An Attitude of Gratitude: Older Japanese in the Hopeful Present

Abstract

In this article I explore ideas of a good and meaningful life in older age, based on ethnographic research with older Japanese people in the city of Osaka. Some of my interlocutors and friends in the field spoke about their approaching end of life. When speaking about the time remaining, many expressed their sense that the future will work out “somehow” (nantonaku). This statement of quiet hope acknowledged change, and encapsulated a desire to support others; it also shifted emphasis away from the future. This is not to say that the experience was, for my interlocutors, primarily marked by an orientation toward the past, through reminiscence and recollection. Inhabiting the moment was equally important. While reminiscing and narrating past events comprise a form of meaning-making, how does dwelling in the moment contribute to maintaining a meaningful existence? I will argue it allows for the cultivation of an ‘attitude of gratitude,’ which lends meaning to life. This attitude of gratitude binds together both reflections on the past and attention to the present moment in its fullness. It also, I suggest, opens up space for a particular kind of hope, one grounded in the moment. Thus, the sense of a good and meaningful life that these elders conveyed encapsulates an attitude of gratitude as a way of inhabiting the present, rather than dwelling in the past or leaping toward the future.