Blue Eye Samurai on Navigating Burnout

Motivation and dedication wane with the seasons, and this summer I'm feeling it more than ever. It’s that stage of life defined by routine: I’ve been parenting for 13 years, working in the same career for 20, and living in the same house for 12. You try to keep the flame alive for your interests and passions, but it’s hard to escape the oppressive dailyness of it all. Days blur together, making it difficult to remember what to be excited about or even what you’re working towards. And in summer, when I'd rather be out in nature than inside on a computer computer, it’s even harder to show up.

This past Monday, in a brain fog of exhaustion, I found myself reminded of my favorite scene from Blue Eye Samurai. It comes at a point late in the season when hope seems lost and Mizu appears to have strayed from her path. Her adoptive father and mentor figure, Master Eiji, steps in to guide her back:

Master Eiji: To be an artist is to do one thing only. Look at me. I cannot fight, or weave, or farm. I make swords. I cook for strength to make good swords. I study the sutras, to cleanse my heart, to make good swords.

Mizu: You think revenge is an art?

Master Eiji: Swords, pots, noodles, death. It is all the same to an artist.

Mizu: Then I am a bad artist.

Master Eiji: An artist gives all they have to the art, the whole. Your strengths and deficiencies. Your loves and shames. Perhaps the people you collected. I made my best blades when I had an apprentice.

Mizu: I thought I annoyed you.

Master Eiji: Both are true. There may be a demon in you, but there is more. If you do not invite the whole, the demon takes two chairs, and your art will suffer.

Mizu: Then what do I do?

Master Eiji: I only know how to make swords. Each morning, I start a fire. And begin, again.

That last sentence was precisely what I needed to get out of bed. Ultimately, that’s what life is about. You might not be excited, but you start the fire. You begin and begin and begin, with the hope and faith that it will eventually amount to something more.