Ukiyo: The Art of Being Present

There's a Japanese concept called ukiyo (浮世) that translates roughly to "the floating world." I've been thinking about it a lot since we got back from Japan.

The term has an interesting history. During the Edo period, ukiyo described a specific urban lifestyle centered on fleeting pleasures – theater, art, the kind of indulgence captured in those famous ukiyo-e prints. It started as a Buddhist idea about life's suffering, then got reinterpreted into something almost celebratory: embracing the transient world rather than resisting it.

These days, the concept has loosened and modernized into something more personal and philosophical. It's about detaching from your usual worries and just living in the moment; letting yourself float through an experience without trying to control or capture it.

We were sitting in a temple garden in Kyoto, tucked away in a small teahouse that felt like it existed outside of time. Steam rose from our cups. Someone nearby lit incense. The scent mixed with earth and wet stone from an earlier rain. An elderly woman swept leaves in slow, deliberate strokes. A bird landed on the path and tilted its head at us.

My phone stayed in my pocket.

I travel with a camera. I take photos. I want to remember things. But there are some moments that don't translate to pixels. Some things you can only capture by not trying to capture them at all, by just sitting there, letting the sounds and smells and strange comfort of an unfamiliar place wash over you.

That afternoon in the garden wasn't "content." It wasn't a highlight reel. It was just us, fully there, in a moment that felt suspended. The kind of memory that lives somewhere deeper than a camera roll.

Travel gives us permission to do this – to pause, to observe, to let ourselves be still in the middle of movement. To embrace ukiyo and float for a while, untethered from the need to document everything.

Some moments are meant to be felt, not filmed. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. Serendipitous. Those are often the ones that stay with you longest.