The Life and Legacy of Mieko Kamiya with Kei Tsuda

The Life and Legacy of Mieko Kamiya with Kei Tsuda


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24 views Mar 21, 2025 #ikigai #japaneseculture #japan

Have you heard of the Mother of Ikigai? While ikigai has gained recognition in the West, few are aware of the significant contributions made by Mieko Kamiya to its study. Who exactly is Mieko Kamiya, and what impact has she had on the study of ikigai? In this episode of the Ikigai Podcast, join Nick and Kei Tsuda as they explore the life and remarkable achievements of Mieko Kamiya. #ikigai #motherofikigai #japan #japaneseculture #ikigai #ikigaicoach Grab a copy of IKIGAI-KAN: Feel a Life Worth Living. Visit https://ikigaikan.com/ for more details. Download the Ikigai Worksheets: https://ikigaitribe.com/ikigai/ikigai... Become a certified Ikigai Coach: https://ikigaitribe.com/ikigai-tribe-... Become a member of Ikigai Tribe: https://ikigaitribe.com/membership

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Transcript

on this episode of the iyai podcast K suda iyai scholar researcher blogger and
facilitator of the LinkedIn study group returns to talk about the mother of iyy
Welcome Back K thank you very much Nick pleasure to be back yeah good to see you
as always so do you want to give us an update on what you've been doing and what you've been doing on your research
with vicking so I've been reading a lot of books
and I tend to read a set of English books and Japanese books like side by
side okay so recently there was a big hype on this book called The an anxious
Generation by Jonathan hey I see so I I had to read up on that to kind of catch
the discussions that's going on in the world I've also read uh well I started
reading actually the mindful body is written by uh a researcher called uh
Ellen Langer so that the other book is the mindful Body by Ellen ler and she
this is her latest book that was written last year okay then I'm reading up on of
course Meo kamya's works and uh you know
I know we are going to discuss at some point but she's also written a book
called mhm and um also she has a collection of
works that's been published as a book
called of the observation of the human beings I guess you know so those books
I've been reading up and trying to come up with a few blog posts and maybe you
know uh podcasts of my own to share with the Kay study group nice you'll have to
share notes on the those two books on camea SOI so that would be
the hearts trip or a journey yeah I
would like to translate it as like a journey of your mind or journey of your heart mhm and ning
or that's finding yeah it's basically it obser I
mean observing sounds a little more scientific MIT is more like you know
like a focusing on focus on figuratively speaking right so I think she was asked
by some folks that hey we would like to publish a book based on some of the
Articles and columns that uh she's uh written way back when she was around and
she's agreed to kind of package together a collection of them okay she ended up
writing quite a few number of books I think there's something called the C collection and it's it's all her Works
into one volume and I think is part of it okay yeah because I think she started
writing quite quite late in her mid 40s yeah that's that's the thing she
started late and she didn't stay around for us too long so her collection isn't
that vast but I think it it in my mind a lot of her thoughts are like a distilled
down and encapsulated into these three four you know works well on the next episode we'll
look at her seminal book i n in in detail but today I thought we'd talk
about the woman uh who I like to refer to as the mother of iki and how she is
clearly underrecognized not not well known but she was Japan's pioneering
researcher on thei concept and I think we both agree in that she deserves more
recognition absolutely so I'll I'll give a bit of an introduction and then we'll I guess talk
about her life so she was the daughter of a wealthy um I guess Diplomat so
socially Elite parents and they actually opposed her choice of becoming a doctor
and I I think there was a real battle for for her to become a doctor and her parents trying to stop her becoming a
doctor and she had this design die to to help those suffering from mental
disorders and also more famously lepers and she also became an author later in
her life I see her as a woman of many roles and talents Not only was she a
psychiatrist and author she was also um a translator and she was also you know
had to be a housewife and mother of two children she spoke and taught several
foreign languages including French and English and as a translator she translated
Marcus aurelius's meditations into Japanese I think from Greek she taught Psychiatry at several
japane Japanese universities and she was also a private chor to the princess uh
Mito who served as the empress consort until 2019 I think she cheed her before she
married into the royal family so quite quite an amazing CV it
is so how how well known is she in Japan today
so some people of course know them but I asked my mother
actually but she didn't recognize the name wow and of course my mother is of
the age that she would have kind of not directly but um have hard of her if she
was uh you know on TV back in the 1960s and 70s uh but she didn't recognize so I
think for those people who are interested in Psychiatry psychology I'm sure she has been well known but in
Japan it she her name may not be as widely known as other Giants in the
field but something happened in like 2018 and the Japanese broadcast network
NHK did a special program on her work in in life and it's I suspect that was
because the attention to ikigai was coming back right around 2016 and 17 so
on the TV show they did a a two kind of back toback episodes on her background
