recycling
Turn them into cycles
A side that goes unrecognized
The mirror-image economy
When we enter the world of refuse and waste, we cross over into a mirror-image economy. In the "normal" world, we pay to acquire things; on the other side of the looking glass, we pay to get rid of them. Junk isn't merely worthless; it has negative value.
A chemical engineer once told me about a recent improvement in a manufacturing process; by fine-tuning a chemical synthesis he had increased the yield of a certain commodity from 98 percent to 99 percent. I congratulated him, but I couldn't help remarking that this seemed like a rather paltry improvement. "Ah, you miss the important point," he said. "The amount of waste goes from 2 percent down to 1 percent. It's cut in half. We save tremendously on disposal costs."
Hints towards a non-extractive economy
An Article by Matt WebbThere’s a movement called the circular economy which is about designing services that don’t include throwing things away. There is no “away.”
A non-extractive economy is going to look very different to today’s economy. These points feel opposed somehow but they are part of the same movement:
- With CupClub, it’s all about infrastructure.
- With the battery-free Game Boy, it’s untethered from infrastructure: once manufactured, no nationwide electricity grid is required to play.
We’ll need better tools to track and measure. There will be new patterns for new types of services. New technologies to build new products. New language. So it’s fascinating seeing the pieces gradually come together.
A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics
Listings and jottings
Most likely to succeed in defining Japanese aesthetics is a net of associations composed of listings or jottings, connected intuitively, that fills in a background and renders the subject visible.
Process vs. product
...more concerned with process than with product, with the actual construction of a self than with self-expression.
We have been given a standard
We have been given a standard to use. It is there, handy daily: things as they are, or Nature itself. This makes good sense, the only sense really—Nature should be our model.
Merely ornate
There is nothing merely ornate about nature: every branch, twig, or leaf counts.
No words to describe
If there is no term for something, it might be thought that the commodity is of small importance. But it is just as likely that this something is of such importance that it is taken for granted, and thus any conveniences, like words, for discussing it are unnecessary.
Mimesis
Realism played small part in the realities of life as experienced by the traditional Japanese artist. The expectations of the artist's cultivated sensibilities did not demand mimesis. Rather, indication, suggestion, simplicity took the place of any fidelity to outward appearance.
Cherry blossoms
Cherry blossoms are to be preferred not when they are at their fullest but afterward, when the air is thick with their falling petals and with the unavoidable reminder that they too have had their day and must rightly perish.
Immortality, in that it is considered at all, is to be found through nature's way. The form is kept though the contents evaporate.
Wabi-sabi
Sabi is an aesthetic term, rooted in a given concern. It is concerned with chronology, with time and its effects, with product.
Wabi is a more philosophical concept, a quality not attached merely to a given object. It is concerned with manner, with process, with direction.
How painful life here would be
A mountain village
Where there is not even hope
Of a visitor:
If not for the loneliness,
How painful life here would be.— Saigyo (Donald Keene translation)