Here we go again folks, another #wabisabiwednesday that I’m essentially forever obligated to participate in.

In true Wabi-sabi form: no cleaning, wiping, cropping, filters, or post-adjustments today—we’re doing this one in a straight shot right out of the camera; dust specks, grime and all.

What’s all this stuff in the photo have to do with anything? Well, first off we have the stoic #grandseiko Night Birch SLGH017 in titanium with its birch forest inspired dial, hearkening back to nature in the most Sabi of ways: the withered bark of the forest mirrored as uneven cuts on the dial. Dial framed in the cold, dark visage of titanium that naturally develops a patinated sheen over time from oils and daily use.

The titanium Apple Card is the prime Wabi. A minimalist designed consumer credit card with its simple flat white coating and carved titanium highlights for contrast; so minimalist that there’s no account numbers, phone numbers, or expiration dates on it. Just three logos and the embedded chip. After five years of sitting in a drawer, I’ve still never used this physical card. It’s got some good heft to it and a wicked clang when it drops on the ground. Great for cutting some coke lines. Steve would be proud.

Begin rant and digression:

To my dismay I received another obligatory and identical titanium replacement card in the post last month. What an utter waste, even with their promised mail-back recycling program. In today’s age of sweatshop mass-produced garbage, fuckton-per-capita of engineered obsolescence destined for landfills, and mind-numbing energy footprint of instantaneous gratification, this is the cherry on top. The card is designed as pretentious showpiece with a meager 1% rewards when physically swiped in person, but 2%+ when used digitally via Apple Pay. You’re not even encouraged to use it. Might as well leave the hefty titanium plate at home, and so I did.

The antithesis to all of this is a proper meditation on nature, its impermanence, and where we we’ve diverged in looking for the next pointless, consumerism-driven dopamine hit.

Rant over, coming back to the topic at hand: All things inevitably change, but embracing change is beauty. The bougainvillea flowers you see have already fallen onto that cold slab of steel; they were once just darling buds on the vine. Buds that gave way to verdant green leaves that then metamorphosed into a shade of violent fuchsia around tiny yellow tendrils. Fuchsia fading slowly to a burnt orange. The blossoms expire and fall into tidy pale piles swept together by the wind.

Where are we in all of this? What does our cycle look like? What do you really need in order to see the endless beauty of your day? And if a scratch shows up on your wrist toy, does that need to ruin your day?

As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it. As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw.

-Shunryū Suzuki

PS: The auto-compression on this site is a crime against humanity