A couple weeks ago, my friend Mary was visiting me, and she shared a cool anecdote from her family trip to Turkey.

They were touring a rug factory and learning about the traditional process of hand-weaving, when their guide mentioned that because the weavers tend to be Muslim, they believe that only Allah is perfect, and thus they purposely weave imperfections into each of their rugs, out of respect.

They intentionally mess up.

Now, in fairness, these imperfections are probably too minor to be noticed. But still!

This practice reminds me of the Japanese concept of kintsukuroi — or “fixing with gold” — even though they’re a bit different. One is about embracing imperfections; the other is about deliberately creating them. But both go beyond the idea of simply accepting flaws, and that’s fascinating to me, especially on a creative level.

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