and her line of work and I'm sure that brought some attention back to you know
herself and iyy as a topic I actually saw those
I saw two of the episodes on YouTube but they're now no longer available and I think you have they're buying at payall
now put a pay wall but you can still watch it it was quite good I I watched
it before it was uh it became paid subscription yeah I believe at the time
when she published her book it did become a bestseller I'm not sure what that really means in Japan how how many
sales that equates to but it is yeah I guess it's a bit
strange that no one seems to know her so there's one exception I think uh is
among the folks called the ikigai development advisor in Japan so that's
the program I'm I'm going through myself right now to become a certified U health
and II development advisor is what they called and in their textbook
uh prominently features mamia herself and the works of the
ik with that in mind I think there is a little bit of a thinking that ikigai is for elderly or
for people who's aged more yeah that sentiment is sort of there and we don't
necessarily hear too often about IAI among let's say young Japanese say
college students and others I mean it is commonly used word as we've been saying all along but how often do do they use
will probably differ by age sure yeah touching on these health and iy Guy
development advisors in Japan so you're currently taking the program and you're you're in Japan and you're going through
it so how was it when you discovered they featured her work specifically I
know they mentioned her icky guy needs and her definition and also the
characteristics so was that sort of refreshing and and um I guess something
you celebrated like oh they're recognizing her work well was inting to see her work is
actually being used in something more practical or program that designed to
prompt action right because in in the western world there's a lot of uh howto
or self-care books and everything else well here it is I think the iig concept
is being used and kind of integrated into some of the activities that can be
planned and executed among in this case the like retirees and eldies in
Japan yes so briefly touching on this role of being a health Niki gu advisor
what I understand is as you know I've got the workbooks myself I manag my cousin to get copies of the
workbooks that is really geared for retirees transitioning from a work life
to a new s of social life where they can serve their Community is that right yeah yeah that
is correct and really the theme is about how do we be you know be proactive about
the hyper well that's the word I'm using but I uh I think the appropriate word is
super aged or super aging Society sorry aren't they forecasting this
significant increase in centenarians um over the next 2030 years well the irony
of of it all is that by the time I you know if I'm around enough you know long
enough to be a centenarian I will be making part of that peing effect of the population
because I'm What's called the uh the the second wave of the Baby Boomers in Japan
so the year I was born there was uh I think three million children were born
and ever since that time the number has reduced and nowadays it doesn't even uh
hit like a nine uh 900,000 per year I see yeah it's aging population but
decreasing birth rate but that's that's a brast for that's it I mean it's a lot
of Aging people who are living longer and then there's the the birth rate has
gone down so there's less and less young people coming in to the world to support
the rest of us well there you go yeah that was
really I guess gratifying or satisfying for me when I I found out oh her work's being featured in these uh workbooks
because as you know I use her iyan needs in my own program so I thought oh I'm
using the right stuff in my own um certification course so that was like ah
like a win for me thought yes I'm doing the right thing so that that's return to the
subject of M CIA and her life she had a very unconventional childhood and in the
fourth grade she moved with her family to Geneva Switzerland her father being a
diplomat and she attended I think it's Jean jaac Russo's Institute which I
think is quite famous and that provided her with a specialized uh unique education and there she enjoyed school
life as well as uh the beauty of nature in Switzerland
itself she was there for three years and during those three years she she actually became more comfortable using
uh the French language than Japanese so that's I guess that's where she got
exposure to to languages but she also had some struggle during this this
time in her life um because she was being singled out as a child of high society and she became acutely aware
that she was you know I guess different and being judged simply because um she
came from a a wealthy or affluent family and interestingly she grew ashamed of
her status as a high member of uh the high ranking Elite
and yeah at such a young age she became aware or paid attention to IND
individuals who were not as wealthy or as fortunate as her and I find that
fascinating and in her book she wrote there is no denying that my brief stay
in Switzerland has left an indelible mark on me I've become I'm Japanese even
today it is in French that I think read and write with the greatest ease and I'm
still inclined towards European culture so that's something she wrote much later in life so this this time in
Geneva had a lasting impact on her yes so what are your thoughts about
that so I can draw a lot of correlations to what what I discuss or my daughters
are bringing up it has to do with the timing of their upbringing and the
location place and of course the language right so I believe me camia has
spent you know good enough years in Switzerland the French region you know
the speaking region of Switzerland so her mind and the thinking was already
