Taking a closer look 🔬

Over the years, I have come to believe that art and science are no more separate disciplines than happiness and sadness are unrelated emotions – without one you cannot truly appreciate or experience the beauty and mystery of the other.

Yet it has been difficult to trace back to where the distinction between art and science came from. Nature has always invited humans to explore and understand its beauty and mystery, and the expression of our understanding has been documented throughout history in various forms. 

Origami is most commonly associated with the arts, but it is also strongly linked to mathematical science and engineering (see examples of things you can fold).

Many people talk about the distinction between craftsmanship and artistry. I think that it is also very difficult to separate one from the other.

Often we imagine the craftsman as someone who dedicates their entire life to the perfection of a technique or craft, while the artist is free to dabble in many different ways of expression.

In many disciplines, the masters make the simple look easy, and the impossible seem possible. But there is no such thing as a short-cut to success, and behind every master, there is the mastering of doing something simple well.

In Jiro Dreams of Sushi (二郎は鮨の夢を見る), one of the apprentice explains:

“After ten years they let you cook the eggs…”

Compare that to the thousands of sushi that a sushibot can churn out in a matter of minutes. 

But doing something simple well requires someone to possess the knowledge, skill, practice and perseverance. The machine is merely an encapsulation of this, and does not exist without the master craftsman or artist that has dedicated their time and energy into it. 

That which you cannot let go of is not worth holding onto

Shuhari (Kanji: 守破離 Hiragana: しゅはり) is a Japanese martial art concept which describes three stages of learning to mastery:

• shu (守) "protect", "obey" — following the traditional wisdom when learning the fundamentals.

• ha (破) "detach", "digress" — breaking with tradition to find exceptions to traditional wisdom and discover new approaches. 

• ri (離) "leave", "separate" — obtaining transcendence where all thoughts/moves are natural, and not constrained or defined by any traditional technique or wisdom.

The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition proposes that a student passes through five distinct stages, originally described as: novice, competence, proficiency, expertise, and mastery.

Each stage is based on four binary qualities that leans more toward one side of the scale or the other depending on your skill level:

• Recollection - non-situational (novice) ↔️ situational (competence, proficiency, expertise, mastery) 

• Recognition - decomposed (novice, competence) ↔️ holistic (proficiency, expertise, mastery)

• Decision - analytical (novice, competence, proficiency) ↔️ intuitive (expertise, mastery)

• Awareness - monitoring (novice, competence, proficiency, expertise) ↔️ absorbed (mastery)

Often a small detail can make all the difference. There are certainly things you can learn, and activities you can do to become more mindful, but be careful that you don't overload your mind full of things that look shiny and exciting. If something sounds too good to be true, like an app or book that will give you mindfulness, it probably is. The simple truth is that it is easy to know what to do, but much more difficult to be able to put in the effort required.

Only Requires Imagination, Grab Anything, Make it!

Just as there are no no known plant that displays autogenic bioluminescence (but that hasn't stopped companies like Aglaé from trying to create them), flower petals don't normally come in square shapes, unless you happen to come across Baku Maeda's work, but there are plenty of insects like the leaf cutter bee that is capable of cutting a circular or oval shape into a leaf.

When certain insects create a nest (or nidus) in a process known as nidification, it can also involve the folding or rolling of leaves into three dimensional structures. You can see how the six-spotted leaf-rolling weevil does this over the course of days.

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.”

William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Simple things should be simple, 

and complex things should be possible.”

Alan Kay

富士の雪慮生が夢を築かせたり

井原 西鶴 (Ihara Saikaku)

translation: Mt Fuji's snow Rosei of dream (object) was built

折り紙に山と谷あり鶴 帰る

河口仁志 (Kawaguchi Hitoshi)

translation: in folding paper

there are mountains and valleys . . .

cranes flying home

“Wishing to cultivate oneself, one first rectifies his heart (mind).

Wishing to rectify his heart, one seeks to be sincere in his thoughts.

Wishing to be sincere in his thoughts, one first extends to the utmost of his knowledge — such extension of knowledge lies in the investigation of things.”

Bruce Lee 李小龍 (Lee Jun-fan 李振藩)