The Obsession of Hokusai, Who at Nearly 90 Said, “If Only I Had Five More Years, I Could Become a True Painter”

In this episode, we look at an interesting story about the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, who is said to have moved house 93 times during his life. The story connects to an earlier figure, the poet Teramachi Hyakuan, who famously set a life goal of moving 100 times.

While Hyakuan approached this as a kind of life plan, Hokusai’s constant moving seems to have come from a very different place — a life completely devoted to his art.

What makes Hokusai especially fascinating is something he reportedly said near the age of ninety:
that if he could live just five or ten more years, he might finally become a true painter.

Despite already being recognized as a master and creating works like Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, he still saw himself as unfinished.

This episode reflects on that mindset — the idea that growth never really stops, and that perhaps what keeps a person moving forward is the willingness to remain a work in progress.