Ikagai: It’s Not a Weird Food

Like me, I’m guessing many of you have watched the current number one show on Netflix, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. Author Dan Buettner investigated five communities, so-called ‘blue zones” that have outsized populations of centenarians. What combination of factors, he asked, led these folks to experience such longevity, not to mention vitality? Unsurprisingly, he found that a healthy old age correlated with five things: a plant-based diet; exercise as an inherent part of daily living; what the Japanese call ikagai, or a sense of purpose; regular social connection and an optimistic outlook, often –but not necessarily– accompanied by membership in a faith community. 

Three of the five communities studied were small rural communities in Japan, Costa Rica and Greece. One, Loma Linda California, was a suburb. The last was the island nation of Singapore, which one of its residents likened to a city state. Wondering whether the lessons he had learned were transferable, Buettner convinced leaders in a small town in Minnesota to participate in a test case. Citizens organized exercise groups, volunteer opportunities and community gatherings. Sidewalks were built to connect neighborhoods to the decaying downtown. Farmers markets and healthier grocery store options sprang up. In just a short time, life expectancy increased by 3.1 years. 

Walking our dogs this morning, a neighbor and I wondered whether we could create the same conditions for ourselves. As New Yorkers, we do get a lot of exercise. I don’t own a car and walk everywhere, logging 3 to 6 miles a day no matter the weather. On top of that, I strength train and do yoga regularly. I don’t garden – the preferred form of exercise of the blue zones – but I do spend several hours outside every day, just like the centenarians. I eat a mostly plant-based diet most of the time, including beans and nuts, the most important foods recommended by Buettner. Living in a dense urban environment, I have multiple casual conversations in a day, often revolving around my dog, who has never met a human being whom he does not wish to greet. I have several very close friends with whom I converse regularly, and family nearby whom I see every few weeks. 

But I could do more. I know, for example, that I now spend more time on social media than I should, more than is probably good for me.

Since my husband died, I have stopped volunteering in my local park and I no longer go to the gym, having become accustomed to working out at home with apps and all of the equipment I acquired when housebound due to the pandemic and Dan’s illness. The in-person writing group that I attended weekly for two years disbanded during COVID. Then the local YMCA decided not to bring it back in 2021. While I remain part of a number of writing groups, all of them are virtual, as is the monthly book club that I belong to. Dan wanted me to attend the Unitarian Church with him when we moved to New York 2018, so I hadn’t begun attending my local Quaker Meeting when the pandemic began, and haven’t yet gotten there.

All of which is to say, I need to get out more, to reverse the trend toward living my life more virtually than, as the kids say IRL (in real life). 

So why am I blogging about this? On social media? Connecting virtually? Because in thinking about that other variable, ikagai or sense of purpose, I realize just how much I miss hitting that “publish” button. As any of you who used to follow me know, I have been working on a book length manuscript and a collection of essays, some of which have been published but most of which have not, despite a few recent attempts. 

It’s easy to get discouraged, to think that the work involved in submitting or revising is a fool’s errand. Writing a blog post, sharing a rumination just because, without any need to make it fit into a larger body of work, reminds me of the fun part of writing, the satisfaction of touching a chord in someone else, of disciplining my thought processes so as to generate a new insight, perhaps on a mundane matter. 

When I write a blog post, I’m having a conversation, thinking about my reader, making myself a bit vulnerable, sharing something of myself, maybe even helping someone to think a new thought or have a giggle. And that is ikagai. A sustainable purpose, independent of the judgment of an editor, a sales rep, a reviewer. Even if no one reads my words, I have put them out in the universe, contributed in some small way to a record of our times, our concerns, our joys and sorrows.

I have no idea if I will live to be a hundred. Dan’s death from cancer certainly taught me about the fragility of life. I take nothing for granted. But, if I can remain as vibrant as the oldsters in the blue zone documentary, or even as cognitively and physically spry as my own father and grandfather were until their deaths in their late nineties, then why not hope? In the meantime, there’s no harm in eating well, staying fit, enjoying friends and family, contributing to my community, finally getting back to my Quaker roots and hitting that publish button, thereby cultivating my ikagai, on a more regular basis.