The scale of things

Pursue something, anything long enough and with enough attention and it will start to affect your thinking. What I mean is your interactions with the world often go through many layers; experience, influence, emotions, health, traditions etc. But talking physically, where you actually manipulate objects and learn from those reactions, that is possibly the strongest factor. I`ve worked construction and learned about structures, supports, joining materials, of reading a building`s exterior to understand the interior. I remember I began seeing in every structure a method of adapting materials to suit the need . I think this is something architects excel at, uniting need with limited space with available materials. Stay in construction long enough and you can feel the major supports of any building, glance at a piece of furniture and read the conclusions the wood-maker came to when finishing it. I also spent time as a specialty gardener. Creating various types of designs, each an adaption of the environment it was in. It was not natural work, One had to work to shape the plants to specific forms. All elements had a specific place, a place that if wrong would immediately draw the eye`s attention. One had to consider the seasons, temperature and health of plants before making the smallest cut. Doing this work day in day out started to make me notice the greenery of our cities. Again one could notice at a glance the intentions of a garden design or skill of a pruner by the shape of a tree. Stare long enough and you start to see the city as a large scale urban garden. Some cities have tightly controlled plans while some are just controlled chaos.

After pursuing swordsmanship, I can read in a person`s movement the level of skill, dedication, thought or personal style. It difficult to pinpoint one thing but often I see how well the body flows from one posture to the next. Often it seems knees are stiff or shoulders too straight etc that draw my attention first. After, one can notice the repetitions of sword movements or footwork. Although hard to describe it is the ones that have a personal touch, movement that suits a personal style or body type that impresses me the most. Its a sign that one is seeking to use the whole body to express the sword.

It is this scale of things that so interest me. If we as humans always utilize this small-large scale adaption, in things like manufacture, horticulture, economy, politics etc what else can I infer from only seeing one side of the scale? I think these are thoughts trying to explore the idea of inter-relatedness, that if you disregard the size difference we can reach a base unit from which to solve the equation.