How Japan Changed My Psychology And Reality In 1 Month

SUMMARY

Artist and philosopher Maherzi shares how a month in Japan rewired his brain through cultural immersion, exploring the fusiform face area, the harmony of 'En' and 'Wa,' and the unease of 'Iwakan' to triangulate reality and enhance his art.

STATEMENTS

The speaker chose Japan to immerse in a language and culture vastly different from Arabic and English, aiming to triangulate reality and expand his artistic and philosophical understanding.
Immersing in Japanese culture revealed how environment and language profoundly alter psychology, beyond mere mood changes.
The fusiform face area (FFA) in the brain recognizes faces by accentuating divergences from a perceived normal, and it adapts quickly to unfamiliar features through exposure.
After two weeks in Japan, the speaker's FFA adapted, making Japanese faces appear distinctly varied rather than similar.
Japanese societal norms emphasize politeness and consideration, leading people to avoid interrupting others, even in hurried situations like waiting for photos.
The concept of 'En' involves sensing the atmosphere or air around you, fostering deep awareness that influences art appreciation and social harmony.
'Wa' represents overall harmony in living, rooted in Japan's agricultural history, promoting smooth social interactions and attunement to nature over control.
Heightened awareness from 'En' and 'Wa' can lead to depression by overwhelming individuals with the world's cruel realities, yet it also encourages understanding and letting go.
'Iwakan' describes an unsettling feeling that something is off or wrong, which Japanese culture minimizes through thoughtful design in everyday structures like bathrooms.
Exposure to Japanese thoughtfulness makes returning home feel permeated with 'Iwakan,' highlighting overlooked inefficiencies in other cultures.

IDEAS

Languages shape worldview by altering neural pathways, such as through the brain's face recognition system adapting to new cultural norms.
Brief immersion in a foreign culture can rapidly rewire the brain's perception of normalcy, turning uniformity into vivid individuality.
Politeness in Japan extends to unconscious acts, like strangers pausing to avoid photobombing, revealing a collective empathy ingrained in daily life.
Artistic intuition relies on environmental listening, much like 'En,' where harmony with surroundings amplifies creative flow.
Cultural homogeneity amplifies deviations, making even simple actions like donning a hoodie while walking appear clumsily disruptive.
High societal awareness fosters profound art understanding without formal training, equating average Japanese insight to years of Western study.
Harmony concepts like 'Wa' originate from agricultural interdependence, evolving into a philosophy that prioritizes collective smoothness over individual dominance.
The dark side of hyper-awareness is vulnerability to despair, as acute perception of harsh realities can erode hope.
Naming unease as 'Iwakan' empowers artists to diagnose and refine work, transforming vague discomfort into precise improvements.
Japanese design eliminates subtle dissonances, such as separating showers from toilets, to maintain psychological comfort in mundane spaces.

INSIGHTS

Cultural immersion accelerates brain plasticity, reshaping perceptual biases to reveal hidden layers of human diversity and social nuance.
Harmony philosophies like 'En' and 'Wa' cultivate empathetic attunement, turning passive observation into a tool for artistic and personal growth.
Recognizing 'Iwakan' as a cultural signal of misalignment bridges intuitive dissatisfaction with actionable refinement in creative processes.
Societal politeness rooted in shared normalcy amplifies individual deviations, offering a mirror to one's own cultural blind spots.
While awareness enhances understanding, it risks emotional overload, underscoring the balance between sensitivity and resilience in human flourishing.
Triangulating reality through linguistic and environmental shifts expands philosophical horizons, fostering adaptability in an interconnected world.

QUOTES

"By trying to expand my view of reality, I'm hopefully expanding my art."
"Everyone started looking extremely different from one another."
"Being an artist is mostly about listening. Mostly about allowing the art to go through you."
"They have a word for that. The concept of Iwakan."
"The feeling I get from being in Japan is that someone has actually thought about certain things."

HABITS

Immerse in a foreign language and culture for at least a month to challenge and expand personal notions of normalcy.
Pause during street activities to respect others' space, mirroring Japanese politeness to build situational awareness.
Practice sensing the 'En' or atmosphere in environments to enhance intuitive decision-making and empathy.
Regularly assess creative work for subtle 'Iwakan' feelings, systematically eliminating dissonant elements.
Engage with Zen philosophy and anime to integrate contemplative practices into daily artistic routines.

FACTS

The fusiform face area (FFA) processes facial recognition by exaggerating deviations from a learned baseline of 'normal' features.
Japanese concepts of 'En' and 'Wa' stem from the country's agricultural past, emphasizing interdependent harmony for societal survival.
Average Japanese individuals intuitively grasp art at levels comparable to formally trained Western experts due to cultural attunement.
High awareness in Japan correlates with elevated depression rates, as acute perception intensifies exposure to global cruelties.
Bathroom designs in Japan separate showers from toilets to avoid the psychological unease of 'Iwakan' from mixing unclean and cleaning spaces.

