I wrote a book chapter about it. And so now I've started my own consulting agency.

So I'm going to try and get paid to give workshops about power harassment to Japanese companies, and how to deal with special education children here and how to support them as much as you can.

And I think this is not the ikigai I had envisioned. But I think it's what I'm controlling as much as I can. But I'm also going with the flow. And I think it's given me a lot of satisfaction in my days. It was kind of nice that you saw that in an article that you read.

I think anyone talking about ikigai, whether you're talking about the big ikigai, this one thing, or it's all these little practices, you gotta realize material conditions, people are under what they can do while we're stuck in this system.

Then you can say, how can I make things better for myself and for other people stuck in this system? And so this is where my ikigai comes in now.

Nick: I really think meaningful work where it impacts others positively. And you get a great sense of satisfaction from it can be a source of ikigai. So I'm certainly not saying ikigai, it's not your work, it's not your job.

Ted: It could be, right? It's not limited to that.

Nick: It could be, yeah. I think it's just about some sort of contribution. And you gain some sense of significance. But it really seems to be connecting to others in a meaningful way. For me, anyway, at the end of the day, if that's through work, or for personal relationships.

And I guess, you were joking before, but actually doing this podcast is one of my ikigai because I get to meet very interesting people and have these fun conversations, even if we go deep.

For the full podcast conversation, go to: The social need of ikigai in a neo-liberal capitalist society