the universe is in constant construction and deconstruction.

there are two things i'd like to share, for context:

1. at some point last year, i read Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren

2. a few months ago i deconstructed my hobonichi cousin (a journal) from it's original binding and placed the pages inside a rings binder.

these two things were not related at all. until they were. see, a few weeks after i posted my video about the process of deconstructing my journal, another creator I admire in my niche on youtube shared that she was inspired to do the same and, as i was geeking out about it, this thought of construction and deconstruction came to me. in this letter, i want to share a bit more about it with you.

Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren

there is a portion of this book, around page 42, that poses the question: “What is the universe like?" The answer Leonard Koren gives: "Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness”, and "while the universe destructs, it also constructs".

• does sand not come into existence by the erosion of rocks?

• does collage not use the cutting up of material to build a new piece of art?

• if you know about the history of quilts you'll know a lot of the time, quilts are made of fabric pieces from day to day items: old shirts, tattered blankets, fabric scraps.

• rain drops return to the river, swim to the sea, evaporate into the clouds.

the end of one thing, often means the beginning of the other and so forth. birth, life, death, rotting, sprouting. construction. deconstruction. recycle.

not a closed loop, a never ending spiral.

unraveling my hobonichi cousin was an action i took but it's also metaphor for this greater truth

there were a few reasons why i wanted to remove the binding from the hobonichi journal. and i know… as soon as someone hears about me having done this, the first feeling they experience is horror. the hobonichi journals are expensive journals and for the most part, when something costs you a good amount of money, you tend to be a bit more precious with it.

i wanted to stop being precious about it. what good does a journal do me if i cannot use it to help me expand?

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when it comes to the tools we use for our hobbies, our creative practice, our livelihoods.. these are things that serve us, not the other way around.

i am participating in a writing sprint, hosted by , and i shared the first draft of this letter on one of the forums there. Another member commented that he can easily make "little gods" of the tools he uses; an inversion of their purpose since those tools are meant to be serving him. i am also guilty of this, i'm sure many of you are as well. it's no wonder, especially when material things are so hard to aquire in this day an age for a lot of us.

but i was wanting more space. i was fearing the inevitable bulk of the journal growing from sticking things in, making it more difficult for me to live in, to use. i want my journals, more than anything, to feel lived in. i want them to be a materialization of a portion of my soul. that cannot happen if halfway through i'm stifled because i am uncomfortable writing in it.

so i removed the binding (albeit temporarily) so that now they are loose papers. i could do whatever i wanted because the constraints had been removed. now there is a freedom. the freedom to stop censoring myself for fear of running out of space, the freedom to forget about any uncomfortable expansion caused by tipping pages in, the freedom to add and remove pages as i desire.

what does it mean to allow something to exist outside of its original boundaries?

every day we live between and beside the boundaries of our own making and the expectations of the role we play in society. our journals, too, become an extension of this. we give them purpose, we set rules and we allow them to exist within those boundaries. sometimes the boundaries are set by others and sometimes they are of our own making.

but just because a journal was born bound to a specific form doesn't mean it needs to remain that way. and just because at one point it becomes unbound, doesn't mean its forced to forever exist as loose pages.

a deconstructed journal, a broken in pointe shoe

one habit or practice a lot of people don't understand is why ballerinas buy “perfect”, beautiful new pointe shoes only to destroy them according to their habits/desires/specific use case. i am not very knowledgable about the world of dance or ballerinas but recently learned (from a video by tiktok creator/ballerina called Lori1) that a lot of people get very upset because they don't understand why pointe shoes can't already be sold ready for use. but is it even logical to think that something so personal can be mass produced? odds are, even if deconstructed pointe shoes were sold, there would still be personalization and customization needed to get them ready for use by each ballerina.

Natalia Osipova, a prima ballerina, is known for obliterating her pointe shoes and a lot of people get angry about it. but are those people ballerinas? the outrage people experience because of the creative practices other people keep is something that should be studied in and of itself. as Lori mentions in the video linked in the footnotes, Natalia Osipova is a PRIMA ballerina, the highest rank within a professional dance company. she has every right to deconstruct her shoes to her delight and needs. she’s earned it through the harnessing of her skill.

the point im trying to make is: by deconstructing her shoes, so constructs beautiful movements.

"While the universe destructs, it also constructs. New things emerge from nothingness. But we can't really determine by cursory observation whether something is in the evolving or devolving mode."

there is more i would like to say about this, maybe i'll create a video as a companion to this letter, because this concept of transmutation/transformation/transfiguration and the devolving/evolving of the universe is one that i'm very interested in exploring.

i'll leave you with this quote from Leonard Koren's book. It's one I think about often:

"As dusk approaches in the hinterlands, a traveler ponders shelter for the night. He notices tall rushes growing everywhere, so he bundles an armful together as they stand in the field, and knots them at the top. Presto, a living grass hut.

The next morning, before embarking on another day's journey, he unknots the rushes and presto, the hut de-constructs, disappears, and becomes a virtually indistinguishable part of the larger field of rushes once again.

The original wilderness seems to be restored, but minute traces of the shelter remain. A slight twist or bend in a reed here and there. There is also the memory of the hut in the mind of the traveler — and in the mind of the reader reading this description."

my call to action is simple, do not treat your journals (or any tool you use in your specific field) as a finished piece of art prematurely. allow for the ebb and flow, allow for experimentation, allow for feelings of today to manifest as they want to in the moment.

and in the specific case of our journals, are they not there to be an extension of us? please allow them to be. do not make little gods of them, they are there to serve you.

Footnotes

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