kind of a formed using that particular language and there is actually another
study that you know shows that if you spend your
adolescence let's say like between the age of 9 to 14 years of age age in some
place that environment is going to have the biggest impact in your like a car
character and identity development and that is so true because I can relate to
this un Japanese feeling uh because both of my daughters say when especially when they visit
Japan they do feel this un-japanese like Japanese and they understand the
language they can speak pretty well too but something that nags them and say I'm
not truly Japanese is how they feel now the the funny contrast is myself and of
course my wife also have lived in Japan until let's say
the age of 15 and 16 then moved to the US and spent a lot of years we actually
still think we are Japanese and we don't have this much of this unj Japanese
feeling when visiting Japan or even being outside of Japan we kind of uh
recognize ourselves or identify ourselves as Japanese so we have like the this
firsthand experience of knowing what this un Japanese is
is yeah I guess it's unusual bit maybe at times challenging for your
daughters but sort of in between two cultures and I guess when they're in Japan they're perceived as
Japanese and maybe when Japanese find out oh you're you're not really you you're not
really Japanese um it must be hard for them to navigate um those
Interac so they're older now and you know they can honestly articulate some
of their feelings and what they are thinking about you know in this kind of subject and they say that
it is a little bit of this fear that when the Japanese person approaches them
and talk to them when I'm you know when I'm going to uncover or disclose that I'm not
truly Japanese and there's that certain level of fear that they feel yeah it reminds me of this idea of uh Purity
that comes to mind with you know Japanese nationality or japaneseness
and yeah I'm not I'm not sure if it's a good
thing this this idea of pure Japanese I think famously it came out with
uh Osaka Nami Osaka Nami oaka um when she started winning grand
slams and she was representing Japan and I think there was some debate in the
media as to you know whether is she really Japanese because she's grew up in the states and all all that sort of thing um yeah was was that a concern for
you and your your wife with your children and how they'd be perceived eventually when you you take them to
Japan or did you just think this is just a normal part of our family and you
didn't worry too much about it tell the truth we didn't think ahead or think
that father into the future right so when they were growing up
uh he wanted to make sure they understood like Japanese way of growing up to a certain extent so I almost
forced them to go back to Japan every summer during the grade school and uh they went to school with
their cousins for two to three weeks so they understand you know H how to get
together and serve meals like for lunch and in Japan Japanese schools you
clean you know every portion of the school grounds too so they've had those
kind of experience in exposure but it didn't carry enough I don't know the
power to create an identity M so this identity itself was still coming from
where they lived which is United States but now I think we can appreciate those
kind of things as you know as hopefully daughters and parents and and do
something about it sure well let's return to cia's life and her first
encounter with lepers which had this um strong influence this profound influence
on her it was in 1933 and a few months after graduating um high school at um a
Christian meeting with her Uncle she was there to play the the organ she saw uh these people or these
patients with Leprosy and it it shocked her initially some were legless armless
and others had these um serious skin inflammation but she was moved and
impressed by the devoted care and professionalism of a nurse called Chio
mikami and this made her think that she too could and should dedicate herself to
the sick and and later in another book her autobiography heni which I think means
wonderings um that she wrote in 1979 she said or she wrote I would like to work
for these patients like her this is just the place where I should work this
strong will welled up in my mind the only place where I can stay is where people mourn and suffer I made up my
mind in a Flash so this is this is someone who's
19 yeah I had to do the math too yeah so what are your thoughts on on
that immediately my thought was like what was I doing when I was
19 yeah I was probably worried about something else yeah I was I was still in school
and it just what happens I think when I was 19 as part of my school
program I was visiting um Australia and did a a summer study well
actually winter study in Australia back then okay so my my probably thinking is
okay you know I'm trying to become a like a mechanical engineer what would I
do after I graduate that's probably the the most I would have thought about the
future I think I was working in kitchens or just looking for work so I certainly
wasn't um thinking of of helping others I was more focused on myself so it's
it's quite profound because I mean leprosy at the time and for many decades was considered a shameful disease and we
we kind of know the history of how lepers were treated right in Japan and I guess in most other countries too and
here she is at 19 having this desire to work with them in this sort of
compassion or wanting to understand their suffering so quite quite unique
and mature and compassionate well beyond her years and then she had her own health
issues um with tuberculosis and after her education school education her
secondary education um at the age of 21 she was diagnosed with having
