Identity

I've been thinking a lot about my recent adventures into the wider world of origami. I have always been The Origami Guy. I know it, I share it, I talk it. And no one else did. I was in isolation for so many years where the only other artists were limited to folding half the crane from memory, or folding a flower. I was the regional origami master as far as I knew. Intellectually, I realized that there were those who knew more than me, who could compile their works and publish them. I read their books, I saw their superior skills. But they were so far away. East-coast, west-coast, Japanese. And they were obscure enough that only I knew their names among my social circles.

But suddenly, through Origami Minnesota and attending a lecture given by Robert Lang I realize that I am something of a nobody in the origami world. My compositions are not spectacular. My philosophical observations are not particularly profound. I am not a master, not much of a teacher, not a specialist I am just a guy with knack for reading diagrammed instructions.

Do I now re-invent myself? Do I want to be the greatest composer? do I want to be a renowned teacher? Author? Does it really matter that I be great? I guess it sort of bothers me that what I was uniquely in charge of, able to share it as I wished, is now out of my grasp. At the lecture I saw the joy of children learning a new composition, but it was not related to me at all. I might as well not have existed. So very weird. I feel like a priest who leads his small congregation for years, and then suddenly is called to the Vatican and is stunned by the realization that in Rome being a priest really doesn't mean anything. But Sadako is not considered a master. She only knew a few compositions, maybe only one, yet her name carries weight.

I just don't want my love for folding to be overwhelmed and diluted by others' love. I want theirs to strengthen mine, and mine to strengthen theirs. Hopefully, that is what will happen.