Ms. Strangelove... or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Architecture... 4/

All of us who survived that semester came out on the other side a bit... altered. I don't mean that in a shitpost way... but it was true, like the effects due to any significant life events which challenge your emotions, your intellect, your beliefs... your sense of self. Five months of deep diving into a world that none of us really understood before then. We had to struggle with what we were doing... or thought we were doing... with this architecture education. We had to think about why we were doing it as much as what we might consider doing with it. We now had a perspective that we had a choice... we could take a traditional route of being a professional architect, designing projects of all types and sizes for a variety of clients... or we could step off that path, onto another... one of another profession, with a unique perspective... or a new path entirely of our own making.

Since then, I can't walk (well, now roll) around a city without noticing everything around me and the quality of it, capturing moments, making judgements, and sometimes sketching improvements in my mind. I can't be in a building... a store, an office, a restaurant, a bar... without being critically disappointed, or slightly skeptical, as I experience it. Being awed, truly speechless and joyful of a space, a place, a moment, becomes so much more difficult to elicit... though not impossible... it's just that the bar, the standard, is so much higher, now. Even being "content" or "amused" more often would be nice. A large part of that is due to this new "insider knowledge" of how things could be, should be, or are done (gotta know the difference, folks).

This knowledge affects the way I look at the "smaller" things, too... like pieces of art, music, books, food, drink, clothing, furniture, automobiles, and other consumer goods of all varieties... all the things we come in contact within our daily lives inside, outside, and between those buildings and the cities they amalgamate to define. I consider the quality, the provenance, the integrity of the producer, the integrity of the purveyor... the way it makes me feel... the way it feels in my hands, on my tongue, in my ears, rattling around my brain... the extent to which it satisfies so many aspects of my needs and expectations. Is it lasting? Is it significant? Is it worthy of my time, attention, and money?

This knowledge affects the way even "bigger" things come under increased scrutiny... politics, religion/spirituality, history, contemporary culture (and all its high and low variants), our human natures, our corporeal existence... and even love, itself. I need to know and understand the structure of it, the evolution of it, the meaning behind it... to determine the validity of it... to judge its worthiness, its value. I am always looking at "constructs", like systems and organizations, from a critical, mostly skeptical, first impression as I interlope... investigate... interrogate... decide. Nothing guts me more than being a part of something bigger... something of great aspiration that resonates with my mind and soul... only to see it struggle, falter... even fail and completely fall apart... in spite of my own enthusiasm and contributions... all because I can't look away, let things slide, be more flexible, give the benefit of the doubt. There are few things worse than being suckered into something (even by oneself) that turns out to be a travesty... and realizing it too late to avoid damage.

This knowledge is a burden... a big, fucking annoying, nonstop, monkey-on-the-back. It can suck the potential pleasure of an experience, all because you notice one small, stupidly executed detail, like the hairy wart on an otherwise perfect visage, or one gigantic clusterfuck of a logical configuration, like a pile of horse manure dumped unceremoniously on the ground off the back of a truck and onto a glorious flowerbed. Nothing is taken at face value. Not everything is a conspiracy, though. But... I want to know more. Why do I find joy in something? What makes something so distasteful? How does something engage my intellectual and emotional sensibilities? When do I know the right moment, the right words, the right sentiments? Where do I put my trust. my belief, my faith (no, not THAT faith... we've been through that before).

But I LOVE Architecture as much as I hate the results sometimes. I love the potential, the surprises, the successes... even the controversies. In fact, the controversies are so important, as they make us think and talk to each other and debate the why's and why not's... the good and the bad... the attempts fallen short and the never should've even fucking tried (so, so many of those in my book... and so many more to come).

I crave the opportunities to see new cities and countries, experience new cultures... their foods, their drink, their music, their art... their people... the way they shop, they eat, they dance. I desire to immerse myself in something other than what I am used to... to explore the "other", learning as much about myself as the new. I know what I know but I always want to know more.

I don't design buildings/spaces anymore... I haven't in a damn long time. I've never been a licensed architect, nor felt a burning desire (especially now) to unlock that achievement. But I do design... I write... I devise and create materials to explain the most complex things in my field in the simplest way possible... I put together the logic and systems for others to be able to get meaningful work done... I write... and with words attempt to paint pictures, construct vignettes, birth worlds and universes in your heads that I hope match my own.

So, yeah... now you know why I can be such a prick sometimes. I don't always like it either, but "I ams what I ams", as Popeye would say.

Next, finally wrapping up this thread.