Yazdan Mansourian on Information Sharing and Serious Leisure

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My love of learning and teaching

Yazdan talks about the sources of his ikigai: his academic life, where he can pursue his love of learning and teaching; the joy of emancipation; and the joy of being in nature.

My ikigai is the love of undertsanding something

Nick: So we've talked quite a bit on this on your paper. But one thing I like to always ask my guests is what is their ikigai? So what is your ikigai Yazdan?

Yazdan: That's a good question. You know, I always suppose my ikigai is learning and teaching; and still I think learning and teaching is the core component of my ikigai. 

However, in terms of terminology, I can be a little bit more specific now. Because when I reflect on it, I think my ikigai is the love of understanding something. 

So when I talk about learning, I'm talking about understanding something, a moment of epiphany, or satori, when you have an aha moment and you say, “Wow, that's it. I understood it.” So that's my first ikigai.

Then share it with others because as soon as I understand something, I can't wait to share it with someone – write a paper about it, and attend a podcast like here, because I can't keep it for myself. I have to share it with someone and then go and find something else. 

So that's my main ikigai, and basically in my academic life, it gives me a primary platform to pursue my ikigai of learning and teaching. 

And also, I have two more sources of ikigai: the joy of emancipation and the joy of observing living creatures, including plants, trees, animals, birds. So that's why I love gardening and mindful walking, to immerse myself in nature – to be more present.

Identifying Serious Leisure Activities

Yazdan defines serious leisure as hobbies, amateurism, and voluntary activities. To better understand it, people need to look at the bigger context because there are different types of leisure; what differentiates serious leisure from the rest is that it is a higher level of leisure where people have serious pursuits.

Serious leisure is a higher level of leisure

Nick: Let’s touch on your paper, and the title of the paper, again, is “Information sharing in serious leisure as a source of Ibasho and Tanoshimi: A narrative from bonsai growers in Australia.” So we're connecting a few countries here. 

I think we should start by defining serious leisure. So what is serious leisure?

Yazdan: Right, so serious leisure, it's a term coined by Dr Robert Stebbins in 1982. It includes hobbies, amateurism and voluntary activities with six criteria: perseverance and commitment, potentiality to turn into a career, significant personal effort, durable personal and social benefits, unique ethos within a social world and personal and social identity. 

However, to understand serious leisure, we need to look at it in a bigger picture. And by bigger picture, here, I mean, we have different kinds of leisure, and based on the level of engagement and commitment, with the leisure activities, then we can identify different kinds of leisure. 

For example, on one side of this spectrum, we have casual leisure, and casual leisure, like play, relaxation, or passive entertainment, and you don't need any specific skills or knowledge or commitment, or dedication, like reading a novel, watching TV, walking in a park – they are all casual leisure, for pure pleasure. 

And, of course, nothing’s wrong with that. It is very essential for our well-being. We all need to relax, we all need to rest. And it's a very important part of our daily life. But it's casual leisure. But it can get a little bit more serious, we call it project-based leisure. 

The best example for that is do-it-yourself projects. For example, you go to Bunnings and you buy a dog kennel and you bring it home or you need to set it up something we have done forever. 

And then we’re travelling or attending cultural events or arranging a birthday party. So for example, today is the birthday of my son, we had a birthday party last night. So it's just a project-based leisure which is occasional or it might be just only once in lifetime. 

So it needs a little bit of skill but minimal level of skill. So for example, a do-it-yourself project is based on the minimal level of skills and almost everyone can do that. It's not that difficult. 

However, in the higher level of leisure, which is called serious pursuits, we have serious leisure and devotee work. And serious leisure is what I am focusing on in my research. And as I said earlier, it includes hobbies, volunteer activities, and amateurism.

That is Your Serious Leisure: Activities You’re Passionate About

Yazdan shares that to distinguish serious leisure from a hobby, people should consider the time, energy, and dedication they exert doing an activity. Serious leisure can be anything as long as people are dedicated and passionate about it.

Serious leisure are meaningful activities

Nick: We had a chat a few days ago about this subject. And you actually said to me, what I do is a form of serious leisure, and it did get me thinking. Yeah, I'm very passionate and dedicated to my research and sharing knowledge about ikigai. 

