“I learned to adjust my plans to what was actually possible.”

​Mr. Nakamura is a man who does almost everything by hand, and yet he seems to have so much time.  As he says: “If you have time, a lot of things are enjoyable. Making this kind of woodblock, or collecting the wood for the fire, or even cleaning things—it’s all enjoyable and satisfying if you give yourself time.  Humans have a tendency to create a visual image in their minds of what they think they can accomplish in a particular period of time - say in a day or a week or a year. But one thing I noticed when I first came here was that there was a gap between that image and the amount I can actually accomplish. I felt ill at ease and irritable all the time. I eventually learned, however, to adjust my imagination, and plans, to what was actually possible.”

​Perhaps this is another way that Nakamura keeps his presence so calm: by reducing the number of plans he makes so that they fit easily into the time he has available, instead of trying to accelerate his life to accomplish a long list of projects.
When I compare his absolutely simple, almost bare, existence to the sophisticated level of his thought, I admire his decisions about what to prioritize in life. For all the time he spends cutting and gathering firewood, growing food, carving woodblocks, cooking, or just gazing into the fire, it doesn’t seem that his intellectual life has suffered in the least. It is as though the mastery he has achieved as a craftsperson suffuses all the other spheres of his life.
 

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