Episode 25: Ikigai – Finding Your Reason to Be


In this episode, Phil and Steve spar off with research, trying to stump each other about the truth about Ikigai, the myths surrounding it, and how to best apply it to your life.

This episode was edited by Phil.

References

  • Ikigai – a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living.
  • Social Constructionism – A theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly-constructed understandings of the world that form the basis for shared assumptions about reality.
  • Chiplessness – Episode 22
  • Venn Diagram
  • Aristotle quote: “Where your talents and the world’s needs cross, there lies your vocation.”
  • Ikigai Podcast ft. Ken Mogi
  • Ken Mogi – a Japanese scientist whose first book is Ikigai
  • Raison d’être – a French expression commonly used in English, meaning “reason for being” or “reason to be”.
  • Hygge – a Danish and Norwegian word for a mood of coziness and comfortable conviviality with feelings of wellness and contentment. (Side note: do not buy “the little book of hygge”; it’s a one-sentence concept that’s stretched to the limit just to fill this “little book.”)
  • Mindfulness – the practice of purposely bringing one’s attention in the present moment without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training
  • Ken Mogi’s 5 Pillars
    • Starting Small
    • Releasing Yourself
    • Harmony and Sustainability
    • The joy of little things
    • Being in the here and now
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy – An empirically based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in different ways with commitment and behavior-change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility.
  • Dramaturgy (Goffman; Sociological) – The self is a sense of who one is, a dramatic effect emerging from the immediate scene being presented.
  • Sustainability – We muse on various definitions.
  • Functional Fixedness – a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
  • How Herpes Became a Sexual Boogeyman (Slate) – The source for the aside/fix
  • Reefer Madness (Wiki) – a 1936 American propaganda film about drugs, revolving around the melodramatic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try marijuana—from a hit and run accident, to manslaughter, suicide, conspiracy to murder, attempted rape, hallucinations, and descent into madness from marijuana addiction.
  • Cognitive DistortionsEpisode 6
  • Fantasyland by Kurt Anderson (Book)
  • The Ikigai 9 (Ikigai Tribe Podcast)
    • I believe that I have some impact on someone.
    • My life is mentally rich and fulfilled.
    • I am interested in many things.
    • I feel like I am contributing to someone or society.
    • I would like to develop myself.
    • I often feel that I am happy.
    • I think that my existence is needed by something or someone.
    • I would like to learn something new or start something.
    • I have room in my mind.
  • IELTS English Exam – an international standardized test of English language proficiency for non-native English language speakers.
  • Internalized Capitalism (Episode 11)
  • Eustress – beneficial stress—either psychological, physical (e.g., exercise), or biochemical/radiological (hormesis).
  • Monkey Mind –  a Buddhist term meaning “unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable”.
  • Steve’s Article – The Need to be Needed
  • D&D Alignments – X-axis: Lawful, neutral, chaotic; Y-axis: good, neutral, evil
  • The D&D post Phil mentioned: How to run an evil campaign
  • Prosocial Behavior –  a social behavior that “benefit[s] other people or society as a whole”, “such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering”.
  • Self-Determination Theory (Episode 20)
  • Whittling – may refer either to the art of carving shapes out of raw wood using a knife or a time-occupying, non-artistic (contrast wood carving for artistic process) process of repeatedly shaving slivers from a piece of wood.
  • Marc Winn talking about adding the single word – Youtube Video
  • Zuzunaga Andrés – Spanish Astrologer made the original Venn diagram
  • Mark Winn again:
    • “In 2014, I wrote a blog post on the subject of Ikigai. In that blog post, I merged two concepts to create something new. Essentially, I merged a venn diagram on ‘purpose’ with Dan Buettner’s Ikigai concept, in relation to living to be more than 100. The sum total of my effort was that I changed one word on a diagram and shared a ‘new’ meme with the world.”
  • Most of Phil’s research: A good rundown of the origin of ikigai – Youtube Video
  • Steve Job’s Commencement Speech
  • So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport
  • Man’s Search for MeaningViktor Frankl
  • Mieko Kamiya – Mother of “Ikigai Psychology
  • Karoshi – which can be translated literally as “overwork death”, is a Japanese term relating to occupational sudden mortality.
  • Grant Study (Harvard) – a 75-year longitudinal study that followed 268 Harvard educated men, the majority of whom were members of the undergraduate classes of 1942, 1943 and 1944.

Bunkum (noun) – Insincere or foolish talk

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