Something that has taken me most of my life to realize is how much I didn’t cherish today. It’s easy to fall under the shames of yesterday and the anxieties of tomorrow, but it’s hard to relish in today. We all want to live a life where we’re loved and accomplished, but what does that look like? In the last few years, I slowed down on catching new film releases including missing Perfect Days in its original theatrical run. I love Wim Wenders; Wings of Desire makes me feel full and Paris, Texas leaves me dry. Perfect Days was not only the movie to help me reinforce my love of today, but it helped me appreciate the imperfectness of the world.
In Perfect Days, you follow a toilet cleaner in Tokyo named Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho). His daily routine is strict and heavily regimented. He keeps his space tidy, he maintains a level of consistency with his work, and when he’s not working, he’s reading and listening to Lou Reed. That’s the foundation for the entire film. The central conflict is an interruption to his routine, and there isn’t much exploration of the background of the Hirayama character. Few words are spoken through the entirety of the movie, as it is almost entirely expressionistic. There isn’t a lot happening in terms of plot and there’s little to no conflict – yet, it is deeply enrapturing and compelling.
After finishing Perfect Days, I was angry with myself for not having seen it sooner. But sometimes a good movie or a good album – hell, any work of art – finds you when you need it most. If I saw Perfect Days in 2023 I would’ve chalked it up as “this guy cleans toilets.” Beauty in the mundane was an unknown concept to me in 2023, but today I’ve never been more in love with the world around me. Everything is fleeting and everything is new if we allow ourselves to be open to it. Hirayama lived a life with a pretty strict routine, but no one day is the same and he was able to live everyday with profound richness and appreciation. How do we do that for ourselves?
Perfect is a difficult standard to attain. We, as humans, are incapable of creating anything considered “perfect;” so why should we force ourselves to put this impossible standard on ourselves? Life is all about experimentation, choosing what is best for us, and finding our sense of self. If you start a career you thought would work for you but you find soul crushing, that’s ok! That’s not a mistake, these things are by design. Reinvention is possible, you just have to grit your teeth and take the change as necessary (even if it sucks). Even then, the ‘sucky’ parts of life are equally as beautiful. Because how can you appreciate the good unless you’ve dealt with the bad.
Life is hard (no duh), but it’s harder to find beautiful things in the mundane. Coexisting with incredible people, enjoying the weather – even when it’s terrible -and finding things to love is what it’s all about, for me at least. Life is too short to focus on what went wrong, what could go wrong, or the wrongdoings of others. We have to make a supreme effort to tolerate and love as much as we can. That doesn’t mean we have to tolerate the intolerable (in fact, we should make a supreme effort to be intolerant of the intolerable, but that’s another conversation), but loving the unlovable people or unlovable things is essential. Get stung by a bee? That’s alright, it’s in their nature. You can’t feel your toes in the cold? That’s alright, we won’t have the cold forever. Have family members that seek self destruction? That’s alright, love them because they still deserve it.
At the end of the day, we all want the same things – to love and be loved, and to be at peace. We get so caught up in thought bubbles of ‘so and so did this’ and ‘so and so did that’ that we never relish in what we do for ourselves. Hirayama had a great amount of compassion for everyone in his orbit – his coworkers, his family, even complete strangers. Even his coworker that tried to sell his cassette tapes, he still passed love and compassion onto him. It’s not easy to give this compassion to people who have wronged you, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
In Perfect Days, the final scene shows Hirayama crying joyfully. There isn’t any lead-in to this, here is a man who has relinquished control of the uncontrollable and finds solace in himself and the beauty that the world reveals. Hirayama had a pretty bad and melancholic couple of days leading into this moment and despite that he doesn’t let these situations weigh him down. Why should the imperfections of life weigh us down? We’ll be dealt bad, even terrible-soul crushing days, but that’s ok; the moments of greatness that’ll follow will be that much sweeter. Hell, life is the gift that keeps on giving and I can’t find a more beautiful reason to cry on the commute to work.
Life rocks, perfection not withstanding. We can all lead a life that fulfils and enriches us, if only we shed this chase of the ‘perfect’. There will never be perfect in our life, but growing and sustaining the now will make the future that much brighter. The past is the past, it’s ok to remember that really embarrassing thing you did in the 7th grade – but what’s not ok is to let those things define us. Everyday is a ‘perfect day,’ if you allow it. It’s ok for a day to not be perfect, but you have to pick yourself back up. Staying in the confines of “imperfection” will consume you, and that’s a hard way to live. Hirayama didn’t follow a career path that is seen as desirable, but to him it was perfect and that’s all it needs to be. It’s a hard frame of mind to shift to, but once you’re there everything feels new and beautiful. I’ll end this organized rambling with a quote from the late and great David Lynch – “May everyone be happy, may everyone be free of disease, may auspiciousness be seen everywhere, may suffering belong to no one”.
