zen

The way I see it is, when we as bonsai-ists begin work on a tree as a future bonsai, we have some idea as to what style/form we want this tree to take, and from that we pull ideals as to how this tree will eventually look, when the tree attains this ideal form, or as close as it will get to that ideal, it is for all intents and purposes "finished" or complete in the sense that it has attained the image of the tree that we set out to attain in the first place. Otherwise, why prune, wire, plant on tiles, trim, pinch, etc. at all.
Just my 2 pence.

__________________
"Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work."

~ Alan Watts (1915-1973)