tuberculosis and she um was liking that her parents owned a cottage in um kadua that's that's
relatively close to Tokyo yeah and that's well known to be
kind of the this summer getaway place for the wealthy I see from the old days
and today yes and so with with permission of her family and doctor she was allowed to
live there alone and immersed herself from Reading English literature including Shakespeare books on English
History and linguistics and while she was recuperating um she actually studied for
a national Examination for Teacher certificate in higher education
and yeah she recovered and then also took the examination and passed so quite
the academic but then the following year she contracted tuberculosis again and this
obviously made her realize you know her about her own mortality that she she could die and she returned to the
cottage and then amazingly she taught herself Greek and Latin read these
classic literature works by Plato Homer and so on and somehow managed to read
and translate Marcus aurelius's meditations so I'm thinking how's
that possible I mean back then in what the 19
would have been what the 1930 I think yeah so tuberculosis gave her
the time and freedom to study what she was interested in and I find it astonishing that she could teach herself
Greek in Latin and then translate Marcus aurelius's meditations so yeah she was quite the
student think she was quite unique absolutely and again and as she
may have had quite of a bit of influence from her upbringing and the fact that
you know she she continued to thinking in French I guess right over the years
so that I think that kind of a the fondness towards the European culture
was already ingrained in her so I I bet she didn't even feel any stressed learning these additional languages or
reading these uh you know great works of uh the the past she kind of probably
found her I already at that point whether she realized that or not right
yes so obviously it was a very good way for her to spend her time while recovering and then I think through her
studies Cy was also attempting to discover not only the meaning of life itself but more specifically how she
should use the rest of her own life um with this I guess this discovery that
you know she might have a short life with the the illnesses she was having and then it was written that by devoting
herself to reading the classics she was able to forgive at her worries and the fear of death and this anxiety was fased
by her eventual recovery of um tuberculosis so I guess you know this
these bouts of tuberculosis gave cam a glimpse into her own mortality and I think it's well known
feeling close to death makes one feel close to life also so do you think this was when she
started to think about iy guy in general and maybe what her iy guy could be
my thought about that is she probably was starting to get interested in the
people's like mind or even her own mind at that point so maybe her interest for
Psychiatry maybe already coming together it could include IAI but it's more
towards okay understanding how the mind works is probably more of that interest
or the the Intriguing point that she was discovering you know using herself as
the the subject you know and another interesting thing about is you know I've
seen this with other people too but when you are having an illness there's kind
of two ways to go about it one is really concerned about the illness itself trying to do everything possible so that
you you get kind of a sucked into the the the illness itself but then
in her case it's it's the other way she's basically trying to use that kind
of time affluence in a creative positive way and
that helped her overcome the the illness itself and we've seen those things over
and over I think in in other people but one more thing is I think it's the timing of her illness too when when
people are young and have this kind of illness they they kind of are forced to look at their future yeah there's not
much to look back in their past or not much of the accomplished accomplishment
right so in a way themselves or the
people around them will tend to point them towards the future but unfortunately Situation's not that you
know helpful for people who are like a middle-aged or maybe you know our age if
we become super ill then we start to kind of lat on to the those
accomplishments and things in the past and that might drive us further down
into yeah so I think in a way I mean she
was unlucky to have TV but the timing of her illness also
actually worked towards forming her life perspective for sure yeah I guess in a
way we we she could have and I guess we could interp that it it gave her this
Clarity and Direction on what she wanted to do with her life and gave
her this Yu this Freedom or time to
study yeah this time affluence to study and it it sounded like she was quite a
natural at languages um maybe going back to her time in Geneva and obviously she
was incredibly well read too yes so after she recovered in
1938 again with her family they all moved to New York and there she entered
Columbia University to study classical Greek so um that's quite a niche subject and
at this time her her father was aware that she wanted to become a doctor and obviously was telling her no you know
you can't do that then one day she went to a affair the 199 sorry the 19 38
World Fair in New York and she stood for hours with her eyes fastened on
specimens of human anatomy in this Medical Pavilion and her father
observing this realized okay his daughter really cares about this and
really has this incredible desire to study medicine so he gave her permission to do so on the condition that she would
not go into the field of leprosy so so more there's going to be more on this
later and so yeah camea happily changed the major from classical Greek to
