If it ain’t broke. . .

At some point, we have all caused problems for ourselves by being unsatisfied with something for reasons that weren’t clearly defined, and then deciding that whatever thing we were unsatisfied with needed to be fixed. Usually, that causes more problems because in our misguided attempt to fix the thing, we end up breaking it and making it more unsatisfying than it originally was.

The main problem with this is that our original reason for being unsatisfied wasn’t clearly defined, so we didn’t know what we were trying to fix. Naturally, attempting to fix something when you don’t know what it actually is rarely works.

Kintsugi is a way to fix things that are definitely broken, and it is a way to fix them with such elegance and and effort that they’re not really fixed once the entire kintsugi process is completed.

They are better.

One of the things that I most enjoy making with kintsugi is vases. Flower vases, for reasons that I will go more deeply into in the future, are, to me, one of the objects that most clearly relate to the philosophy of wabisabi, finding the strength and beauty in imperfection, even before kintsugi becomes involved with them.

So, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if it ain’t great, why not make it better?