Embracing the journey: Ageing through the lens of kintsugi

ImageCredit: Thinkerbell

Biological ageing is the process by which our bodies accumulate molecular and cellular damage over time, gradually impacting our physical and mental capacities. This process is constant and irreversible, although certain interventions can slow it down. While ageing is a natural, inevitable part of being human, societal perceptions and expectations of ageing, influenced by cultural belief, media and history can frame ageing as negative and a source of shame. Ageist attitudes towards physical appearance alone fuel a global anti-ageing that in 2021 was estimated to be worth approximately $37 billion. Our desire to curb the natural process of ageing and ‘stop the clock’ reveals the inherent fear and vulnerability we associate with growing older. But ageism is more than just negative perception and can have insidious consequences for both younger and older people when it comes to accessing social services, health care and employment. A 2021 report by the World Health Organisation found that ageism has widespread impacts on health and wellbeing outcomes of entire populations and costs economies billions of dollars each year. Strategies to combat ageism across societies are necessary. So what role could the Japanese art and philosophy of kintsugi play in reframing our attitudes to age and ageing? 

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Overcoming the prestige of youth

We love to be young, or at least appear that way. A fixation on youth and youthfulness is not new, but can be especially prevalent and damaging among women. In many cultures, being young is generally desirable and often considered the most physically attractive period of a person’s life. This cultural norm is supported by marketing, celebrity culture and social media which collectively feeds an anti-ageing industry that grows ever larger as we literally buy into the myth of everlasting youth. In her 1972 piece on the Double Standards of Ageing, Susan Sontag wrote, ‘Once past youth women are condemned to inventing (and maintaining) themselves against the inroads of age’. Women’s ‘more intimate relationship to ageing’ results in them arming themselves with products and procedures with the aim of freezing their appearance and staving off an entirely natural biological process. This is despite recent scientific studies indicating that the effects of ageing are almost impossible to reverse

How can we oppose such an entrenched social norm as the prestige of youth and rally against the adjacent industries that profit off our insecurity? The Japanese philosophies of wabi-sabi and kintsugi may have insights into how to counteract our approach to ageing by focusing on accepting and embracing impermanence. Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with tree sap mixed with gold or other precious metals. By lovingly repairing what is broken, the object becomes more beautiful than it was when it was whole. The philosophy of kintsugi invites us to view imperfection, change and maturity as something beautiful and an important marker of our individual stories. Kintsugi encourages us to find peace and tranquillity in the knowledge that change is the only constant in our lives.

Growing up and growing into ourselves

There was a time when we didn’t always feel the need to pause or limit ageing and instead embraced it. As infants, age and ageing is something profoundly positive and a process that reveals our personalities and literally shapes us. For children, ageing is usually a happy experience and even an achievement, as ageing brings with it new skills, experiences and responsibilities. For young adults, age is once again a hurdle to jump over, as older age means the tumbling down of various barriers and unfettered access to the realms of adult life. These milestones are celebrated. For people of all ages, growing older allows us to build up layers of knowledge and understanding about ourselves, the world and those around us and sets us up to thrive.

Kintsugi urges us to return to embracing the changes within ourselves, both physical and psychological as we did in childhood. Our appearance, our mannerisms, our beliefs and our passions quietly shift and grow with every passing year. The glow of youth is replaced by evidence of laughter, experiences of joy and heartache and all the individual moments that make us who we are. Some aspects of our history we may wish to hide, but ageing through the lens of kintsugi means accepting them and ourselves in fullness, while constantly drawing on them to learn and grow.

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