Your Origami is Nothing Short of a Miracle

When I was younger I loved to fold origami. Origami - the Japanese art of paper-folding - enthralls people the world over. It continually amazes me how artists can take a two-dimensional object and make it into something amazing.

How is this done? A two dimensional object cannot stand on its own. It has only two dimensions - length and width. Of itself it can do nothing. In order to become something, it must be broken. It must be creased and folded and unfolded and creased more. Soon an amazing pattern emerges. For every origami model, there is a unique crease pattern. (see this essay for more on crease patterns)
This crease pattern (below) is for the origami bird above (the crane).

By breaking the paper, the artist creates a new model. The artist has transformed the two-dimensional paper into a three-dimensional work of art. This has numerous scientific applications. Think about how parachutes are folded, or airbags in your car, or even flower petals inside the bud. Anywhere there is a fold, science looks to nature to see how to do it more effectively.
When you look at the human brain, it is the folds that make the human brain so powerful. Science cannot explain all of this yet. A recent TED talk by Alexander Tsarias mentioned an ongoing study of developing brains by doing longitudinal scans from the moment the child is born every six months until the child is six years old. (see approximately 8:35 in the video) This study will help science understand better how the folding of the brain improves cognition and allows for higher brain functions, including memory.
Folding is essential to establishing a higher existence. Consider how each of us start out in life. We are helpless, we cannot do anything on our own. We have only two dimensions - HERE and NOW.
As we go forward in time, we are shaped by our experiences. We are shaped by those who nurture us. We are shaped by our hardships. Each experience is a crease in our lives. We move forward with simple crease patterns at first. As we are transformed to be able to stand on our own and explore our world, we obtain experience that shapes us further.
Growing and experiencing life creases us beyond our understanding. Each day we are being shaped. Some of it may be of our own doing. Some of it is clearly out of our hands. The memories we have contribute to this crease pattern of our lives.
There are primary folds and secondary folds in the crease patterns. In our lives there are primary folds. These seem to be the ones beyond our control that break us and bend us in ways that we would never choose for ourselves. Then there are secondary folds. These are choices that we make to shape our actions and attitudes.
Through all of this shaping and folding, we move from the two-dimensional helpless babe into a higher-dimensional person that can not only live in the HERE and NOW, but can also remember the past and imagine the future. The imaginary world becomes accessible to us. If we can imagine it we can create it.

Imagine if you could unfold your life. What would the crease pattern look like? What are the primary folds? What secondary folds have you intentionally created to supplement the primary folds? What does your life look like as art?

Moral: Each fold comes from trial and hardship. We have to be broken to stand up on our own. Your origami is a miracle. Step back and see.

Defend Yourself. What Springs to Mind?

If you are called to give a quote or story that has stuck with you, and formed you into the person that you are today, what would you choose?
For myself, there are stories that have inspired me, entertained me, and stuck with me over the years. Two in particular that spring to mind are the science fiction novel, Ender's Game, and the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Roger Rabbit claimed, when he was handcuffed to Eddie Valiant:

"I'm a toon. Toons are supposed to make people laugh. Sometimes it's the only weapon we have."

Even when Roger was at his lowest, he was still true to what he was. There is nothing that could change his nature. Not only did he know his true nature, but he knew that he knew. He knew that he had to be true to himself and what he was, even when it made Eddie angry. Love him or hate him, Roger Rabbit was true to his nature.

 I read this book when I was ten years old. I wasn't much older than Ender Wiggins (the hero of the book) when I read it. The story was exciting. It was about childhood that I could see from my own life. Reading the story as an adult, I see things in a much different light. What impacted me most in this story was when Ender went to the Bugger homeworld. There he saw elements from a game he had played back in battle school. He recognized them in such a way that nobody else would have seen them. They were left as a message for him.
This still gives me the goosebumps when I think about it. As a ten-year old reading that idea for the first time, that something out there could be watching me, creating things that are meaningful to me, but not to anyone else ... it changed me. That idea that a story could be watching me. That changed the way that I looked at books. It changed what a story could be. That idea opened my mind.
Few stories have had the effect that Ender's Game had on me. There are some stories that speak to me directly. Was it the author speaking directly to me? Or was it the author tapping into some vast cosmic music that I also happen to have inside my head? I wonder. And that sense of wonder makes the journey fascinating.
The moral of this post is:

Be true to who you truly are. And watch for meaning in life that is put in place for you alone. There are signs that only you can see, which will lead you to words that only you can say. Be true.

What about you? What stories have made you? Comments are welcome.

*For more from Orson Scott Card, visit his website. His review of Ender's Game can be found here.

If You Understand What I am Saying, Blink Twice

There is a trust that is extended from the audience to the creator of a work of art - be it written, painted or filmed. The audience trusts that the creator is laying out something that is worth thinking about. They don't want to waste their time.
As an author and a writer, there are things that I believe. 

• I believe that making information accessible and understandable to the reader will encourage lifelong learning and lead to intellectual and creative independence from the shackles of ignorance. 
• I believe that stories stick in our minds better than facts. What we see in story becomes us - what we have seen, what we believe about ourselves, and perhaps what what we want to become. That feeling becomes the story. The emotional connection draws us into the story.

Story sticks long after the details may fade from memory. I draw this conclusion from two things - the organization of scripture, and the vapidity of various Hollywood and pop culture productions. Scripture is doctrine and stories. The doctrine guides us, and the stories give us examples of how to apply the doctrine. Much of what Hollywood gives us is amoral and gives us boundless examples of how to apply such behavior. What is the motivation? Are they good stewards of your trust?
Story changes people. A person will remember a story even if they don’t remember exact facts and figures. Academic History has been changed to just facts and figures so that people don’t know the stories. What were once fairy tales with moral underpinnings have now become over-merchandised cartoons.
Stories allow us to model ourselves after the heroes we know. We can see examples from Hollywood that distract from meaningful stories with overstimulation of both senses and appetites. There are examples in Pop Culture that distract from meaningful stories by creating non-stories of celebrity and scandal. Such distractions from reality, in direct opposition to the traditional moral continuity of history, smack of deliberate attempts to enslave people in ignorance and indolence.
People who create stories have a duty to their audience to give them something to think about. There is an emotional and intellectual (and even sometimes a spiritual) contract that the audience will not be wasting their time. How are we as stewards of this trust?

A Forest of Voices

When I was a child, I read constantly. I devoured books more than food. Full disclosure: I was a healthy kid.
Books became the way that I defined my life. By seeing into other worlds and learning from the experiences of not only literary heroes, but also the voice of the author.
I was born to be a writer. I constantly ask questions. The answers to the questions are always stories. Some people dream in numbers, others in pictures, but I dream in stories. I know that I am not the only one.
Books have been around for a long time. All of recorded history comes from books. But stories have been around longer than that. Stories come from a place that moves people.
Stories guide lives. Each one of us is writing our own story. We are guided by events around us. We are what we read. Or, in other words, we are what we take in to our minds. If we devour stories of substance, it is like eating roughage - it moves the waste stuff out. If we only take in the fluff, the things that are not of lasting value, it is the same as eating nothing but ice cream and candy. We get sick and go ups on highs and drop down to deep lows. The waste piles up inside our minds and nothing moves. We drown intellectually in a sea of brain sludge.
We look at books as creations of paper and ink that can transport our minds to other places, other times, and let us dream with other people. In a very real sense, we are walking through a forest of voices. What does it take to become one of those voices? If you're reading this, I think you know.
If you believe in the power of  individual story; if you have been influenced by a story that changed the way you thought about the world; if you have a story that you believe can make a difference, join us in the forest. Let us dream what may come.