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Jounral - "Life Recycling"
This blog is discusses the cycle of life. I start with the most ancient Latvian metaphysical ideas and improvise from there. In ancient Latvian verses, "dainas", life and death are not considered opposite poles. Instead they are just points passed in a continuous cycle.The most ancient metaphysical ideas are krustošanās and pārvēršanās. Krustošanās means crossing. When two entities cross, something new can form. Pārvēršanās means changing, or literally translated, re-versioning. It is the concept of re-birthing, or life recycling. I find this concept fascinating and pleasing, so it is my topic today. The re-cycling of life is illustrated in poem "Taureņi" (Butterflies), by Imants Ziedonis. Butterflies < animation in pop up window A larva crawls up onto treetop, and turns into a butterfly. Butterfly: Who does this castle belong too? (Kas tās pilis pieder?) Cat: This is Spring Castle, and maybe it will soon burn. (Tās ir Pavasara pilis, un drīz varbūt nodegs.) Butterfly: While it still has not burned, we can live it up. (Kamēr vel nedegs, mēs tur padzīvosim.) Cat: But when it burns down, left will be only ashes. Only ashes. (Bet ka nodegs, paliks tikai pelni. Tikai pelni.) Butterfly: All these colors in our wings, are also only ashes, that came from burned castles. (Visas šīs krāsas uz mūsu spārniem, tie ari ir tikkai pelni, no pilīm kas ir nodegusas.) In following video, one life enters another. The later gets more strength and grows, in all its colors. The one life becomes life food for the other, all part of Nature's recycling balance. This gives the death of our bodies value. Today, some engineers, designers and artists develop ideas from concept of recycling or rebirthing. This is opposite to conventional thinking, where products have a life expectancy, manufactured at a certain date, and expired at a certain date. My first example is in engineering. The following video describes a 3D home printer. The engineers want to create a printer that procreates itself. The concept of rebirthing. To find solutions, they are asking themselves questions about recycling. Death never happens. The author, Adrian Bowyer, starts by explaining symbiosis in nature, as the paradigm to build the machine and its distribution. RepRap from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo. My second example is funny> Artist Theo Jansen builds kinetic sculptures which use recycled energies to move. He calls his creatures "strandbeests" and is exited that their "genetic code" can be made with recyclable 3D printers... and so nature's cycle continues :o)
In summary, instead of thinking of life and death in existentialist terms, we can think of it as a cycle. Recycle, rebirth, convert, reversion etc.. are all the processes of the life cycle. When innovating, this paradigm can also be used. Ideas founded on the natural cycle of nature. The closer we innovate based on our understanding of natural laws, the better our success. blog by Anda, May 2011 Jounrals Home |