medicine but secretly kept her determination to work with um leers obviously concealed of course
so father should never have put that condition in place so you have two
daughters K can you relate to this sort of father daughter
relationship yeah yeah my daughters act like that too if I if I set some kind of condition of course they'll come up with
ways to uh go around it sure no no one thing I'm kind of a
drawing the correlation is the fact that it's not something we say that impacts
our children and you know it doesn't matter if it's a daughter or son you have a son it's what we
do you know even before they are bored that impacts their life and I've come to
that realization a little late with help from my daughters I guess
they are pointing that out for me so you know the message to our younger folks
who are considering to maybe right move to some other places place to do work or
Live Well it's time to start thinking about okay what would that do if you're
planning to have children to your kids now I I to be
honest I never had that kind of thought I was I was so focused on where I'm
going to bring myself and you know uh learn the subject I wanted to learn and
find the job that uh I wanted to have a job yeah but then fast forward to now
right all those actions that I've taken does have an impact on the my
children and that's part of the reason that they're coming up with multiple
identities in their mind yeah it's a valid point that our
our own life well before they're born has some influence yeah and obviously me marrying
a Japanese and then having my son in Japan you know I thought about it yeah I
mean I I wouldn't have probably really known at the time but it would have ADD I guess
both these sort of unique opportunities but also there's you know been I guess
not so much problems but concerns we had to make decisions on to you know where do we educate our son and um in
Australia where where there's a multiculture he's kind of normal person but in Japan he was always going to sort of
stand out as being half um and we had to make um decisions based on those things
and I'd never consider Ed those things before you know before even when I was
married it sort of only after that he was born um yeah so it's it's
interesting how these uh you fall in love and get married and then you have these
decisions to make these really important decisions because they involve these little
people in your life yeah yeah and I think Japan is a bit I don't know what's
the word to use youi or you know outlier of an environment
because you know you kind of touched on this earlier how kind of a um monoc
culturistic or the the the the consideration of like who who is truly
Japanese right kind of gets into play where United States Australia it's
already somewhat mixed culture at different degrees now you know the those
cultures have their own issues too you know with okay is there racism and so on
so forth well Japan's form of the challenge is really this concept that
you know what's the definition of true Japanese and even you know today I'm I'm
really excited to see a lot of us you know you you brought up uh namaga yeah
earlier but a lot of the sports players was you know who are who has basically
parents from Japan and know Japanese countries now and their names and
everything is also starting to show that fact and I think our younger Generations
I'm hoping are going to basically take that as normal yeah right you can have
people who doesn't look like Japanese to be in a under U U23 soccer team who by
away who just made their uh uh Olympics participation today or
yesterday and and the roster will include people who does not look like
traditional Japanese and that's okay or that should be normal moving forward I
think it it will be and hopefully my son will go to Japan and will feel he's part
of the country and hopefully he won't be continually asked you
know where he's from or you know who his parents are or that sort of
thing well that's gonna still continue to some extent it just uh we just have
to get used to so returning to cammy's
life again after uh I think obviously her family
probably had to moveed back to Japan because of um you know the the onset of the Pacific
after things were clear that war was on their doorstep so she returned to Tokyo
and finished her medical studies and a year before her graduation uh Cammy
asked the um National leprosarium to allow her to go there as part of a research project to learn about
leprosy and to also meet someone um I guess a Pioneer Authority in the field
of leprosy um m K Kens and I think they formed um a
pretty good working relationship so she was there for 12 days and she was shocked to find the
conditions at this leprosum were horrible no effective medicines um no
suitable treatments and most of the patients were suffering from malnutrition and yeah because of all of
this she felt this greater sense of responsibility towards uh the patients
and she actually wrote a poem about it that's um I found a translation of and
this was what she wrote I think it probably in her diary why you lepers not I you carry all
the burdens lepers carry being deprived of all that makes a comfortable life you
are constantly in torment Agony and Desperation I promise you that I will stand by you support you and comfort you
pray to God for you every night and morning but at the same time I feel guilty about mentioning all these sweet
words because they sound vain to you you lepers are the ones who really know what
hardship is yeah so quite profound again that she
had this deep Affinity or compassion um so what why do you think
she had this connection to lepers why did you feel so strongly towards them I
think it is the combination of you know the fact that that she's already formed
this highly nuanced Multicultural kind of in mind mind was
you know two or more kind of value structures already at that point second
