So I'm looking at the Origami Epcot Ball, layer ... seven or nine. I'm running out of steam. It's two-thirds of the way done, give or take 5%. I'm still stressed, and I'm still folding those little S-shapes of paper, but this isn't quite as therapeutic as it was.

Part of it is the question of "what's next?" I want to finish this layer so I can move onto the next layer, because I have no idea what the next layer looks like. There's a sense of frustration in doing what's left of this layer. Impatience.

Part of it is the question of "how do I do what's next?" Can I figure out the next layer? Am I up to the challenge? Fortunately, I'm making this up as I go, so if I'm not to the challenge, no one will know the difference. I can make serendipitous mistakes and people will think I am as much the artisan as had I executed on the vision in my mind from the onset.

See, this is almost entirely self-taught. I can't make a big deal about it because others have gone this way before, and with much great level of craft. By way of side reading, here are some links on previous luminaries, Sonobe Mitsunobu and Fuse Tomoko (both presented surname first, as is the norm for Japanese culture, or so I've been told.)

http://www.britishorigami.info/academic/lister/sonobe.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoko_Fuse

Nowadays, you can find absolutely stunning modular pieces, ones so precise in joins and corners that some of the viewers' comments ask if they're raytraced or Photoshopped.

Mine on the other hand are what I jokingly call "Russian engineering." (I call my shell scripts that, too.) They are blunt, sloppy, with loose tolerances and very sturdy. Ugly but strong. I'm building layers on the model that supported a phone book, please recall. This one is two layers atop that. I've not weighed it, but I'm sure it's well over two thousand squares by now.

There's something ridiculous to an origami model when, to obtain a guesstimate of the number of modules, the only recourse is to weigh it. (Well, not only recourse. Were I sufficiently gifted, I could perform some brain-bending math such as is included in this article on icosahedrons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosohedron. But I'm not that smart.)

I think I've reached a rather solitary place, a model that no one else can replicate simply due to the sheer absurdity of number of component pieces. Also, my model lacks the grace and precision of others.

The other origami pages are beautiful, their folds razors, their lines lasers, their joins as if the paper was simply folded at that crease, not two or more joining. Their comments oft-times include attributions to others who made and shared the models, or directions and advice to others wishing to replicate them.

My origami page, if ever I write one, will be a tombstone. It will note the creation and passing of one model, one that will likely never be replicated. Not by me because I'm feeling that drive, that sense of satisfaction drain from me. Not by anyone else because no one is so stupid to make two thousand-plus of those Sonobe-ish strips.

It's rather lonely here.