REFERENCES

Anime and Japanese Zen philosophy as inspirations for cultural exploration.
Sony A7IV camera for montages and filming.
Fusiform face area (FFA) research on language and perception.
Concepts of 'En,' 'Wa,' and 'Iwakan' from Japanese cultural studies.
Maherzi's fashion shoot and friend's hospitality in Japan.

HOW TO APPLY

Select a distant culture and language, like Japanese from an Arabic-English background, and plan a month-long immersion to triangulate your reality.
During travel, observe and adapt to local movements and behaviors, training your brain's FFA by noting subtle facial and gestural differences daily.
Cultivate 'En' by pausing in social settings to sense the atmosphere, asking how your actions contribute to group harmony before proceeding.
When creating art, identify 'Iwakan' by stepping back from your work and listing elements that feel off, then adjust one by one for smoother flow.
Upon returning home, document instances of cultural 'Iwakan' to reflect on and incorporate Japanese thoughtfulness into your daily environment.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Immerse in contrasting cultures to rewire perception, enhancing art through harmony, awareness, and unease detection.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Travel to unfamiliar cultures intentionally for brain rewiring, prioritizing languages that challenge your cognitive baselines.
Integrate 'En' practices by meditating on environmental atmospheres to boost creative intuition without formal training.
Use 'Iwakan' as a diagnostic tool in design and art, refining outputs to eliminate subtle dissonances for greater impact.
Balance heightened awareness with resilience techniques to mitigate depression risks from overexposure to realities.
Experiment with experimental content creation, like voice-over montages, to capture immersive experiences authentically.

MEMO

In the bustling streets of Tokyo, artist Maherzi arrived not as a tourist chasing ramen or cherry blossoms, but as a seeker rewiring his very psyche. A month immersed in Japan's alien rhythms—its language a labyrinth of kanji and nuance—served as his triangulating lens, drawing from linguistic research that shows how words sculpt thought. Fluent in Arabic and English, he chose Japanese to shatter his perceptual norms, inspired by anime's vibrancy and Zen's quiet profundity. What began as an excuse for a fashion shoot and a friend's hospitality evolved into profound realizations: the brain's fusiform face area adapting swiftly, societal harmonies of 'En' and 'Wa' fostering uncanny politeness, and 'Iwakan's' subtle unease elevating everyday design.

The fusiform face area, that neural hub for facial recognition, became Maherzi's first revelation. Initially, the stereotype that "all Asians look the same" echoed in his untrained mind, a caricature born of unfamiliarity. But by week's end, exposure flipped the script—faces sharpened into distinct portraits, movements into ballets of care. This wasn't mere adaptation; it mirrored broader plasticity. Japanese homogeneity, forged in shared cultural soil, made outliers glaring: an American fumbling a hoodie mid-stride stood out like a glitch in a seamless code. Such awareness, Maherzi notes, permeates art appreciation, allowing everyday observers profound insights rivaling Western scholars' years of study.

Yet harmony's blade cuts both ways. 'En,' the art of reading the air, and 'Wa,' the grand symphony of coexistence, root in Japan's agrarian past, where discord spelled famine. Strangers halt mid-haste to spare your photo, a quiet choreography of empathy. This attunement fuels artistry—listening to inner whispers, environmental cues, letting creation flow unchecked. Maherzi, mid-creation, felt it: art as conduit, not conquest. But shadows lurk; such vigilance overwhelms, breeding depression amid life's cruelties, a poignant reminder that sensitivity demands safeguards like philosophical surrender—if it's meant to be, it will.

Enter 'Iwakan,' the exquisite discomfort of wrongness, a word that unlocked Maherzi's critical eye. Staring at a flawed photo, that nagging offness now had a name, guiding precise edits. It's everywhere in Japan: bathrooms partitioning toilet from shower, lest the profane taint the pure. Thoughtful structures smooth existence, banishing unease. Returning home, Maherzi braced for 'Iwakan's' backlash—clunky Western designs suddenly jarred. This tip-of-the-iceberg insight, he admits, barely scratches Japan's depths, yet it propelled his philosophy: triangulate to transcend, expand art by expanding self.

As Maherzi's channel veers experimental, his Japanese odyssey invites us all to wander similarly. In a world of echo chambers, deliberate dislocation sharpens sight, urging artists and thinkers to listen deeper. Heat shimmers on Tokyo sidewalks, street musicians strum forgotten melodies—echoes of a culture that questions normalcy, harmonizes chaos, and refines the imperfect into poetry.