Brain aches

It feels like this sentiment is long overdue because it's been on my mind for quite some time. It, like 90% of the things that I think about these days, is about architecture. But this time, it's not about how much I love architecture or any of the plethora of related topics. Rather, it's how disappointed I am with architecture. Specifically, I'm disappointed with the imposition of reality on architecture. (Which is basically every engineer's job)

Before you pursue architecture, you imagine that everything architectural fits inside a box. When you begin to take an interest in the field, a door appears and you step inside. Then school starts and you're taught to take a sledgehammer to those walls because there is no box. Actually, allow me to correct myself: there is a box. It represents everything that you've ever assumed to be true and the world outside of the box is the uncomfortable, whatever it may be. But the presence of a box is entirely dependent on your acknowledgement of the box: If you don't acknowledge the a box, there is a box, and vice versa. Then there are people like me who kindly acknowledge the box then proceed to ignore it for the entirety of Thanksgiving dinner. (what am I even trying to say?)

Anyway, the box initially represents the parameters you place on yourself: the things you don't think are possible, the things you want to recreate that you've seen in magazines, stuff like that. But as architecture school progresses, a box will progressively begin to form around you. This time, the box represents the parameters of reality. And by the time you graduate, you will have learned how to create "good" architecture that creatively fits within this reality-shaped box.

So here I am, immersed in the ocean of unreality, thinking that I can create totally unrealistic things because there is no box. But by 2018, I'll be enclosed back in a box that I may be pining to break free from. I'm questioning my place in this Mobius strip world where there is reality and unreality at the same time while I only want to be in unreality.

Maybe I'm overthinking things. Maybe I should just succumb to the expectations of my peers, elders, etc., and continue on in this unsatisfying world. Will I become an architect at the end of the road? Probably not. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll encounter a billionaire developer who embraces unreality and will hire me to build things that can never be.

Side note: I've become very disinterested in the word "building." It leaves a yucky blerghness in my brain whenever I have to utter it.

Side note 2: I'm fairly certain my brain is slightly incapacitated, for I have been recently incapable of translating my ideas from brain to speech.

Side note 3: We learn not to get attached to our ideas and I've become so unattached that I' m not grasping onto anything and thus am not making any progression.