When Four Seasons Became Two: The 72 Microseasons and the Vanishing Japanese Heart
What are Japan's 72 microseasons, and why do they matter now? Takahiro Mitsui, a Japanese philosopher born in 1991, writing every Friday from inside Japan and outside academia, answers from his own essays: the turning of the four seasons shaped the Japanese heart for some ten thousand years, and now that we live in a climate of just two seasons that heart is vanishing in parallel. This is not a calendar explainer but what the seasons did to the heart, from a thinker alive today.
Not a calendar: a heart
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (The heart is shaped by its seasons, 2024-12-27): the biggest change of the year was the disappearance of the four seasons; a climate of two seasons is erasing the Japanese heart that ten thousand years of turning seasons shaped.
Looking back over the past year, the biggest change of all, I feel, was the disappearance of the four seasons.
Since the end of the last glacial period, the turning of the four seasons has continued for some ten thousand years, slowly and patiently shaping the Japanese heart over the millennia. Yet now that we live in a climate of just two seasons—endless stretches of scorching heat followed by stretches of bitter cold—it is no coincidence that the Japanese heart, nurtured across history and culture, is vanishing just as rapidly in parallel.
What the 72 microseasons are
Takahiro Mitsui's field report (Living in step with the seasons without being taught, 2025-03-21): the year is divided into twenty-four solar terms and seventy-two microseasons of roughly five days each, named for natural phenomena so that farmers could weave them into daily life.
The delicate calendrical system that divides the year into twenty-four periods, and then further into seventy-two "seasons" of roughly five days each, is known as nijushi sekki (二十四節気, the twenty-four solar terms) and shichijuni ko (七十二候, the seventy-two microseasons).
There are seventy-two such markers across the year. Because they name natural phenomena in poetic yet unmistakable terms, they were easy for farmers to grasp and weave into everyday life.
Cherry blossoms of the west, autumn leaves of the east
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (The heart is shaped by its seasons, 2024-12-27): western Japan is losing its cherry blossoms to brutal summers and eastern Japan its autumn leaves to severe winters, a profound turning point for the country.
Under today's dramatic shift in climate, however, western Japan is losing its cherry blossoms to brutal summers, while eastern Japan is losing its autumn leaves to severe winters. The disappearance of the cherry blossoms and autumn foliage that once stood as emblems of these two distinct cultural spheres marks, in itself, a profound turning point for Japan.
For readers who feel time has lost its texture
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (The heart is shaped by its seasons, 2024-12-27): four seasons gave us the inner spaciousness to savor each season, and in a world of extreme heat and cold that spaciousness of heart disappears.
Having four seasons gave us the inner spaciousness to savor each season, to observe its changes closely, and to live alongside nature. In a new environment of extreme heat and cold, however, that spaciousness of heart disappears.
Even the turning of the seasons outside the window has begun to feel somehow hurried. Has that happened to you lately?
Winter is for looking inward
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Winter is for looking inward, 2025-12-09): winter is a season when all creation subdues its activity, and it is the time best suited to introspection.
Winter, after all, is a season when all creation subdues its activity to store up primordial energy. It is the time best suited to introspection.
The old calendar is a distillation of wisdom
Takahiro Mitsui's field report (Culture cannot outlast its people, 2025-08-10): the lunar calendar in Japan was first and foremost an agricultural almanac, and its cautions are as valid now as ever.
The lunar calendar in Japan was first and foremost an agricultural almanac, intimately bound to the rhythms of peasant life.
Most people today pay no mind to the old calendar, yet it is a distillation of historical wisdom, and the cautions it offers are as valid now as ever.
Essays to read
- The heart is shaped by its seasons — What happens to a culture when seasons change? Takahiro Mitsui argues the heart is shaped by its climate, and four seasons becoming two shrink culture's room.
- Living in step with the seasons without being taught — How do the Japanese live in tune with the seasons? Takahiro Mitsui's thesis: Japanese live in step with the seasons without being taught, and the way of reading nature held for a thousand years in the twenty-four solar terms and seventy-two microseasons is not erased.
- Culture cannot outlast its people — Why does an old calendar still guide? Takahiro Mitsui holds it distills historical wisdom, and the culture it served cannot outlast the people who sustain it.
- True independence is play — Why do I feel unfulfilled even though I have everything? Information dilutes the I, Takahiro Mitsui argues of feeling unfulfilled, and a life begins again by casting off what is unneeded.
- Winter is for looking inward — Why does winter ask us to look inward? Takahiro Mitsui says the further outward we travel for answers, the wider the hollow within grows — the shrines that call you, not the ones you choose.
- Project 2049, Vol.0 (free in full) — begin here; Project 2049 continues every Friday