THE PAPER FISH THAT LEARNT TO SWIM
About 500 years ago there was a young origami master named Daishinji who lived in a small fishing village in Japan. Daishinji was beginning to become well known for what she could do with a single sheet of paper.
One day she decided to fold a sheet of paper into a fish. Daishinji was amazed by it; she thought it to be a masterpiece and so did others. The fish was fully shaped. With its folds of fins and gills, it looked almost real. One day, after listening for a long time, the paper fish finally spoke. His first three words were: “I am lonely.” Pleased by the fish’s ability to communicate, Daishinji said, “Then I’ll fold you a world in which to swim.” And so an entire folded world was made from paper – an ocean, seaweed, swordfish, whales, sharks, lobsters, crabs, an octopus, and even birds above.
For a long time this was good, and the paper fish was happy. But then one day the paper fish realized that as deep as he swam he would never get wet. And this seemed odd to him, to be a fish, but not to feel the wetness of water. The paper fish begged to go to the real ocean, which was deep, wet, and full of mysteries unknown to Daishinji. The young master began to get frustrated. After all, she had spent months building a world for her paper fish. “Imaginary things must stay in imaginary places,” Daishinji shouted with an anger that the paper fish did not recognize. The paper fish would not take “No” for an answer. His determination was like that of a samurai, and Daishinji finally relented. Although she knew in her heart that paper was only paper, Daishinji agreed to take the paper fish out to the deep, black, real ocean. So the next morning as the sun was rising, the young origami master placed the paper fish in a red wooden box and secured it to her father’s fishing boat.
Daishinji steered the boat to the center of the sea, far away from the small studio that was so comfortable to her. The paper fish was safe and dry in the waterproof box, but he became increasingly excited as he felt the pulse of the waves swell under the boat.
Finally, after what felt like forever to the paper fish, the master stopped the boat, dropped anchor, and lifted her creation out of the walls of the red box. “See the rough, rolling sea?” shouted Daishinji above the crashing waves rocking the boat. “Is this what you want?” “I want the real sea!” the paper fish shouted back. “Trust enough to place me in it and I will become as real and full of blood and bones as any fish swimming at the greatest depths.” The young origami master decided that her paper fish needed to learn a lesson. Daishinji lifted her folded creation, placed him on top of the ocean, and let go for just an instant, figuring that as the paper got wet and began to disintegrate, the fish would scream to be brought back onto the boat. But no such thing occurred.
In the instant that Daishinji let go of the paper fish an amazing transformation took place. If Daishinji had not seen it with her own eyes, she would not have believed it. Paper turned to flesh and folds turned to fins and gills. The blood rushing into his body was as fire burning paper away. The fish let out an anguished scream as if he were dying, but then the cry became one of joy. Daishinji gasped a great breath and held it as the paper she had folded with her hands in her private studio transformed before her eyes into a giant, radiant yellow tailed tuna. The yellow tailed fish did not look back at Daishinji once he hit the real ocean. He simply swam on into the deep.
“One day you may get caught in a net, now that you are real. My father may bring you back to market so you can be supper for the village!” Daishinji screamed anxiously. The wide-eyed finned giant finally turned back and shouted, “But now I am free — as real as you are!” And then the yellowtail splashed a spray of water to the sky, and swam down deeper than any fish had ever gone. Daishinji finally released her anxiety and, began sobbing. The ocean rocked her from below like her mother once had. After what felt like a lifetime, silence returned. A tender smile of renunciation appeared on Daishinji’s lips. “I don’t even know your name…” she whispered to the emptiness.
Daishinji focused on vast sea and on the empty red box until the two became one to her. When the time seemed right, she pulled up her anchor and turned her boat for home. After many years of folding paper, Daishinji became known all over Japan as a great master. She created worlds on paper that all became real in their own time.
One day, a young origami practitioner sought out Daishinji. She asked the old woman why she bothered to make things if she then just let them go, holding on to nothing to show for her labor. Daishinji thought a while. She looked around her shop until she found the old dusty box with just speckles of red paint remaining on it. Daishinji asked the young apprentice if she had come by boat. The apprentice said she had, and Daishinji suggested that they take a ride together. She instructed the young woman to drop anchor when they got to the center of the ocean. Daishinji then told the apprentice to go to the side of the boat with the worn wooden box and bid a fish to jump in so they could look at it. The apprentice went to the side of the boat and did as Daishinji instructed her. Nothing happened for a time. Then, out of nowhere, the largest yellow tailed tuna the apprentice had ever seen jumped into the boat. The force of it knocked Daishinji and the apprentice overboard. Daishinji was laughing hard as her old friend; the one-time paper fish got hold of her and the apprentice and helped them back on to the boat.
The apprentice watched as the one-time paper fish told his creator, “There is no going back.” “I know,” said Daishinji. And she pulled up the anchor and instructed the origami apprentice to steer back to shore. The young woman and the old one were silent on the ride back. When they reached shore, the apprentice implored Daishinji, “Master, will you please teach me what you know?”
“I just did,” said Daishinji.
Moral of the story:
- Work is a relational experience, not a transactional one: A relation between creator and created, such that the created is free to transform into its own autonomous entity. It is also a relation between one person and another where a lesson is transmitted through touching real experience.
- It is pretty simple: continue to treat people as trained seals and they’ll work for rewards alone; treat them as full human beings and they’ll work for the work itself. The answers lie inside the people you hired and if you don’t believe that, you never should have hired them and you are wasting your money.
- People need meaning and if they don’t have it, the workplace devolves into a zone of petty competition, selfishness, and political play. Give them a meaningful mission that is about more than transaction. Give them something that is hard, that is full of obstacles, and is incredibly worthwhile. And then tell them they must do it, that you yourself do not know how. Give them support, care, a relationship with you—a real one. Be human with your people and model a relational way of working.
- We have to trust that our ideas on paper have a power of their own, a power beyond our ego and personal strategy, a power that the world itself imbues, a power that only an interaction with the world can set free.
- A transformation is always a surprise. There was a drum maker who has been making drums in his shop for the last 16 years. He works with saws, a lathe, chisels, files, sandpapers, oil, and with goat skins and rope. He has made thousands of drums in his lifetime, every one of them with his own hands, which are calloused and worn. But each time he hears one of his drums played by a new player it is different to him. It feels as if he never made it at all. The player remakes the drum in her own image.
- It is high time for the business workplace to realize that manipulation is powerless next to trust. Control is not the ultimate elixir; and in making the mistake in business of drinking from its cup alone we have poisoned the most hopeful and alive part of ourselves. The antidote is to remain open to becoming continually and unexpectedly transformed by our relationships, our creative ideas, and our life—a life that has been crying out from the beginning to find a place for its authentic expression and revelation at work
