The art of living, according to Miyazaki

After a long wait that began in 2016, when it became known that Hayao Miyazaki was preparing his farewell film, this fall viewers were finally able to see The Boy and the Heron. Its original title in Japan, How Do You Live?, is that of a 1937 novel that greatly influenced the creator of such crucial animated films as My Neighbor Totoro and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. But Genzaburō's book bears little relation to this latest Miyazaki film, even though Miyazaki’s boy protagonist finds the novel in his room in the house he moves into after his mother’s death. The classic book, read by all Japanese children in the mid-20th century, tells the story of a boy’s crucial lessons about the true meaning of courage, the injustices of the world and the essence of his own existence. These are also recurring themes in the Studio Ghibli universe that Miyazaki founded. Here are some of the lessons from his filmography that can help us in the difficult art of living.

Magic hides in everyday life

Sometimes it comes about through happenstance or synchronicity, as it happened to the teenage protagonist of Whispers of the Heart. In the film, Shizuku discovers that the same books that she brought home from the library were previously read by someone named Seiji Amasawa, a fact that will have repercussions on Shizuku’s life. How many significant coincidences pass us by when we’re not being attentive to our surroundings?

Your power lies outside your comfort zone

Ghibli characters find their true dimension when they leave their familiar world and adventure out into the unknown. In the case of The Boy and the Heron, the protagonist’s recklessness in deciding to enter his family’s cursed building allows him to get past the pain caused by his mother’s death, and begin to heal the relationship with his stepmother.

We need nature for emotional balance

At the heart of eco-anxiety is the separation between human beings and the natural home that gives us life. Many people look for healing by returning to the countryside, as does the father of Satsuki, one of the children in My Neighbor Totoro, who confesses to her: “Trees and people used to be good friends. I saw this tree, and I decided to buy the house.”

Everybody sets their own limits

Even before reality establishes its own cap on what is possible, we often decide for ourselves what we can or cannot achieve. Given this fact, the breadth of one’s life horizon is conditioned by our own beliefs. There is a moment when Chihiro from Spirited Away asks the dragon Haku about limits, and he responds that the only limits lie in the sky, imagination and ourselves.

It’s all in the details

Miyazaki’s films are characterized by their attention to detail. Viewers follow the path of a cat as it strolls through a residential neighborhood, or the flight of a speck of dust. William Blake put it like this in one of his famous poems: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour.” We can only attend to the wonders of life if we open our senses to that which would appear to be insignificant.

We bring our history with us

Spirited Away reminds us: “Nothing that happens is ever forgotten, even if you can’t remember it.” Everything matters and has value. We are the product of everything we have done, seen and felt, even if a large part of it is located in the deep waters of our unconsciousness.

“Reality is for people who lack imagination”

This phrase comes from Miyazaki himself, who has dedicated his life to creating extraordinary worlds that provide respite from the chatter of real life. When we’re finding it hard to deal with bad news or the aggression around us, fantasy inspires us and can even let us come to an understanding of some of the unknown parts of our own personhood. Psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, author of The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, says that “each fairy tale is a magic mirror which reflects some aspects of our inner world, and of the steps required by our evolution from immaturity to maturity.”

Watching the movies made by this great storyteller can help us to start our own journey towards alleviating everyday stress, and at the same time nurture our imagination and knowledge of self.

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