is I think that the her own experience with tuberculosis and the fact that the she
she's already realized how you know she was in the elite group and she was given
the type of uh care and options of going to these you know kizawa and other
places to you know get better I think she must have contrasted that with the
experience of the lepers yeah so you must have been a huge
shock well it's amazing she um didn't take all her opportunities and wealth
for granted she could somehow found it in her to be passionate understanding
because I think very few people would you know have the heart that she
had and then moving on at the leprosarium she began to hope she could work there and devote herself to these
leprosy patients and again she faced opposition from her father and you know
basically he said no so her decision was overall and I think this caused a lot of
frustration in life and in her later life she wrote about her
frustration um so between the years of 1944 to 49 she did become a student of
Psychiatry at the University of Tokyo uh there she married her future husband CA noo uh they got married in
1946 and for the next decade she played the role of housewife and mother while
also teaching foreign languages and correcting the English language papers of her husband and his students and yeah
she did not like that so in several diary entries from 1954 she expressed
her frustration at being unable to pursue perhaps her most important source of Vicky guy du to these commitments she
wrote every day I get so frustrated with my English correction to the point I
want to kill myself is life the experience of doing things you don't want to do how long do I have to be a
language teacher languages you are the curse of me if I spend so much time on
these things I will never be able to stand on my own as a psychiatrist I don't know how many times I have the
thought of giving up my full-time job and becoming a lecturer how can I manage the responsibilities of a full-time job
my family and my studies it's a very human thing to do oh God please give me
the strength I need to climb these mountains forever and ever and ever and ever
s very uh frustrated writing that diary entry yeah yeah and this was taking
place at the PST war Japan too right I think the war ended around 1945 I
believe so the the country was in in the motor of rebuilding y trying to find its
footings and that's when she was also trying to find her footings yeah which
is kind of interesting it kind of a you know those overlaps but that that those words and
the struggle is something that I think a lot of the the folks even today especially the mothers will probably
share right yes I mean it's been 50 60 years since her time but and the
household responsibilities and how those things arranged especially in Japan I think
still has a long way to go yeah yeah you know so in in a way she was
already kind of a pointing out the you know movement that's kind of later
become the feminist movement and also the the rights for
women in Japan even though I don't think there's any record of her being you know
directly participating those activities but but I'm sure she she may have influenced a lot of folks who may have
come up you know grown after her to uh you know
voice their perspectives on these matters yeah I also think the
entry indicates this struggle from a lack of um shean like a sense of purpose
and you know some people might think wow she was already successful and achieving so many things and who knows maybe
someone in her position might have enjoyed enjoyed correcting English and teaching languages but it obviously
didn't give her the sense of purpose she was seeking obviously related to Psychiatry
and helping lepers um and there is a book a biography on her life
called a woman with demons and I was a bit shocked by the title of the book but
it was inspired actually by one of her diary entries where she said you know my demons are raised again today and she
was frustrated with life um and yeah she
had this incredible desire to you know really do something with her life and help help others help others less
fortunate than her but she also suffered a lot of loss and pain um so she even
had several decades of depression due to the loss of her her first love she fell
in love with a young man was one of her brother's friends and
she really didn't even know him she kind of just only had a few encounters with him but fell in love with him um and he
he died of tuberculosis I think then she battled obviously multiple illnesses
tuberculosis later cancer and she obviously lived almost two decades or at
least a decade living with the frustration of not being able to pursue work as a scholar and and and writer and
also the battle she had with her father on wanting to help lepers so I think we
we could say she struggled in her life with a lack of iyy for extended periods
of time so do you think all all these life experiences and all this
frustration helped to understand the multi-dimensional nature of iy guy
surely right more certainly and I know we'll be discussing ik the book in
another episode but the the way she writes the
book it's yes she does use the the words uh you know or the phrases as if that
she's kind of a uncovered it through certain studies but I feel that she is
including her own experiences over it even though she doesn't cly State those
things so you know especially so so there is I don't know can I bring up a
passage from the book you know this is not about the book so there's a passage where she says right so the people
encounter obstacles AK to walls blocking their path in different forms and at
different times throughout their lives and they come to realize their are power
those you know walls are really powerful at such moments the issue of
finding ikigai inevitably arises is a life filled with such sadness and
