Pass the wabi-sabi please

For quite some time this site’s tag line has been “ephemeral words for creative readers.” To me, that means that there’s no real permanence to the ideas or advice contained here. It’s all merely words of temporary interest to people who may think as I do.

You can read my posts at any time and in any sequence… exactly when a post becomes interesting to you is not necessarily when I wrote it. It’s interesting to watch referrals and the ebb and flow of what people want to learn from what I’ve had to say over the years. It’s even more interesting to see what they wanted to learn that I didn’t write but somehow they ended up on my site anyway.

The Japanese have a philosophy about things that have transient or imperfect qualities — wabi-sabi. In wabi-sabi, the true worth and inherent beauty of something comes from knowing that it is never complete, never perfect, never permanent.

Posts on this site are small examples of wabi-sabi. Perhaps there are small spelling or grammatical errors that I did not catch. Perhaps a thought is incomplete or that the point of the post ended up going nowhere. That’s OK. Part of a post’s charm and worth is those imperfections and the possibility that comments to the posts will be able to complement those original ideas.

Never complete, never perfect, never permanent.

I also try to embrace wabi-sabi in my designs, but that’s something I have a harder time achieving. Wabi-sabi is more than just applying a weathered look to your design. It’s more on par with putting something of yourself into that design knowing that it is never finished and will not last forever.

I try too hard to make things timeless and perfect… most designers do. That’s the elusive prize we seek. But, perhaps, if we concentrate less on trying to create permanent perfection we’ll create better work that has greater impact within the short amount of time it was meant to exist.