I saw a film recently on an airplane that made me cry. The film was a love story but the love part of the story didn’t make me cry. No, the scene that made me cry was about paper.

The movie focuses on a Japanese publishing company’s small dictionary unit. There are only four or five people in it. They are working on a dictionary that will take fifteen years to complete. Fifteen years. The scene that got me was towards the end. The head of the dictionary project meets with the paper maker. They are testing paper.

Hmmm, it doesn’t stick to the fingers enough, says the Dictionary Man as he thumbs the dummy book the Paper Man brought with him.

Oh, is that so? asks the Paper Man.

Yes, look here — perfect dictionary paper sticks to the fingers but doesn’t stick to the other pages. This paper doesn’t adhere properly to my fingers.

The Dictionary Man reaches behind him, grabs another dictionary, and shows the Paper Man a specimen of perfect dictionary usability. It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d never notice unless you lived and breathed dictionaries. Here, you try turning these pages, says the Dictionary Man. The Paper Man does so and responds with an, Oooooooooooooohhh, as if part of the matrix has been unzipped before him. He then apologizes and yells, WE WILL TRY HARDER while bowing deeply.

That’s when I realized my eyes were heating up.

Maybe this was the love part of the story: Two people collaborating on a solution to a problem occupying space often unnoticed but always felt.

Thoughtful decisions concerned with details marginal or marginalized conspire to affect greatness. (Hairline spacing after em dashes in online editing software — for example.) The creative process around these decisions being equal parts humility and diligence. The humility to try again and again, and the diligence to suffer your folly enough times to find the right solution.