Pain: Physical/Mental?

 I am a total wuss for pain. This probably contributed to the fact that I am generally very risk-averse, and have reached the ripe old age of 50 without ever having broken a bone or otherwise gotten in any serious accidents. I have very little desire to skydive, or bungee jump, and until very recently, considered very dangerous things like motorcycles to be a non-starter. And this may also be why despite my years of "threatening" to get a tattoo, I have still yet to pull the trigger (although I do feel much closer now than I ever have before in my life)

What about mental pain? I have been lucky enough to not lose any loved ones. I had a close friend die in Korea, but this was after I had left Korea and so it did not really seem real. I also had a friend die at the Brooklyn church, but I cannot honestly say that he was a very close friend of mine. I liked him a lot and we were just in the early stages of a friendship. So all in all, I have again been mostly spared from the mental pain of losing loved ones.

Are there other sources of mental pain? Surely. There are always sources of pain stemming from relationships. Having children also opens up the parents to potentially very acute pain as well. Pain/stress of this type affects the body, and as it should: the body and mind are one and the same. When the body dies, you are dead. And when your brain/heart is in pain, the body reacts. This may present as indigestion. This may be a loss of appetite. This last one is truly rare for me, as I have always had a need to eat at very punctual and regular intervals. But lately, this is one manifestation, believe it or not.  Are there others? Loss of sexual drive? Motivation or ambition? Perhaps.

I can only take solace in the slow painful passage of time, and that in due course, the acute pain I feel will be resolved and I will feel as sunny as this beautiful summer day in New Jersey.

Walking in Troy

 I drove to Troy to pick up Yuna from her new gig working as a server at Sunhee's Farm and Kitchen. I got there early and parked the car and walked around the block. It was Cinco de Mayo, and kitty-corner from the restaurant, the Mexican taco place had set up an impromptu seating area in their parking lot. There was a DJ playing Latin music, and a booth serving tacos outdoors, and lots of guests enjoyed the beautiful May weather and the festive atmosphere. 

There wasn't enough time for me to sit and eat anything or to order a drink. So I just wandered into the parking lot to soak in the atmosphere on the cheap. I could see many local Troy residents attracted by the music making their way over to the restaurant to enjoy the offerings. 

I live in a suburb. It is a dense suburb, where from my living room, I can just about look into the houses from my neighbors on either side if the angle is just right. The lots in my town are measured in SF, not acres. So it is a small/dense suburb. But it is still a suburb. There are no stoops for people to sit in front, to have a coffee or a glass of wine after dinner. There are just a handful of places you can walk to: a coffee shop, a deli, and a couple of pizza places. Most of the people walking around in my town will not happen on any chance encounters. You may run into your friend/neighbor out for a walk, or running, perhaps. 

There is much value in chance encounters. It enriches your life by offering unplanned, real-time simulations. Maybe you were on your way to the grocery store and chance upon a  new great restaurant. Maybe you work in a certain department in your university or laboratory, and you bump into someone with whom you share no common areas of interest or research, and the conversation opens up new avenues of thought or exploration. Or maybe you just make a new friend or acquaintance from a different walk of life, someone you don't work with or live near. All of these random variables exist in an urban environment that is less common in suburbs or rural areas. 

I am attracted to the unplanned, the random offerings served up in real-time, and the sudden twists and turns that come up. I feel comfortable changing gears mid-walk and find that it is exciting in a way that the predictable, limited variables lifestyle offered up by the suburbs. Living in a free-standing house in a suburb, it is possible to get into your car from your office garage and drive home into your house garage, and not set foot outside anywhere in the public domain. And what chance encounters would your life offer in such a hard dualistic existence, between work and home? It is those minutes walking on city streets that open the door to hopefully pleasant opportunities to step outside the planned daily patterns of life, and I crave such unsolicited stimuli. 

Cheap Thrills: Plant-napping

 There is a co-worker that in my opinion neglects his plants. In fairness, the past two years has been a mix of remote work, and perhaps for that reason, he is very rarely physically in the office. He has come in a handful of times the past year at best. He has plants that are clearly crowding their pot. They are also starting to dry up from neglect.

I have a plan to covertly plant-nap them and take them home on a weekend, and free up a plant or two into smaller pots, before returning the larger pot back to his desk the next week. In my mind, this is akin to relieving a negligent dog owner of the privilege to own a dog. Will he even notice? Seems unlikely. 