So I guess for me, it is a form of serious leisure. It's not just my work, and it's not just a hobby, it's certainly challenging. I spend a lot of time and dedication on it. 

So this idea of serious leisure is fascinating. And you just made this distinction: it is different to let’s say, a hobby, which we could perhaps define as either a casual leisure, but some people do take their hobbies quite seriously. 

So is there a difference between serious leisure and perhaps someone who does practice their hobby three times a week?

Yazdan: It depends how much time and energy and dedication you consider for your hobby. First of all, I need to emphasise that it doesn't have to be serious for everyone, you know, it's just, if you are interested in spending more time on your hobby and you enjoy it, that's fine. 

But it's not a kind of desirable situation that everyone should have a serious leisure activity. And regarding those six criteria that I mentioned earlier, someone might have one of these criteria more than the other. 

So for example, for someone like you, you are turning it into your career, for example, so it's becoming your work. And then that's fine. For someone else, it might just stay at the hobby level, which is fine. 

So the point here is just as long as an activity is enjoyable, meaningful, and you're passionate about, that's your serious leisure – and it can be anything.

Seeking Perfection in the Art of Bonsai Growing

In his study, Yazdan was able to associate bonsai growing with other Japanese conceptual frameworks; one of those is kodawari (pursuit of perfection). What makes them correlated?

Yazdan explains that bonsai growers keep working on a tree to make it beautiful and represent an ideal form of nature. However, they know that they will never reach perfection, but they keep going anyway, similar to the concept of kodawari, the relentless pursuit of perfection.

A never-ending pursuit of perfection

Nick: So this idea of this commitment to this practice of bonsai and to the point where it prevents people from travelling reminds me of another Japanese concept. And you state that bonsai growing is an excellent example of kodawari. 

So would you like to touch on what kodawari is and why you associate it to bonsai?

Yazdan: Yes. So this is another story about the concept of ikigai, kodawari, ibasho, and all of these Japanese conceptual frameworks I'm using in my research. 

You know, when I was interviewing bonsai growers, most of them told me “We wake up in the morning, and the first thing we do in the morning is just taking care of our bonsai.” And when they told me, when they shared that story with me, then suddenly I remembered that I had already read it somewhere. 

There was a Japanese term for that. And I couldn't remember. Because during the past five years, I have been exploring Leisure Studies literature. So I was thinking, what is that Japanese term? 

Then I remember it was a paper, that paper is here at the moment. The paper is “Theorizing Leisure's Roles in the Pursuit of Ikigai (Life Worthiness): A Mixed-Methods Approach” written by Dr Shintaro Kono and his colleagues, publishing leisure science. 

And that was another turning point. And I said, wow, that's ikigai. So that's exactly what I need. Then I just searched about ikigai, and then I found your website. I was listening to the episodes. And in one of the episodes, Dr Shintaro Kono was talking and I said, wow, that's Shintaro Kono. 

So all these dots just connected to each other. And then I started reading about ikigai. And I just ordered a number of books like this one by Ken Mogi, and many other books and articles that I'm exploring. 

And then what I did in a very short and simple way. If I want to explain it, what I did was I mapped my empirical data into these conceptual frameworks of ikigai and its related terms. Because as you know, there are a number of concepts all relevant like ikigai, hatarakigai, asobigai – that all the episodes you had about all these concepts and kodawari. 

So answering your question, I still remember your question. I didn't forget that – that was an introduction. So kodawari is just pursuing perfection, realising you never get it so you keep going. But you know, there is no perfect, final ultimate point, but you keep going.

So for bonsai it is exactly what they do. So they keep working on a tree to make it as beautiful as possible to represent an ideal form of nature, but they know they will never reach that. But it doesn’t stop them from continuing. 

And interestingly enough, kodawari and wabi-sabi are two sides of the same coin. Because in wabi-sabi, you accept the imperfection, incomplex, and you know that everything is ephemeral and you accept it – you seek beauty in that context. 

But on the other hand, in kodawari, you do your best to make it as perfect as possible. So having both of them makes it like a paradox. But these two sides can coexist peacefully together.

For the full podcast conversation, go to: Information sharing in serious leisure as a source of ikigai, ibasho, and tanoshimi