On Custom and Fads

by Chōkōdō Shujin

Chōkōdō Shujin argues that custom is the living form of life, shaped by individual actions and environmental responses, distinguishing it from the formless, transient nature of fads.

In a sense, custom is everything in life. In other words, every living thing has a form, and life is a form, but a custom has a form because of what it does. Of course, a custom is not simply a spatial form. The simple spatial form is dead. Custom, on the contrary, is a living form, and as such, it is not simply spatial, but at the same time it is temporal. A life-like form emerges when something that moves in time simultaneously stops in space. Custom is not mechanical, but vital. It is related to the essential inner action of life, which is to create form.