suffering still worth living what should one live for from now
on and to your point I think this was in
her mind if not all the time a lot of time over the course of her life and
another thing I'm kind of drawing a correlation to is based on some of the readings I've been doing is that it it's
the concept of uh resilience MH right you know the psychologists and
others cover it but I think this uh thisi perspective is very similar to how
the the concept of resilience is discussed today that the more often you
encounter these kind of life situations the more resilient you
become so essentially the people who face the disadvantages and
challenges in you know in their life situations especially like earlier in their life tend to develop resilience
much faster and that's I think what took place here with M Kamya
herself yes I've spoken to several researchers who who one in particular
relates iy guy to I mean to intrinsic motivation
but also existential positive psychology and this idea of you know bouncing back
or overcoming a challenge or even in the midst of going through a challenge you begin to understand what matters to you
and you you can feel iy guy through the challenge and then once you've overcome
the challenge under reflection you realize that challenge that suffering was was worth it because it uncovered my
iy guy or it it's made me a stronger person and I discovered things I thought
I wasn't capable of uh and I guess an easy life a simple easy life wouldn't
uncover this uh this different sources of Vicky guy or we wouldn't gain this
resilience right so yeah I always like to say he guys it's not about you know
really it's it's not about happiness happiness is a byproduct of I but it's
it's a meaningful life and I guess to have a meaningful life we have to be challenged every once in a while that's
right yeah and CIA obviously wanting to find meaning through uh this desire to
work with lepers eventually uh had the opportunity to undertake a research
project in 1956 that gave her this opportunity
to return to um a place called nagashima asan um which was an island where lepers
were shipped to and I think we mentioned before when she went there for the first
time she was shocked by the conditions um they had since improved
and there she did research um that eventually led to her writing her
dissertation to find employment as a professor and then I think this gave her the freedom to uh then become an author
and write her seminal book uh so this this opportunity was a a psychiatric
study of uh and Survey of lepers and so she went there really to interview
lepers and they were given uh questionnaires and psychological tests
and her research revealed an important issue related to psychological aspects and treatments of of leprosy for these
patients and what stood out was this sense of
meaninglessness um that so many of the patients felt about their lives and the
their widespread despair about their future so no future because of this
disease and yes despite them I mean all
their basic needs were me were met apparently so they had shelter food clothing but yeah they didn't have much
more than that but I think we'll talk about this later but she found some of these patients could
um find a sense of meaning anak guy despite
um you know lacking I guess a sense of purpose or lacking the opportunity to
find a sense of purpose or find sources of iyan so we'll we'll talk about her
book on the next episode uh but eventually this did lead to her father's
approval and after the research project um and at this time she was um a mother
of young children she finally got approval from her father to go and do uh
you know work with lepers so she she won that that battle in the end that was in
um 1957 so a brief summary of her work
there she worked for about 15 years there from 57 to 1972 she usually worked
every other weekend she would sometimes work there for a full week during summer vacations to cover colleagues who were
who were I guess on holidays and she became the chief doctor in Psychiatry and yeah spent quite a bit
of time there and it was also very far from where she lived I think she would you know take a train and then have to
take a ferry or a boat to the island so
quite a lot of work involved for this commitment and also she had children and so she was
this reminds me of God Matthews in the the podcast I did with him and he said you know ecky guy he believes yck gu is
ultimately one thing is it your work or is it your family and it does sound like
Cameo was you know leaning on one more than the other and it was her work um
she desperately wanted to do this work yeah so guy can result in I think
difficult choices because meaningful role very important role of a mother but
also this desire to to help others um so
I guess we're we're sometimes faced with choices of iyi yeah and there something to think
about in in today's world right so I mean when when she
was growing and all and also you know uh walking with lepers this is still the
time that again you said it trouble was not that quick this is before shansen or
the bullet train so there's no like we hop on the train and hour and a half and you go
right 200 miles or 300 kilometers it's not that it took a lot
more effort another observation I'm making is I think M
Kamya was already exposed to a lot of cultures and sold the
world and if you bring ourselves back to today that's what's happening with a lot
of young people now they may not be going to places but through the devices
and social networks and YouTube and and whatever else they're seeing so many
different cultures and you know options now the problem is some of them
are made up right it's like fake and they are basically somewhat
thrown away I mean uh BR Away by it and you said it today there are so many
options now that I think our young people are
