Karthik Rangappa

Fear of the unknown – I have heard this a million times in my life. I’ve used it a million times professionally, too. Risk in investments and trading, for example, is fear of the unknown in its purest form. But personally, I’ve been experiencing fear of the unknown with such intensity for the first time in my life. I suppose it happens when too many things of juggernaut proportions occur simultaneously. Professionally, life feels heavy (in a good way), dealing with ‘n’ number of moving parts, all connected to one another. Each aspect of work has its own emotion and existence. Multiple people, multiple ideas, multiple things to do, all muddled together in an intensely competitive landscape.

Personally, life has been quite crazy, with some emotionally difficult decisions and changes – again, all in a good way. Lots of ‘new to life’ and ‘this is how it’s going to be from now on’ kinds of moments. Heck, I even adopted two kittens amid all the chaos, and that, for a first-time cat owner, is also a fear of the unknown!

While I’m figuring things out, the fear of the unknown constantly lurks. What if things break? What can break? Why would it break? Should it break? The list of questions is never-ending.

Back in the day (as in, our very recent past), when we had too many questions, we would turn to the good old internet for answers. Today, we ‘Claude’ it. So I did. When you start looking for answers, the internet takes you to interesting places, and some of them are rabbit holes. One such place led me to emotions described only in Japanese and lacking an English word to capture them accurately.

For example, Omoiyari (思いやり).

Omoiyari is empathy felt so naturally that it leads to action without deliberation. You feel someone else’s discomfort and respond before they have to ask. It is the instinct to carry the heavier bag, to pour tea for the person across from you first, to lower your voice in a space where someone looks tired.

English has “consideration,” but omoiyari is warmer.

As I was reading through these words that describe emotions, I thought, why not associate them with images? 🙂

find this image ironic; the girl at the counter is selling one of the most loved desserts in the world — pastel de nata — but the pensive look on her face tells me a different story. Perhaps she has baggage so heavy that the dessert’s sweetness isn’t enough to lift her spirits. Perhaps she’s simply had an overdose of sweetness. At the same time, the warmth in her face makes you feel she might hand you a nata just like that, before you even ask, brightening your day despite how she feels.

That’s Omoiyari, maybe?

Natsukashii (懐かしい)

Natsukashii is the warm wave of feeling that hits when something pulls you back in time. A song from high school. The smell of rain on hot pavement. The texture of a grandmother’s tablecloth. It is not quite happiness and not quite sadness. It is the specific emotion of encountering a piece of your past and being moved by the encounter.

What makes natsukashii different from English “nostalgia” is the warmth. Nostalgia in English often carries a tinge of regret or loss. Natsukashii leans toward gratitude.

This sight transported me to 1996. It was around then that I had my very first beer, in Bangalore. Despite not liking the bitter taste of beer, I put on a show because I didn’t want to be that guy who doesn’t like a chilled beer. One afternoon, when a bunch of us had bunked classes, we were debating which bar to go to for a nice, cold afternoon beer. While I actively participated in that debate, deep down, all I wanted was a simple vanilla ice cream to beat the heat.

When I saw this guy selling both, it took me back to that moment, as if it were yesterday 🙂

Wabi-Sabi (侘び寂び)

Wabi-sabi is usually classified as an aesthetic. But underneath the cracked pottery and weathered wood is a feeling. It is the calm that comes from releasing your grip on perfection. The quiet satisfaction of a meal served in mismatched bowls. The tenderness you feel toward a well-worn jacket that has shaped itself to your body over years.

The feeling of wabi-sabi is one of acceptance. Not resignation, but genuine peace with the way things actually are.

Wabi-sabi is something you may already know. It’s about the imperfections around us and how we accept them, fully aware that we are helpless to fix them. This image feels very meta wabi-sabi to me; it represents the world. On one side, there is Hermès, selling Birkins and Kellys for a fortune, affordable only to the top 1% of the world. On the other, there is this tram, used by thousands of people every day to reach their destinations at an affordable price. Without the tram, many couldn’t commute to work and earn a living.

This income inequality is an imperfection, and unfortunately, that is the order of the world. We have accepted that fact for centuries, and life goes on regardless, as the old man in the picture suggests.

Mushin (無心)

Mushin is the feeling of the mind going clear. Not empty in a vacant sense, but empty of interference. The internal commentary stops. Action and awareness merge. You have felt this in moments of deep focus, when time collapsed and you were simply doing the thing without watching yourself do it.

