Check out Takumi’s NEW English youtube channel 🎵
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https://www.youtube.com/@takuway
Yayoi Kusama has passed away.
That’s sad.
When I go abroad, I always want to visit the museums.
I start picking up things I never felt in the flow of everyday time back in Japan.
And there, I encounter the work of Japanese artists.
Yoshitomo Nara,
everyone at Kaikai Kiki,
Hidetsugu Fujita,
And in the middle of all that,
I encountered Yayoi Kusama’s work.
Infinity.
Winding and wriggling,
a white net across a white canvas.
And
about 30 years ago,
I stayed at the Benesse House hotel on Naoshima.
The yellow pumpkin.
The black dots.
It gave me a strange feeling.
Ever since then, Kusama-san has had my heart.
Twenty-something years ago,
I opened a cafe in Nakameguro,
at the spot where you come down Hibari-zaka and hit the Meguro River.
I asked graf, in Kansai, to do the interior.
I wanted the coolest thing that 36-year-old me knew of.
At the time, graf was making work together with Yayoi Kusama.
And
I got to hear stories about how Kusama-san created her work, too.
After that,
my accountant’s father turned out to have been in charge of Kusama-san’s affairs,
and one exciting connection after another started gathering.
Ah —
when I think, “so she’s gone now,” somehow it makes me lonely.
Mikari-san, thank you for the morning session!
The main message was “resolve.”
The awards ceremony was heartwarming and moving too.
Shiba-chan and Misa,
Maeno-san,
Ishikawa-sensei,
and Jessica —
you were all the best!
The fermentation and the koji were the best too!
Thank you so much!
The after-party was at Bistro Jinnan.
The two of them talking like old friends warmed up the whole room.
And it fired everyone up!
Thailand — looking forward to working with you there!
Sugar-free anko.
The postcards were cute, weren’t they~
“HAPPY Authors Festival,” hosted by Ken Honda
2026/9/10-13 20:00-23:00
Takumi Yamazaki’s slot is here:
Friday, September 11, 22:00-
Apply here:
https://www.aiueoffice.com/authorfes2026/vision.html
Star-studded.
Free.
The writing life.
Congratulations on the publication~~~
Yesterday I had tea with Shinkai-kun.
Going back and forth over this and that,
talking about nothing in particular,
I was moved by how much he has changed and grown all at once.
There was so much to learn
that I took notes.
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Loneliness
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A wall
Joy out of nothing
Try talking for 15 minutes,
like friends do
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Don’t judge
↓↓↓ Here’s how I understood it
You who are lonely
aren’t actually lonely —
you’re building the wall yourself.
Feel joy from a state of nothing, and let it well up.
Talk with your partner the way you’d talk with a friend.
Try it for 15 minutes first.
What a deep lesson.
Especially…
Feel joy from a state of nothing, and let it well up.
The secret of people who somehow can’t stop grinning, even with nothing going on
There are two kinds of joy in this world.
The first is the joy of “I’m happy because I got it.” You bought the watch you wanted, you hit your goal, someone praised you. Of course this is fantastic too — it’s stimulating and it lifts you up.
But there’s a small trap in it: you become “someone who can’t feel joy unless they get something.” You end up chasing bait on the outside forever, having to keep running.
And then there’s the other joy. That’s “the joy that wells up from the inside, all on its own, with nothing there at all.”.
The moment you wake up in the morning and simply draw a breath. The moment you notice the light slanting into the corner of the room. That feeling of grinning for no reason at all — “ah, just being alive is the best.”
This really isn’t anything special. Joy isn’t “something you bring in from outside” — it’s already inside you, filled to the brim, and all you do is turn the tap.
Rejoice first, before anything happens. The reasons can come later. Once you can generate “joy without a reason” under your own power, the steering wheel of your life comes completely back into your hands.
Because no matter what’s going on around you, you can create your own mood however you like.
Start by rejoicing with everything you’ve got, as the “you with nothing, at zero.”
Five exercises for generating joy without a reason
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Exercise 1: The zero-second deep breath — a survival check. Close your eyes, breathe in until you can’t anymore, and let it out slowly. For ten seconds, focus only on the fact that “right now, my heart is beating on its own and I’m alive,” and feel the warmth inside your body.
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Exercise 2: The reasonless flying high-five. Alone in an empty room, with no lead-up at all, throw both hands in the air and strike a victory pose or a high-five pose while shouting “yesss!” Set the emotion first, through the movement of the body.
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Exercise 3: Wildly exaggerated gratitude for the ordinary. Pick one everyday object you normally overlook — a glass of water, your socks, the hot water from the tap — and rave about it in your head: “Isn’t it kind of miraculous that this is here?”
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Exercise 4: Three minutes of lifting the corners of your mouth 5 millimeters. Set a timer for three minutes and spend it with the corners of your mouth raised just 5mm, for no reason. Trick your brain into thinking “right now I’m enjoying myself,” and observe how the feeling inside changes.
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Exercise 5: Celebrate-in-advance daydream time. Picture just one best-possible future that might come, and savor the emotion of the moment it comes true — fully, in advance, right here where you are.
Link to Takumi Yamazaki’s ENGLISH Book “SHIFT”
https://amzn.to/2DYcFkG
Translated from the original post by Takumi Yamazaki: https://ameblo.jp/takumi-yamazaki/entry-12977193349.html