somewhat struggling to make up their mind as to
what is going to be therey yes right it's kind of like walking through uh uh
what is it the uh Supermarket aisle and I'm going to use the the American
example on this one you go to a Serial aisle and you see so many different
options or in Japan equivalent would be you try to pick a a tea at a convenience
store there's so many different options and and and then you you just
GNA have to stop and say okay what what do I want and for what reason yeah and
that's what's happening I think I think it's the situation is in the past there was fewer options and that may have
created challenges but today it's I think it's the opposite it's too much
options or too you know too much information that's made available especially the younger people
I agree totally I think we could call it it's like the Paradox of choice too many that you choose none and then there's a
lot of distraction with this ability to watch any kind of entertainment
through multiple screens anywhere you know and one concern I had as a father was
will my son lose his creativeness and well you know all
this time on screens will steal time time
that he would use for creativity fortunately he's quite creative and he He makes music but
he you know I guess as a parent I still have concerns about how much he is
attached to his his phone but it it seems normal
now but but on this theme actually on creativity that was something cya
encouraged uh patients to seek to sort of find or Express their iy
guy and she encouraged the lepers to develop their creative abilities by
writing compositions or poems drawing pictures and playing musical instruments so they could release their sorrow and
worries and establish a meaningful lifestyle within the lepos areum and she
helped uh one of the patients who was teaching himself French and donated
musical scores and instruments to patients so they could take an interest in
music and one of her patients a man a young man called
kiondo um who became a patient from the age of 11 and lost his eyesight at 19 um
wrote The Following about cama Dr cama sometimes came to our meetings so the
meeting for blind patients as soon as she sat down at the table everybody got
together to talk to her and listen to her she spoke in a soft and kind way
there was not any difference between her and us it was not merely sympathy or pity but she was always but she always
talked to us as if she were in the same situation as we were she did not look
down at us out of compassion at any time this is why I think Dr cameia was really
great so she yeah it sounds like she eventually
did the work that mattered to her and had this beautiful and positive impact on these
people and yeah she seems to matter to these these people there so there is um
some perception that she's she was the Mother Teresa of uh lepers in Japan which is
probably an you know romantic um exaggeration
but clearly this work was um important to her and perhaps
I'm I'm not sure if it was a source of viy guy or if it was her shiman like a sense of purpose or maybe it was
both yeah what do you think I think it was both right she certainly had this strong
sense of purpose and uh we call it the uh shiman but
also in the Pro you know process of doing or carrying out the tasks I'm sure
she was feeling I I mean you said it before she had to travel long ways to commute
locations and you know and also dealing with lepers or the the
people with different degree of issues is is not for the you know the
Fain hted I mean you have to observe them on a daily basis you encounter new
and you know maybe worse situation for these uh patients but somewhere somehow
she like she doesn't have much writing about her getting depressed about the
situation of the you know these uh uh patients or having being frustrated I
don't think she's left much of those that kind of writing and that kind of tells
me that she she was really feeling H guy as she's in you know engaging
directly with these patients well she actually wrote on that
so in 1972 when she was 57 cya retired from nagashima isan
because of failing health and at the time she expressed her feelings about the patients at the leprosarium I
imagine in another diary entry and she wrote I feel a profound Affinity with
the patients now it was my lifetime pleasure that I could visit them for about 15 years I might not have done
much for them but it was an honor to be a friend to them it deepened my
conviction that the people whom we should care about the most are the ones
at the bottom in society and yeah it's interesting she refers to them as
friends it was an honor to be a friend to them um so that was how she perceived
her relationship with them and after yeah retirement CA had um
heart conditions and she was hospitalized several times and she still
maintained her correspondence with the patients so obviously was writing
letters and then she died in 1978 at of heart faure at the age of 65
so quite a young age if we think about it but quite a full
life yeah in in today's right life expectancy I is quite young but just so
you know uh around the war time with the the post war Japan the average life expectancy was actually
around that age 65 it's only in 1980s and into the 90s that Japanese started
to live longer and cross the the 80 you know nowadays we're talking about you
know 90 and 100 yeah so yes so quite an amazing person and on the next episode
we will Explore her her book that's
yeah guess changed all you two are we both of
us have to review and get ready so I look forward to talking with
you K on the next episode about I I need
Su thanks for joining me today thanks Nick that was a
pleasure thank you for listening to this episode of of the iigi podcast to learn
more about iigi or to become a certified iyai tribe coach visit ikyy tribe.com