The word above reads "Natsukashii". It's an adjective, an expression that details a specific kind of feeling of fond remembrance. Walking past a playground and remembering the days you played there as a child, walking into a store and smelling the air conditioning and remembering your freshman year dorm, a song that played on the radio on the bus to and from school in 7th grade. Takes you back, doesn't it? That's Natsukashii.

The most commonly suggested English translation is "nostalgic" but it doesn't quite capture the same feeling. The root of nostalgia comes from the Greek nostos (to return home) and algos (pain) - it was a psychological disorder which basically encompassed intense homesickness, pain from being seperated from your homeland. In modern parlance it's used far more fondly than that, but depending on the circles you converse in, it may still encompass a negative energy. Nostalgia indicates a kind of dissatisfaction with the present condition, which is what gives the remembrance its fond light; this feeling, in theory, is not part of Natsukashii.

But here's the rub. Natsukashii, I propose, contains just as much pain and longing in its fond remembrance as nostalgia - but that's why the remembrance is so fond. As a Japanese version of nostalgia, I believe it is processed and received differently, and acts as a core feeling that ties directly into mono no aware, the pathos of things, the bittersweet, heartbreaking beauty found in the ephemerality of life and the world.

For more on mono no aware, Let's go back to the oldest, most rehashed example in the book - the sakura, or cherry blossom. Every Spring, Japan turns bright pink as cherry trees blossom all across the country. And within a week, the blossoms fall, scatter and die. 花見, hanami, flower-viewing, going with a picnic basket to watch the flowers and watch them fall, is probably among most tenacious traditions in Japan, at least among holidays. The flowers themselves, while beautiful, aren't particularly moreso than other flowers. It's their brevity that makes them beautiful, that something so beautiful lasts for so little time. The flowers are beautiful, but the most beautiful part about them is their act of falling.

Seasons, weather, nature are ever-changing and so are the most frequently cited examples, but Japan has many cases of ephemerality within its history. Prone as it is to earthquakes, typhoons, tsunami and more, Japan has historically been in a constant state of flux, of destruction and rebuilding, as nature and man alike seem determined to destroy the island somehow or other. When the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed Tokyo entirely, it was rebuilt, only to be bombed back into oblivion in 1945. Not to mention the times it has been torn down and rebuilt on purpose - the entire city went through a massive renovation for the 1960 Olympics. Many Japanese shrines and historical sites are actually reconstructions rather than preservations - and often not forced due to circumstance, but acted on consciously.

And so, to someone from Japan, it may seem that the world in is a constant state of change. What's here today can be, will be gone tomorrow. Though the country is largely non-religious (or more accurately, religiously apathetic), the presence of philosophies like Buddhism reminds us that we are mortal, that life is just a cycle that ends in death, that as all things are created, so too shall they be destroyed. This is, of course, not unique to Buddhism, as it's pretty much the core problem in any and all religion. But this is an important tenet in the Japanese aesthetics.

The Tale of Genji is THE work of Japanese Literature, their Oddysey. Not surprisingly, it more or less encompasses the idea of mono no aware as its theme. A brief moment of heartbreaking beauty as a crisp moon shines over a quiet pond and a frog croaks twice in the distance. In Genji, people are (repeatedly) moved to weep by the beauty of some instant, usually tragic. The entire book is tragedy, and portrayal of that tragedy as beautiful. A striking reminder of mortality.

The entire core of the beauty in mono no aware, I think, stems from the feeling of Natsukashii. It's a remembrance of things past, and a fond recollection of them. Instead of remembering how things were better (nostalgia), it recalls how they were - which is also how they can never be again. When the flowers fall, you know they can never again be back on their tree - and that's why their beautiful. When you remember how you were once young, you are necessarily reminded of the fact that you have aged, and will continue to. Remembering the past is remembering the future. The recognition of the passage of your life heretofore includes the recognition of passage forthwith and your ultimate, inevitable conclusion.

But the embrace of death and dying is not necessarily an embrace of sadness. It's not necessarily a philosophy or an aesthetic of sadness. As I said, "Natsukashii" doesn't involve the negative energy of nostalgia. But it evokes the same pain; however, the pain is manifest in different ways. In the West, it is merely that, but in Japan, the pain becomes manifest as a kind of beauty to be treasured. Life is short and ultimately ends, but to feel that is beautiful because that is life. Natsukashii encompasses all the pain of nostalgia, but twists it into beauty as part of the mono no aware aesthetic.

My favorite quote actually heralds from an anime, but it encompasses the philosophy as best as I've seen it. "Ten billion years' time is so fleeting, so ephemeral, it arouses such a bittersweet, almost heartbreaking fondness." That feeling is the feeling of mono no aware as best as I've found it explained. And even a span of ten billion years is exactly as guaranteed to end as any one of us, or our bookcases or dogs or flowers or the guys we buy our beer from.

Heartbreaking fondness - the reaction to pain is not to hurt, but to embrace it. It's an extremely keen, sharp feeling, a precide needlepoint in the brain. For me, it is accompanied by a welling of emotion, a vast longing, the desire to reach out and feel. Feel more, feel fully, submerge in emotion. To embrace the entire world with all its infinite and infinitesimal moments of humanity and otherwise, and feel it all, experience it in its entirety. To basically hug and be hugged by the whole of existence and say, there there, it's all right, for you see, I'm dying too.

When my mother was passing, there were moments where we'd sit around and cry. And usually, crying ended with smiling. It was utterly heart- and gut-wrenching, but to feel communally, whatever that feeling is, is innately pleasing. Misery loves company - it's true, as do all emotions, because to feel anything alongside another, to connect to a human being, amplifies emotion, and to emote in synchronicity is the highest amplification possible. My entire family hurt, but we were able to hurt together, and that's the small happiness that makes the hurt more bearable.

You remark to your coworker or friend, "hey, this is that song. I heard this on the bus every day in seventh grade." And they perk their ears, and you watch them recognize it too, and you realize you have that shared experience, that common history, and you feel that Natsukashimi all the more.

Natsukashii is a remembrance of the past, which is necessarily a remembrance of reality's state of eternal flux, constantly changing, birth and death and birth and death. The candle will burn out, but its life will be so bright and warm. Let it burn twice as bright, or fifty times as bright, even if it winks out in an instant, because in another instant we'll wink out ourselves. The more intense the flame, the more beautiful; that it will soon be gone only makes it all the more beautiful again. If it burned forever, it'd be nice, but it would grow boring in its unchanging, eternal state. Seperation makes the heart grow fonder - your memory of your childhood home is as fond as it is exactly because you're not there anymore, and if you were you wouldn't be nearly so fond of it. Our memories make us happy because we've changed.

To embrace the changes you've experience and those you will, to recognize the tragic beauty in the inevitable doom of existence, to allow the feeling of the inherent sadness of the world playing at your heart to make you happy, fill you with emotion. Don't ignore your doom, acknowledge it and continue on, because the end result is the same.