2007  February 12

The Aesthetics of Failure

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While traveling in Asia my tummy and eyes may have eaten too well.

In a small shop in Nishi-Nippori, Tokyo I was treated with the most delicious soba noodles I have ever tasted. As we were leaving, I noted the solid wooden tabletop with cracks that had been mended with large reinforcing pieces of a completely different kind of wood. Perhaps due to the deliciousness of the soba I hadn't noticed the striking law5 as visually posed, but as I departed it was what screamed out.

Defects are normally stamped out in a six-sigma world. If it ain't perfect, throw it out. Perhaps as you get older, you are more tolerant of how the world presents its law9-s around you. And maybe it is then you can begin to see the beauty of that which could be dismissed as invalid or otherwise handicapped, to emerge as entirely more relevant than if it were 100.000% perfect.

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Copyright 2005 - 2014, John Maeda