The Art of Revealing the Perfection of Imperfections: Kintsugi and Kintsukuroi

When a porcelain bowl is broken and glued again, it will not be the same as before.

Could it be any better than before?

The Japanese turned this into art 600 years ago: Kintsugi (fusing with gold) and Kintsukuroi (repairing with gold).

In Japanese, Kin means gold, Tsugi means to assemble, and Tsukuroi means to mend. The Japanese combine pieces of broken items using gold, silver and platinum paints, and that item becomes more attractive and more valuable than before. The Japanese highly value this art. They sell special sets of kintsukuroi, and these repaired items are usually more expensive than broken items. With this art, it is shown that broken or defective items can be beautiful too, and people who buy them get something special that others don’t.

The basis of this is the philosophy of “wabi-sabi”. According to this philosophy, which means seeing the beauty in broken or aging items, with the Kintsugi technique, broken or damaged items are repaired, giving them a new life and purpose.

When a mug is broken, you throw it away and give it up. When your heart is broken, when you realize a flaw, when you make a mistake, how right do you think it would be to withdraw into your own shell and imprison yourself in that negativity? Instead, if you can repair the negativity that has happened to you with good thoughts, you will feel more mature, more valuable than before. Thus, your 10 TL mug that you want to throw away – your defects can be kept for 100 TL – now you are more valuable.

We don’t have to be perfect. This is how we should accept ourselves. We do not have to have an unbroken, cracked, undamaged soul from scratch. We can have the perfection of imperfection if we take care of ourselves in the right way. According to this philosophy, the important thing is not to repair the fracture, but to reveal the true value of the object. It is our experiences that make us who we are. Everything, positive or negative, contributes to our character and our perspective on life, but the important thing here is to analyze them correctly and to repair the broken ones correctly.

Many successful people have come out of difficulties and achieved great success, and these people often thank the moments of failure, the people who broke their hearts. Thanks to them, they were able to learn to repair themselves correctly and felt their true value in themselves. This does not mean that “Something bad must happen to us in order to be successful”, but we can be perfect with bad things that happen to us or with our broken parts and move on.