There was a month-long strike by waste collectors in London during what came to be known as The Winter of Discontent 1978-79, when almost every union went on strike for better pay. I saw the rubbish bags pile up on the streets till it became difficult for people to go to their offices.

It made me realise that in any society, every role is equally important. One can imagine a society like an intricately patterned carpet where a missing thread renders the carpet worthless.

Romantic poetry in the 19th century celebrated the ‘violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye’, ‘The Village Blacksmith’, ‘Village School Master’, or ‘London’s Chimney Sweeper.’ In the 20th century, it became ‘Postman Pat and Thomas the Tank Engine’, ‘Steptoe and Son’, cheerful characters who found joy in small things.

We usually interpret this span from insignificant to splendid in the context of social injustice, Marxism’s rich/poor divide, the monumental and the ordinary and Rousseau’s declaration ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ But perhaps the chains are synapses, connective tissue of society, and the threads that make the perfect pattern.

It has the significance of dependence and interdependence, which is equally pivotal to a functioning society as it is in nature. There is nothing extraneous in nature — everything has its role even if we are not immediately conscious of it.

The Rajas and Maharajahs provided food and lodging to the weavers in return for an annual supply of woven goods when the barani crops had come to an end — a social symbiosis. The Taj Mahal only came into existence because, while someone had the idea and the funds, there were large teams of nameless craftsmen who had perfected their skills over generations.

The traditional caste system is seen as unjust, excluding hierarchy. Another way of looking at it is through the lens of division of labour — where roles were assigned for a practical purpose. It’s another matter that it became perverted with the idea of privilege.

In Pakistan, there is a general consensus that success means becoming a CEO or powerful politician, and everything less than that is a life of failed aspiration. There is little value placed on the role of the small person — the watchman, the lift operator, the tea boy — in ensuring the smooth working of a corporate business. This is not a class commentary, or a political statement of injustice, but an understanding of the sum of all its parts making the whole.

The Theory of Complexity suggests that collective properties are acquired only when all the elements come together, no matter how small.

When studying sculpture, we were told that what we need to concentrate on was not the larger scale of the work, but the intersections, the endings, the flow of the eye across the form.

As children we were fascinated by James Weldon Johnson’s spiritual song “Knee bone connected to the thigh bone, Thigh bone connected to the hip bone, Hip bone connected to the back bone” and so on, which is a lighthearted way of highlighting the interlinked nature of life.

A button stitched a few millimetres out can ruin a shirt. When the Burj ul Arab was being constructed, work was stopped to find the mistake that was making the tower lean, which turned out to be a half inch inaccuracy on one of the lower floors. Nature is the best teacher of this principle: a YouTube video is doing the rounds showing how the introduction of wolves into Yosemite National Park in the US revived its complex ecosystem.

The Japanese understand the significance of small things. Possibly the most technically advanced nation, it is also the most connected to nature and tradition.

This is evidenced not just through their exquisite gardens for contemplation or Ikebana flower decoration but also Monozukuri, the art of manufacturing with “extreme attention to the perfection of every possible detail — no matter the purpose of the product or how small or easily unnoticed it would be to the consumer.”

This philosophy translates into everyday attitudes, as shown by the case of the train that stopped in a remote Japanese station, only to pick up just one child until she graduated from high school.

It is something that was once an integral part of South Asian crafts, architecture, design and language, but has since, with a few exceptions, gathered layers of the dust of neglect. Pride in excellence is dependent on patronage — whether that of a humble villager or the elite of society.

The Theory of Complexity suggests that collective properties are acquired only when all the elements come together, no matter how small. A single molecule of H2O has none of the properties of water that only emerges when millions of molecules combine.

“Design lies in the detailing” is a phrase many students will be familiar with. Behind this lies the implication of a more basic truth: that every element matters, whether that element is a person, a skill, or the details of a government policy. It is neither top-down, nor-bottom up, but self-organising and adaptive, responding to the slightest of changes — much like a formation of flying birds.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 4th, 2017