The pessimist who has to bail out the boat calls it half full; the optimist who owns it calls it half empty.
The pessimist who goes to the lake at 4am curses the clouds for blocking the sunrise; the optimist takes a photo of the boat and calls it Wabi-sabi.
Wabi-sabi represents Japanese aesthetics and a Japanese world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence, specifically impermanence, suffering and emptiness or absence of self-nature.
In this case, it’s a broken piano that was left outside the old Weavertown one room schoolhouse for over a year. I felt it was beautiful, imperfect and incomplete. As for it being impermanent, the schoolhouse is now an antique store and the piano is no longer there. Time marches on.
