（続） 隣の芝生は。。。

チャーチルなんかを例に出すと「確かに批判されるべきところはあるがあの指導力は我が国も見習うべきだ」という話になってしまいそうです。でも外国のことを都合の良いところだけを取り出して話題にしやすい傾向というのは現にあると思うんですよね。

こういうのは、海外での日本の取り上げられ方を見てみるとその辺りの気持ち悪さを実感できるかもしれません。比較対象としてはチャーチルとあまりにも違いますが、最近Ikigaiという洋書が出たそうです。

ありがちな自己啓発本なので真面目に取り上げるべきものではないかもしれませんが、出著者による宣伝記事が以下です。

Want to live longer? Find your ikigai

In Japan, people over retirement age don’t put their feet up. They harness their ikigai

 Animated characters pensioner Carl Fredricksen and a boy, Russell, flying through the air holding onto a giant bird in the film Up

Héctor García

Sunday 3 September 2017 06.00 BST

It is now known that working for longer may help you live longer. This may not sound all that appealing, but staying in the workplace for just one year more than another retired and healthy counterpart has been shown to be associated with an 11% lower risk of death from all causes. But perhaps there’s another way to gain these extra years without commuting for any longer than necessary.

The people of Japan know this intuitively, which is one of the key reasons they have the longest life expectancy in the world.

In Japanese culture, retiring and not keeping your mind and body busy is seen as being bad for your health since it disconnects your soul from your ikigai. Ikigai can be translated as “a reason for being” – the thing that gets you out of bed each morning. Finding your ikigai is felt to be crucial to longevity and a life full of meaning. The people of Japan keep doing what they love, what they are good at, and what the world needs even after they have left the office for the last time.

定年退職しても働くのがIkigaiで長寿の秘訣だなんて言われたら日本人としては黙っていられないですよね。Japan Timesの書評ではボロクソに叩いています。

‘Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life’: Does happiness lie in your purpose in life?

BY IAIN MALONEY

NOV 4, 2017

It’s an assertion the book fails to live up to: They don’t connect ikigai with longevity in any convincing way. Instead the book is a patchwork of platitudes about diet and exercise, broken by interviews with centenarians and discussions of trends in psychotherapy. Their conclusion is correlation passed off as causation; the book is self-help painted as pseudo-philosophy.

It’s frustrating because there are many uncertainties about the aging process, and the lifestyles and psychological make up of centenarians are as much part of the conversation as genes and cell division. There is laudable scientific inquiry in the questions the authors ask but little evidence of anything more than journalistic exploration in their search for the answers.

とほほなのは茂木健一郎さんもIkigaiについての本を洋書で書いていること。なんだかなですね。。。