In astronomy, perihelion is the point at which a celestial body comes closest to the Sun. It's the moment of maximum velocity. Maximum intensity. Afterward, it drifts away. But that instant - that single instant - contains all the accumulated energy of the journey.

Jiro Ono, the legendary sushi master, spends 70 years searching for his perihelion.

He doesn't call it that. He calls it perfection. Purity. But it's the same thing: that point where everything converges. Where detail, repetition, and the silence of decades of craftsmanship condense into a single gesture.

A grain of rice. A knife movement. Nothing more.

Everything.

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I. Orbit: Understanding the Creative Process

[0:00 - 1:30: The introduction. Soft strings, almost inaudible.]

When you design, code, create - you're in orbit.

Some days far from the center. Scattered. Jumping between tasks, tools, notifications. Distance protects you. It doesn't burn. But you don't move forward either.

Other days, closer. Hours disappear. You forget to eat. Code flows. Design breathes. You don't think about what you're doing; you simply do it.

It's flow state. That state where the brain releases conscious control and lets specialized neural networks - trained over years - work alone. Without supervision. Without friction.

But there's an even deeper point.

Perihelion.

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II. Approach: The Path to Mastery

[1:30 - 3:00: Piano enters. Strings begin to tense.]

Charles Eames said: "The details are not just details. They make the design."

He wasn't talking about ornament. He was talking about essence.

That place where if you remove something, everything collapses. If you add something, everything becomes contaminated.

It's the closest point to truth.

And to get there, you can't rush. You have to orbit. Again and again. Observe. Iterate. Repeat the same movement 10,000 times until the pattern emerges.

Jiro didn't invent sushi. He eliminated everything that wasn't sushi.

That's the difference.

We add: variants, use cases, exceptions, flexibility.

We call it "coverage."

But mastery is the opposite. It's subtraction. It's saying: this, and only this, is necessary.

And when you finally arrive - when you touch that point - everything else reveals itself as obvious.

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III. The Problem: AI and the Fragmentation of Deep Work

[3:00 - 4:30: Tension grows. Violin, viola. Layers accumulating.]

But now something has changed.

AI is here. Cursor, Figma, generative models whispering at every pause.

And for the first time in years, it's difficult to reach perihelion.

Because perihelion requires sustained velocity in one direction. Continuous hours. Total immersion. That deceleration of the external world that allows internal acceleration.

But AI interrupts.

Not violently. With suggestions. With shortcuts. With the seductive promise that you can get there faster.

And technically, it's true. You can generate more. More components. More code. More variations.

But more isn't perihelion.

Perihelion is the point of maximum closeness, not maximum production.

It's being so close to the essence that there's no distance between you and what you create.

And that can't be accelerated.

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IV. Broken Orbits: Losing Flow in the Age of AI

[4:30 - 5:45: The climax begins to build. Everything converges.]

I've noticed something.

My best work - the work that truly IS something - was born in long sessions. Uninterrupted. No AI. No Slack. No browser.

Just me, the problem, and hours evaporating.

That state where the prefrontal cortex shuts down and creative networks work alone. Where you don't supervise your own thinking; it simply flows.

Transient hypofrontality, neuroscientists call it. The brain releasing control to allow what it already knows but can't verbalize to emerge.

AI doesn't enter there.

Not because it's incapable. Because it's a dialogue. And dialogue keeps you in the prefrontal cortex—supervising, evaluating, adjusting.

Never letting go.

Never reaching perihelion.

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V. The Decision: Protecting Deep Work and Flow State

[5:45 - 7:00: The crescendo. Strings at their peak.]

AI isn't the enemy.

It's a tool for the outer orbit. For the superficial. For what scales.

But perihelion - that point of maximum closeness to what's true - remains human.

It remains slow.

It remains boring, sometimes.

And it requires something radical in a world of speed: protecting the long hours. The sessions where you disappear. Where a detail consumes your entire day and at the end - only at the end - you see that detail was everything.

Turn off notifications.

Close Cursor.

Let the code, the design, the problem look back at you for hours.

Until you reach the point where there's no distance.

Where you are the work.

Where you touch perihelion.

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VI. The Journey: Embracing the Orbit

[7:00 - 7:48: The resolution. Everything settles. Silence that breathes.]

Jiro, after 70 years, says: "No one knows where the top is."

He hasn't arrived.

Perhaps he never will.

But each day he gets closer. Each movement. Each repetition. Each minimal refinement that no one else notices.

That's the orbit.

And perihelion isn't a destination. It's an instant. Fleeting. Intense. True.

And then you drift away again.

But you know it existed. That you touched it.

And that changes everything.

The essence is there. Underneath. Always.

You just have to get close enough to feel it.

But first, you have to let go of control.

Disconnect.

And let the orbit carry you.

When was the last time you reached your perihelion? Share your experience in the comments below.

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