In Zen practice and martial arts, mushin is a cultivated state. But as a feeling, it is available to anyone. The musician mid-improvisation. The writer in a sentence that seems to write itself. The cook who moves through a kitchen without thinking about where anything is. Mushin is what flow feels like from the inside, before psychology gave it a clinical name.

To clear your mind, you sometimes need to travel without an agenda. Sometimes, the destination itself doesn’t need to be decided. You go to the station and figure out where the train takes you. This moment felt like that – a man at a train station in Porto, with a backpack and no particular plan, trying to figure out where to go. Perhaps to clear his mind, perhaps to escape the stress of routine, perhaps to get lost on purpose.

Ganbaru (頑張る)

Ganbaru is the feeling of pushing through when it would be easier to stop. It is determination with weight behind it. Not the flashy motivation of a highlight reel, but the quiet fire that keeps you at the desk, in the studio, on the path when the reasons to quit are perfectly reasonable.

The feeling it names, that internal refusal to give up even when the outcome is uncertain, is one of the most commonly shared emotional experiences in Japanese daily life.

Think about your favorite restaurant. Now think of the dishes you like most there. Chances are you can easily name two or three dishes at each of your favorite restaurants. You’ve probably been there a dozen times. But do you remember the name of the waiter who served you? Do you have a favorite waiter? Do you even remember their face?

Most of us don’t.

But these are the same people who work tirelessly, putting in long hours and taking on all the stress, just to pour that perfect latte or fix that amazing sandwich for you and me.

All stress, no glory.

Maybe there was a moment here when a bunch of waiters stepped out into the back alley for a smoke and a coffee of their own. To shake off the stress, to cheer each other on, to reset. It was their moment of ganbaru before they went back in to fix the next latte with a smile.

Momijigari (紅葉狩り)

Momijigari is autumn leaf viewing, and the feeling it carries is richer and more complex than spring’s hanami. Autumn in Japan is stunning. The maples turn crimson and gold, and people travel to temples and mountain valleys specifically to witness the transformation. The word gari means hunting, so momijigari is literally “hunting for red leaves.”

The emotion of momijigari is contemplative satisfaction tinged with the awareness that winter is coming. It is the feeling of peak beauty at the edge of decline. Of all the seasonal feelings in Japanese life, momijigari may be the most wabi-sabi. The leaves are beautiful because they are in the process of letting go.

This is the feeling of peak beauty at the edge of decline – how beautiful is that? This old woman sitting on her balcony seems lost in thought. The balcony seems to be her comfort spot, a place that has stayed the same while the surrounding neighborhood has grown and changed. But the neighborhood is still full of familiar faces – people with whom she has probably shared laughter and grief, celebrations and banter. I’d like to believe she is in her momijigari moment – she knows time is not on her side, yet she seems comfortable where she is, letting it all go.

Amae (甘え)

Amae is the feeling of being able to lean on someone’s kindness. It is the comfort of knowing you can be a little needy, a little dependent, and it will be received with warmth rather than judgment. A child climbing into a parent’s lap. A spouse asking for reassurance they do not strictly need. A friend calling not because there is a crisis but because they want to hear a familiar voice.

The psychiatrist Takeo Doi wrote an entire book about amae, arguing that it is a foundational emotion in Japanese relationships that Western psychology had not adequately named. To feel amae is to feel safe enough to be vulnerable. It is trust made into an emotional experience.

The couple in this picture seems to be sorting out an issue, maybe one that’s been pending for a while. Maybe they kept sweeping it under the carpet because they didn’t want to deal with it. But they love each other, and that love is the foundation of their mutual trust and dependence. Maybe they decided that today would be the day they address it and resolve it for good.

That bunch of colorful balloons, to me, signals that it will all end well. Remember, amae is the feeling of being able to lean on someone’s kindness. It is the comfort of knowing you can be a little needy, a little dependent, and it will be received with warmth rather than judgment.

These moments are small, but they are precious. They may not mean much to the world, but for you, going through this emotional journey feels intense and purposeful. You’ve had your moments; I’m having mine. And I know that this too shall pass 🙂

Note: If there is a factual error in any of the Japanese words or their meanings, I’d love to be corrected. You can leave a comment below. All the photographs are from my visit to Portugal in 2025.