Jōhō-yoku (情報浴) - information bathing - is the practice of sustained immersive presence with information-rich environments before leaping to categorization. It is art as a process rather than art simply being about creating artifacts. It does not teach "creativity." It teaches the cognitive foundation for creativity.
Adapted from the Japanese tradition of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), jōhō-yoku applies contemplative practice to how we engage with information itself. Just as forest bathing isn't about hiking through trees to reach a destination, information bathing isn't about processing information to reach conclusions.
We've been systematically trained to information bet - racing to quick categorization, rewarded for speed of knowing, punished for lingering in uncertainty. We leap from sensing to categorizing so fast we skip the richest layer of information entirely: the contextual, relational understanding that emerges through sustained presence.
This creates entropy. We build conceptual models on top of conceptual models, moving further from actual reality with each iteration. Information decays. Systems break down. People burn out.
The Practice
Jōhō-yoku develops capacity to stay with information before categorizing it:
- Witnessing patterns, relationships, emergence
- Holding complexity without forcing premature conclusions
- Letting understanding reveal itself through contextual engagement
- Returning to actual reality rather than betting on existing knowledge
This enables diatropy - systems maintain vitality through repeated return to source. Instead of decay through distance from reality, we flourish through sustained engagement with what's actually present.
How I Practice & Teach
I practice jōhō-yoku through contemplative photography - using the camera as corridor device to hold sustained attention with light, form, pattern, and movement while resisting the immediate leap to knowing.
The long exposures and intentional blur in my work aren't aesthetic choices - they're what becomes visible when you resist premature categorization long enough for genuine contextual reality to reveal itself.
I teach this practice through:
- Workshops for individuals and organizations developing contextual cognitive capacity
- Organizational consulting on why AI pilots fail and how diatropic approaches succeed
- Written exploration of Information Ecology Theory, the framework underlying jōhō-yoku, through a Substack publication
Why This Matters Now
AI excels at conceptual processing - information betting at extraordinary scale. But AI cannot information bathe. It cannot develop the felt sense of what's actually emerging in your specific contextual reality.
Humans bring contextual capacity. AI brings conceptual capacity. Together they work with the full information spectrum.
Organizations trying to use AI while only information betting miss the entire human contribution. Individuals optimizing productivity without contextual grounding burn out despite moving faster.
Information bathing isn't optional luxury. It's the missing capacity that makes everything else actually work.