I ran across an interesting turn of phrase in a book I’m currently reading. The story takes place in Japan, and the prose is littered with bits of Japanese. The phrase mono no aware was translated as “the sadness of being human.”
Given all that has transpired in the last year and a half, this struck a rather deep cord with me. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe I’ll figure it out eventually, but for now, I am finding some comfort in mono no aware