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.