It is not about rejecting organization, but about giving every participant the right to organize; it is not about having no focus, but about every focus having a turn.

Author:Bruce
Have you ever thought about how an era is remembered? Not by wars, not by monuments left by victors, but by those seemingly insignificant moments at the time: a blooming cherry blossom, a figure passing through an alley, a child looking up at the sky. Ukiyo-e depicts these.
In many people's minds, Ukiyo-e is a style, a decoration, and a colorful old Japanese small painting. But it is actually a "mirror" of an era. Look at Hokusai Katsushika's (The Great Wave off Kanagawa), the rising waves seem to swallow the boat, but if you look at it for a few more seconds, you will find that the waves are not a disaster, but a sense of vastness and transience. It does not want to conquer you, it just comes to show you - "the hugeness of the moment".

Looking at Utagawa Hiroshige's "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" series, there are no palaces or dignitaries, but only fishing lights by the bridge, pedestrians in the rain, ferries at dusk, or fluttering carp streamers. You can feel a wonderful silence, which is not indifference or silence, but the silence of "living truly".

There are also the paintings of beauties by Kitagawa Utamaro. They are not eternal like sculptures, but vivid, soft and fleeting, like a face with gentle eyes that you see in the crowd, and then disappears in the next second.

These paintings do not have grand themes, nor crowded scenes. They focus on the present moment - on the dim morning light shining through the window, the graceful breeze blowing through the willows, the laziness of a tired cat taking a nap, and on themselves at that moment.
Compare it with Western paintings: Since the Renaissance, Western paintings have always pursued "eternity" - the composition has a focus, the light source has logic, the characters have symbols, and the picture is to "explain a meaning." The viewer stands outside the painting and gazes at the arranged world in the painting. Leonardo da Vinci's (The Last Supper) and Raphael's (The School of Athens), the position of each character is like a designed script, and each beam of light has a "master-slave relationship."

Ukiyo-e, on the other hand, does the opposite - it doesn't tell you where to look, doesn't assign a protagonist, and even refuses perspective. The painting is spread out flat, and every part is important. Wherever you look, that is naturally the focus.
In ancient times, the word "Ukiyo-e" was not a compliment. It was a Buddhist term that referred to the world of misfortunes, ups and downs, and mixed joys and sorrows. But in the Edo period, it was reinterpreted. People no longer just lamented impermanence, but began to think that since everything will pass, why not seize the moment that is happening. Thus, "Ukiyo-e" began to flourish - an art of using images to record daily life, an art of condensing the flow of time with an equal perspective.
Ukiyo-e paintings do not have a protagonist, nor do they hold up a certain viewpoint. You cannot see who is standing in the center of the stage and who is retreating to the corner. You can only follow your own gaze and wander freely in the picture, just like you are walking into the dusk of a city, an undecorated street evening.
It tells you: There is no "absolute focus" in this world. Every element has its own place, and every existence is shining, even if it is only for a moment.
This concept sounds like aesthetics, but it is actually close to philosophy. It is an acknowledgement of "impermanence": admitting that everything will eventually disappear, not depicting eternity, and cherishing the present; it is an insistence on "looking straight": you don't need to climb high to be seen, you also have your meaning when you stand still; it is a gentle "decentralized composition": no one stipulates where you should look, and no one stipulates who you are the foil for.
I later realized that I like Ukiyo-e because it is not just a way of painting, it is actually the way we should live. Not everyone has to stand in the spotlight, and not everything has to have "meaning". As long as you are at that point in time, at that place, you show up, you feel it, then everything about you is established, and even, this is the greatest meaning to you. Does my article have any practical meaning? Which one is the meaning: my writing, your reading, the algorithm's recommendation, or the system's retention?
Nowadays, the screens and carriers have changed, but this decentralized feeling has been revived in the world of Web3. We are no longer simple users, no longer arranged audiences, but a node in the system, a composition point, with our own visibility and our own tiny but definite position.
Everyone is no longer just watching the paintings, but participating: signing an agreement, minting an NFT, and leaving a Tx. Even if it is very light, it will be packaged into the block, become part of the consensus, and become a cornerstone for constructing this huge world from the future.
Web3 is not about making you a "star", but about letting you know that "you are just a part of the picture", which is enough. No noise, no absence, no need to define the meaning, it is worth staying.
The world will continue to flow, and we will all continue to change, but we are standing in this moment, with a name, an action, and a position, like a clear bright spot in the fiber of time, gently recorded. At that moment, at that coordinate, when the gas was burned, you were recognized: you contributed a piece of data on the chain, and you are really there.
The structure of the canvas of this world is changing. From looking up to looking straight, from being organized to self-organizing, from the center illuminating the whole scene to each stroke shining independently. You don't need to be "someone who can change the system", you just need to be one of those who are willing to participate in this system. Even a small action is a kind of "presence".
If you think of every interaction as a painting, you will find that Web3 is not a script with a "main plot", it is more like an endless scroll. Everyone is a point in the composition, and each point is unique.
This is a very humanistic structure. It does not ask you who you are, but asks you: what do you want to be?
Perhaps this is the most gentle expression of "decentralization". It is not about rejecting organizations, but about giving everyone involved the right to organize; it is not about not having a focus, but about every focus having a turn.
We are all here. We are not standing outside the painting, but living in it. Even if you only appear for a second, you are already a part of it. And this is the best evidence that you have appeared in this era.
Where do you think you fit into the Web3 picture?

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