Kintsugi Breaks The Plate

There's an art to repairing broken parts with grace.

A cracked plate need not be discarded; a bowl can have a second life.

Kintsugi is a Japanese art that uses gold to reseal and rejoin the shards of broken crockery. Gorgeously.

I've heard this method used as a metaphor for people too – the fissures can be repaired, you can heal a broken soul and the cracks become beautiful.

But here's the thing – I believe in the process, you know I do, I truly believe that pain creates the space for depth and beauty – but people omit that the process of kintsugi is not just curative.

The bowl that has undergone this process is no longer foodsafe: it can't be used for its purpose, just something for people to look at.

If you make a feature of your trauma, let it become your identity — that has now become your purpose.

You have become ornamental.

Kintsugi repairs, but breaks the plate.