Materia Book Club December: Kokoro and Returning to Inner Alignment
The book Kokoro, which we read in December as part of Materia Book Club, opened space for a rarely honest conversation about how we live today, how we make decisions, and how we spend our time. Its strength isn’t in big theses, but in quietly revealing the everyday compromises we make with ourselves.
Our everyday distance from ourselves may be best reflected in the fact that we spend most of our lives in a consant motion. In that constant rush—something we’re writing about more and more—we move from obligation to obligation, rarely stopping to ask what we truly think, what we feel, and where we are in relation to our own inner compass.
If you want a gentle way to check what your inner voice is saying, read Kako poslušati sebe.
Conversations with others, but also the time we spend alone with ourselves, often become just another item on the to-do list—something to “get done”.
That’s exactly why Kokoro, which we read in Materia Book Club, feels almost subversive in its simplicity.
At first glance quiet, unobtrusive, and reserved, it actually shook all of us—and reminded us of something we forgot somewhere along the way: gratitude, being present, joy and tranquility should be, and are, the basic coordinates of a meaningful life. And yet, because of daily obligations, we often don’t even think about them.
For extra inspiration, take a look at our Power of gratitude article.
Beth Kempton, an author many rightly call a favourite, uses an apparently simple—yet irresistibly honest—narrative structure to open a space where our fears, patterns, worries, and inner contradictions are reflected. Everything is condensed into that book and calls us to reflect. It doesn’t pretend to solve life; it gently slows it down and returns it to the hands of the one living it.
Yes, it’s easy to write about a calmer, simpler life while reality buries us daily under emails, messages, notifications, and “important” events.
Still, a meaningful life isn’t reserved for ideal circumstances. It can be sought even in the middle of a crowd—in short minutes of pause, and in actions not done on autopilot, but consciously. Whether it’s writing an email, taking a walk, cooking, or talking, the key is to be present in what you’re doing, rather than already being in your next task.
As a small beginning, our guide Meditation for beginners can be a good support.
What is Kokoro, really?
Kokoro is, as Beth Kempton explains in the book, an intelligent heart—a place where reason, feeling, and experience meet.
It carries our shaped, inner wisdom into the world in the present moment—through subtle sensory impulses. Kokoro is a source of knowledge we carry within us, one that doesn’t rely on social pressure, expectations, or other people’s opinions.
In other words, it isn’t guided by what we “should” do, but by what is true (for us). It works beneath the noise of everyday life, beyond the need to prove ourselves, compare ourselves, and seek constant external validation. That’s how our most authentic part acts, in its essence. It’s that quiet instinct that appears when we know we maybe shouldn’t have accepted an invitation, a job, or a life direction. Kokoro doesn’t shout—it whispers. And often, we are the ones who decide not to hear that whisper.
If it’s easier for you to hear yourself on paper, the article How writing a diary can chang your life and our Daily Agenda x Well-being Diary can make a beautiful, practical duo.
Grounding Kokoro in everyday life
Kokoro doesn’t appear in big, declarative decisions—ones we later retell or rationally justify.
It’s a feeling that arises in small, almost imperceptible moments we usually skip: in a brief sense of discomfort before we accept yet another obligation; in fatigue that doesn’t come from the amount of work, but from living systematically against our own rhythm.
These are moments when the body and awareness already know something that the mind only tries to explain afterwards.
Our Kokoro acts very quietly in such toxic moments. Its power is precisely in that restraint.
While most decisions today are made out of habit, fear, or social adaptation, Kokoro acts from inner alignment, from a place that is neither an emotional impulse nor a rational calculation, but a blend of experience, intuition, and presence.
Ignoring it is extremely easy, because it doesn’t punish immediately. The consequences don’t show up right away; they accumulate: as a feeling of scatteredness, as chronic fatigue, as a life that looks full on the outside but feels unconvincing on the inside.
Kokoro doesn’t insist on attention, but it patiently notes every distance from ourselves. And that’s exactly why returning to it (to ourselves) doesn’t require drastic cuts, but the ability to hear again what has been present all along—only suppressed by the noise of everyday information.
Constant activity is not proof of meaning
The logic of constant availability—in which the value of time is assessed by 100% “usefulness”, not by the experience it carries—reduces productivity to more than work and turns it into a measure of personal worth: being busy means being relevant; being slow means being suspicious.
In that framework, silence is experienced as emptiness, and emptiness as a threat.
Reading Kokoro this December reminded us of the crack in that way of measuring time and productivity. Our heart—Kokoro—doesn’t deny the necessity of action, but it questions the automatism with which we respond to every demand. It was a reminder we should put on the fridge: speed is not the same as clarity, and constant activity is not proof of meaning.
Opposite the imperative of nonstop efficiency, Kokoro suggests a different orientation: action that comes from inner alignment, not from the fear of falling behind.
It’s the decision not to join every dynamic just because it’s offered, and not to accept every role just because it’s socially recognized.
It’s a quiet but consistent resistance to the logic that measures life by the quantity of what’s done, rather than the quality of presence with which it’s done. The point isn’t that those activities stop—because in modern society that’s truly impossible—the point is to become aware of them, to move through daily routines consciously, and to change them with our presence.
Time, transience, and awareness of mortality
One of the strongest layers of this book is the author’s relationship to time and transience. Beth Kempton reminds us of a simple but often suppressed truth: time isn’t infinite, and life isn’t a rehearsal.
Awareness of the transience of everything isn’t meant to scare us, but to clear our life. It takes away the illusion that we can postpone everything and returns us to what truly matters—separating what’s essential from noise.
The moment we truly face transience, a part of unnecessary hurry disappears, and so does a part of false security. The questions change: we no longer ask how much we achieved, but how present we were; not how much we did, but how we lived.
The author doesn’t avoid pain—she places it at the center of thinking about a meaningful life. Decisions we make solely to avoid suffering, as well as decisions we never make for the same reason, gradually narrow the space of experience. And experience—along with all its risks—is what makes life full.
The more we love, the heavier and more painful loss becomes. But that pain isn’t proof of a wrong choice—it’s proof of depth. Loss doesn’t cancel the value of love; it is its inevitable cost.
Kokoro reminds us that a meaningful life isn’t measured by how much pain we avoided, but by the willingness to live with an open heart—consciously and bravely—despite transience.
In that sense, time can have a different rhythm, even a different feeling of ending, if we stop chasing it and start experiencing it.
When life isn’t lived in fear of its end, but in full awareness of its finiteness, every gesture, relationship, and moment gains greater meaning.
