In the heart of my journey here in Japan, I discover myself vacant in a different way. The streets of Tokyo, vibrant and drenched in neon, remind me how life can be both overflowing and perfectly ordered. Tonight, newly arrived in Osaka, my heart caught by the charm of a geisha whose grace flirts with the forbidden, I stand on a rooftop that promises the delicious menu of the days ahead. And in all this tumult, I find an inner silence, where my thoughts drift like lanterns released at a summer festival.
Each day hands me its metaphors. Tokyo offered me the dance of crowds and the frivolity of shop windows, little frescoes of immediacy where each step became an idea to harvest. Tonight, a first rendezvous with Osaka. Tomorrow, Kyoto will invite me into the stillness of its gardens and the discipline of its temples, like a fresco of meditation. Osaka, on our next date, will remind me that excess, in the form of a generous feast, can also be a celebration. And in the midst of these shared instants, I stumble upon a discreet complicity, subtle enough that every detour feels like an intimate lesson.
And then my mind wanders, tell me, am I alone in this? What if the joy of vacation could last longer? What if these hours of detachment, like the waters flowing at the foot of Mount Fuji, could somehow carry into the days of labor? Perhaps work is not a wall that halts the current, but another riverbed where the flow of passions gathers and renews itself.
I smile at the thought, because in truth, work and vacation are not so different. Here too, I tick off temples as if ticking off daily tasks. I balance my expenses as one balances forecasts against actuals. Even coffee, my morning companion, takes on another flavor: is it here a simple reflex, or does it become a sacred ritual, faithful and unwavering, whether in my office or at the hotel buffet?
Soon enough will come the frescoes of labor. They may not hold the colors of Kyoto or the lights of Tokyo, but they have their own beauty: the grace of sustained effort, the honor of a promise kept. They say work comes from suffering, from servitude. But I prefer to think of Japanese calligraphy: each stroke requires discipline, each movement a constraint, and yet, within this asceticism, a grace is born that brushes against the divine.
And I smile again at the metaphor that surfaces: is a story we publish for ourselves, or for others? Perhaps both. Sometimes it is the desire to keep a trace of softness for oneself, sometimes it is the pressing urge to share it, as if joy must circulate in order to exist. And what if the barometer of my passion, for work as much as for vacation, were hidden in this ephemeral function of Instagram?
I must confess, also when it comes to work: at times I wonder if I do what I do out of love for creating, or to be loved for creating. Barthes once said that to be loved is to wait for a sign, to live suspended on the reply of the other, an approval that soothes as much as it makes us dependent. But entrepreneurship, when it truly becomes love, frees itself from this hunger for signals. To love creating is exactly this: not waiting for the return of others, but feeding on the beauty of the act itself. To create as one breathes, to work as one walks down a narrow street in Kyoto and, suddenly, unexpectedly, discovers a hidden sanctuary invisible to the crowd. To marvel at finding it, without spectator, without witness, for oneself alone; and already, it is enough.
So I tell myself that perhaps there is no need to choose. Vacation and toil embrace like yin and yang, each carrying within itself the shadow and the light of the other. Like breathing, where inspiration resembles vacation, to receive, to welcome, to contemplate, and expiration resembles work, to act, to give, to build. To undertake, in the end, is it not to breathe in this way, moving between the two poles without ever wishing to separate them?
And so I return to passion, pathos in Greek, a blend of suffering and emotion. Should vacation and work share the same space, even if only imagined? Perhaps. For that is where true happiness resides, at the crossing of demand and wonder.
And you, if you were to paint your day tomorrow, would you choose the palette of vacation or the palette of labor? Perhaps, like me, you might dream of a hybrid canvas, where the lanterns of Tokyo, the quiet grace of Fuji, the fervor of Osaka, and the serenity of Kyoto would all illuminate your frescoes of work. I believe that is where the art of creating resides: in vacation and in labor, united in a single breath.
