Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken objects with gold, silver or platinum. The idea being something is more beautiful when it has a history.
What I particularly like about this is something that you have poured parts of your life into, such as a ceramic dish, which you have served guests and friends at special events, was part of your life: in that you saw it every day, washed it, cleaned it, cared for it, if it falls and breaks it can be repaired and so you can add this to the story of your life, a beautiful treasured object now has even added value.
In the west we know what to do with beautiful objects when they are broken, we throw them away to become landfill if we have enough money, and just buy a brand new set of crockery.
We live in a totally disposable society. We throw away lounge suites when they are no longer fit our decor. We buy new jeans, new eyeshadow, new dresses, shoes and sunglasses. Every home has a trash can, every household knows when the trash is collected and weeks revolve around this phenomena. Whole industries exist based on throwing stuff away. Trash bags are bought just to make it easier to throw stuff out. We tear up the planet so we can get the oil to make the plastics only to throw them away. Industry makes all this packing that is often only used once, ONCE, before it is trash.
We are trashing the planet to throw stuff away in land-fill.
Some trash is designed to be recycled, so we can sort our trash, and feel a bit better about ourselves.Nature is kind of forgiving and will eventually break down the trash if it doesn't kill all marine life in the process.
But our throw away society doesn't stop and destruction of the planet, its atmosphere, our water or the biosphere, it extends to ourselves.
Industry throws away employees to raise stock prices, and doesn't care who's lives are shattered in the process. Banks foreclose on homes and possessions are confiscated because ownership is more important than the lives of those people the banks must make profits from.
And it even extends to our personal lives. Men sleep around with women and then dispose of them even if they get pregnant. Women have abortions because they can't afford to raise the kids by themselves, and people dispose of friends because we don't like what we are saying. Something that becomes increasingly easy with things like facebook and twitter. I know I am done throwing people away. Kids are tossed out of home when they become too troublesome for some parents.
And even worse we throw away whole classes of people. I was recently driving through the Mojave desert and saw random trailers with rusted out car chassis, an image repeated over and over again. I assume these were the homes of native Americans disposed of to places out of sight.
Some of us are tired of living in a disposable society. Some of us are so sick of the waste and the insane obsession with making a profit that some of us are looking at starting to see the way forward is to work in cooperation with the environment. We need sustainable farming, instead of the scorched earth approach to farming I saw in the California central valley where orchards are pulled up by the roots to exacerbate the dust bowl with the deep drought farmers are experiencing. We need to live in harmony with the environment, somewhat like the native Americans did before we destroyed their way of life. If they remember how they lived perhaps they can teach us how to live again in harmony with the earth.
This planet is our only home, we cannot throw it into landfill, we must take care of it and repair it when it hurts, we have a shared history with it. We must take care of our friends and not discard them. We all need a home and this is it. We cannot throw it away.
What I particularly like about this is something that you have poured parts of your life into, such as a ceramic dish, which you have served guests and friends at special events, was part of your life: in that you saw it every day, washed it, cleaned it, cared for it, if it falls and breaks it can be repaired and so you can add this to the story of your life, a beautiful treasured object now has even added value.
In the west we know what to do with beautiful objects when they are broken, we throw them away to become landfill if we have enough money, and just buy a brand new set of crockery.
We live in a totally disposable society. We throw away lounge suites when they are no longer fit our decor. We buy new jeans, new eyeshadow, new dresses, shoes and sunglasses. Every home has a trash can, every household knows when the trash is collected and weeks revolve around this phenomena. Whole industries exist based on throwing stuff away. Trash bags are bought just to make it easier to throw stuff out. We tear up the planet so we can get the oil to make the plastics only to throw them away. Industry makes all this packing that is often only used once, ONCE, before it is trash.
We are trashing the planet to throw stuff away in land-fill.
Some trash is designed to be recycled, so we can sort our trash, and feel a bit better about ourselves.Nature is kind of forgiving and will eventually break down the trash if it doesn't kill all marine life in the process.
But our throw away society doesn't stop and destruction of the planet, its atmosphere, our water or the biosphere, it extends to ourselves.
Industry throws away employees to raise stock prices, and doesn't care who's lives are shattered in the process. Banks foreclose on homes and possessions are confiscated because ownership is more important than the lives of those people the banks must make profits from.
And it even extends to our personal lives. Men sleep around with women and then dispose of them even if they get pregnant. Women have abortions because they can't afford to raise the kids by themselves, and people dispose of friends because we don't like what we are saying. Something that becomes increasingly easy with things like facebook and twitter. I know I am done throwing people away. Kids are tossed out of home when they become too troublesome for some parents.
And even worse we throw away whole classes of people. I was recently driving through the Mojave desert and saw random trailers with rusted out car chassis, an image repeated over and over again. I assume these were the homes of native Americans disposed of to places out of sight.
Some of us are tired of living in a disposable society. Some of us are so sick of the waste and the insane obsession with making a profit that some of us are looking at starting to see the way forward is to work in cooperation with the environment. We need sustainable farming, instead of the scorched earth approach to farming I saw in the California central valley where orchards are pulled up by the roots to exacerbate the dust bowl with the deep drought farmers are experiencing. We need to live in harmony with the environment, somewhat like the native Americans did before we destroyed their way of life. If they remember how they lived perhaps they can teach us how to live again in harmony with the earth.
This planet is our only home, we cannot throw it into landfill, we must take care of it and repair it when it hurts, we have a shared history with it. We must take care of our friends and not discard them. We all need a home and this is it. We cannot throw it away.
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