The reasons for this are unknown, but it has been conjectured that it was either due to his unhappy love for the daughter of the prefect of Iga Province, or his mourning over the death of Emperor Go-Uda that caused his transformation.

Themes of the essays include the beauty of nature, the transience and impermanence of life, traditions, friendship, and other abstract concepts.

The work was written in the zuihitsu ("follow-the-brush") style, a type of stream-of-consciousness writing that allowed the writer's brush to skip from one topic to the next, led only by the direction of thoughts.

Some are brief remarks of only a sentence or two; others recount a story over a few pages, often with discursive personal commentary added.

Aside from his magnum opus Tsurezuregusa, another of his works is A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees, which is a compilation of reflections and essays of his thoughts, by which it primarily discusses about the fleeting pleasures of life.