© School Of Life (via YouTube)
Wabi-sabi refers to the beauty of the impermanent, the imperfect, the rustic and the melancholy. It derives not from the love of invincibility, youth and flawnessness, but from a respect for what is passing, fragile, slightly broken and modest.
I keep coming back to this essential principle of Japanese philosophy.
© NOW (via YouTube)
Tell them you have a new project. It will never be finished.
— from the poem The Art of Disappearing by Naomi Shihab
But one of the next most powerful things he created for himself is the view that Everything is a Practice.
Man, what a ridiculously valuable way to frame our lives!
Every difficulty that comes up is simply something to practice with.
Every frustration with another person is a practice ground, and the other person becomes your teacher. Bow to them with gratitude!
This idea goes hand in hand with the concept of the so-called “Don’t Know Mind” from Korean Zen, as well as the previously mentioned Japanese philosophical ideas and concepts I admire so much.
On that note:
Currently, I’m learning about simple Zen habits by reading the wonderful book The Practice of Not Thinking by former monk Ryunosuke Koike, a little book well worth reading (and thinking about).
© Craig Mod / Carina Fushimi (via YouTube)
A lovely short documentary on the Japanese craftsmanship involved in the making of a photo book called Kissa by Kissa. Besides The Craft of “Kissa by Kissa” — Bookmaking in Japan, Craig Mod has a lot more unpretentious videos from Japan to discover on his YouTube-Channel.
Watching those makes me dream about travelling the world myself again —and hopefully Japan someday, too.
Tokoro is used to describe the location or site of something, but it is also used to describe a state of being. In Japan, the idea of place is indistinguishable from the historical, cultural, social, and other connections contained within it. The idea of tokoro therefore implies the idea of context, as the place is inevitably connected with all the activities around it.
Being a designer, space obviously plays an existential role in my professional life, so naturally, I’m always happy to broaden my horizon with new ways of thinking about this subject matter. Like with Sekki, Wabi-Sabi, Ikigai and Shikake the Japanese have some interesting perspectives to offer.¹
Deriving from the foundational traditions of Shinto and Buddhism, the Japanese idea of space does not only seek to describe spatial set-ups but tends to focus on the connection between its occupants as well as the interplay of humans, the environment, and society at large.
The essay The Japanese words for “space” could change your view of the world gives us western readers a quick overview of the four different Japanese words for space called tokoro (所), ma (間), wa (和) and ba (場), providing a very different and therefore very interesting thinking about this topic. Not only but especially for designers an article worth reading.
¹ If you want to learn more about the Japanese concepts mentioned, I recommend the following books as an entry point:
- Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life by Beth Kempton
- The Little Book of Ikigai: The secret Japanese way to live a happy and long life by Ken Mogi
- Shikake: The Japanese Art of Shaping Behavior Through Design by Naohiro Matsumura
qz.com/1181019/the-japanese-words-for-space-could-change-your-view-of-the-world
Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.
© Yuki Kawae (via YouTube)
Because we all need less noise.
I could watch this all day: Meditative video by Yuki Kawae exploring different patterns in his minimal Zen garden. Tempted to use the practical tips from his website to build my own little Zen garden now.
© RJ Bruni / Inmist Media House (via Vimeo)
A story about a ceramic artist, Cathy Terepocki, and her journey to find purpose within her work. When most artists are seeking to further put themselves at the forefront of their work Cathy made a conscious decision to actually remove her personal touch.
I always enjoy watching craftsmanship, especially if it’s captured with such a pleasing –and extremly well-suited– granular and tactile aesthetic like in this beautiful short called Shared Earth.
Nature Track is a podcast that opens a window on the beautiful sounds of the Australian wilderness. […] Each unique track is carefully recorded on location in a different part of Australia by the ABC’s nature specialist Ann Jones.
The beautiful podcast Nature Track by ABC Radio collects different sounds from Australian nature (so no music or humans), which reminds me a lot of ‘Sanctuaries of Silence’ and the amazing work of Gordon Hempton I’ve mentioned before.
The radio station furthermore has another podcast –among many others– called ‘Off Track’, which combines equally soothing sounds of nature with fascinating stories of environmental science recorded in the outdoors.
Both series are great alternatives for the very handy background noise app noisli, that I’ve been using occasionally for some time now.
At times of change, the learners are the ones who will inherit the world, while the knowers will be beautifully prepared for a world which no longer exists.
Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous. Fast and small instructs slow and big by accrued innovation and by occasional revolution. Slow and big controls small and fast by constraint and constancy. Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power.
Interesting essay by Stewart Brand for the Journal of Design and Science, outlining the strengths of a construct called “Pace Layering”.
Even though he focuses on human society and a six-layered structure (Fashion/art, Commerce, Infrastructure, Governance, Culture, Nature) as the basis of a healthy civilization for the most part of Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning, Brand proposes all dynamic systems to be based on a structure made of multiple layers of different pace and size in order to be robust and durable.
In design –no matter the specific field, but especially in software and systems design, of course, we come across and/or form a lot of dynamic systems with the need to be adaptable, so pace layering might provide a valuable concept to build upon.