A Tale for the Time Being Analysis: To Live for the Time Being

The final third of Ozeki’s novel showcases the climatic growth of Ozeki’s featured characters, allowing her to emphasize the prominent point made by Dogen Zenji: “If you understand time as only passing, then you do not understand the time being.” (Ozeki, 259) The final third places the main characters, Ruth and Nao, as well as their counterparts Oliver and Haruki #2, in the peaks of their emotional turmoil. Nao is dealing with her own issues with identity and self-worth, while her father struggles with his shame and consciousness. Ruth is struggling with her motivation and feeling stuck in the past, while Oliver deals with his own confidence and the loss of his cat, Pesto. These moments divulge into the end of Nao’s diary, in which Jiko is on her death bed, and marks the moment of development for these characters.

Nao makes the realization on her way to Jiko’s temple that “This is what now feels like.” (Ozeki, 341). In Jiko’s final moments, she writes a ‘poem’: the Japanese character “to live” and tells Nao and her father, “For now. For the time being.” (Ozeki, 362). These moments are her tipping points for growth. Her perspective shifts from living in the past and denying the future, to living in the now, taking steps towards something without thinking too far ahead. It’s after this change in Nao that her diary reaches its end, promising a hopeful future for the young girl and marking Ruth’s moment of growth. Alongside Oliver’s help she comes to the realization that she will never have all of the answers, and finds contentment in the pleasures of her own time being, and that there is excitement in not knowing, yet remaining curious. 

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