I imagine this is like the thrill of breaking the law in some small, mostly harmless way. The thrill of shoplifting, perhaps? I have not engaged in shoplifting myself, although I have declined to correct the cashier when they forgot to ring up an item or two in my cart. There have also been times when I forgot to ring up items that were at the bottom of my cart. And while the value of those ill-gotten items was very small, it was still a thrill to take them home thinking that I did not pay for it, and I broke the law (unknowingly, with an assist from the cashier). 

A middle-aged white-collar professional living a stable life in a firmly middle-class suburb. That's me. This may be as close as I come to the adrenaline rush of an outlaw life; taking a sapling from a crowded, neglected pot from a coworker without his permision. We all gotta get our thrills somewhere.

What turns me on [architecturally?]

 Mid Century Houses

Why?

 For me, they are always rooted in California. Maybe LA. And I like California. 

Can you build them somewhere else? 

I suppose there is nothing about their shape that would make them unsuitable in harsher climates. Maybe no more partially enclosed carports. 

Would they be "authentic"? 

Well, it's clearly not midcentury anymore. But we build in styles from bygone eras all the time. Or you could argue that modernistic architecture has done away with the idea of "eras" altogether, and we are in a post-style era. Which of course could be itself an era. 

What about them? 

I like their roofs. They are not extrusions or manipulations of the mass of the body of the house. Rather, they are thin, often starting to tilt away/beyond the house proper. They peel away and create clerestory windows. They extend and become carports, canopies, etc. They have a life of their own and they are not afraid to assert themselves.

Do I want to build one for myself? 

I think it'd be fun. 

COVID and self reflection

When I was in my first year of architecture at Michigan, one of our studio design projects was to design a firehouse. The class took a field trip to tour a local fire department to talk to the firefighters and familiarize ourselves with the way a fire department works.

I still remember the chief of the department telling us that when we "grow up" and perhaps design a fire department in the future, we should always make sure the fire department is two stories and includes a fireman's pole. He said that when boys are young, they all dream of being a firefighter, but most eventually grow out of that dream and move onto something more "sensible". HE said the boys who actually do become firefighters are boys who never gave up their childhood dreams, and as such, the romance (my word, not his) of the fireman's pole is an important part of the job.

I have had the occasion to tour fire departments subsequently, and I believe for liability and safety reasons, fireman's poles are not commonly used any more. And a firefighter twisting his ankle from an awkward landing while responding to an emergency may create additional problems.

I still remember this story because I think being an architect is somewhat analogous to being a firefighter. True, only one of these jobs saves lives and is often referred to as "heroes". But many children dream of being an architect when they're young, only to move on to more sensible professions as they grow up. Architects too like firefighters, are boys (and girls) who held onto their childhood dreams as they they grew up. And likewise, I believe that the romance of the profession is also important to architects.

Benefits of believing in eternal life

One of the benefits of believing in eternal life must be that when one is confronted (or perhaps in a position to appreciate) with a truly poignant moment, you can simply enjoy the moment for what it is, knowing there will be a never ending supply of such moments to come. The alternative is to be cognizant of the diminishing opportunities to enjoy such happiness and joy, as one progresses in an inevitable journey to a terminal and final end.

When we all fall asleep, where do we go?

Last night, Emma was sleeping in my bed due to Yayoi being out. All of the sudden, she turned to me and said "I'm said, because when I get old, you'll get old and die. Then I won't have a parent".

It's hard to know how to comfort a child when they realize that you won't be with them forever. I could feed them some sort of standard Christian response, such as "we'll be together in heaven". But I don't believe that, and I doubt that Emma would either. It is a well intentioned, but tremendously unsatisfactory answer.

I could say "we'll have many good years together". But that doesn't address the essence of the qustion/obervation: That our years will, eventually run out.

When Pandora opened the jar, many evils/pain/suffering escaped out into the world. She replaced the top just in time to prevent the last item from escaping: the knowledge of how we will die. This is, indeed a tremendous evil and suffering. I believe, if people knew this, it would be truly sad and depressing, and would not allow us to enjoy the precious time we do have on this earth.

When looking at retirement calculators, the fundamental question is: When will we die? Obviously, if we knew this answer, it would be a simple matter to know how much money one will need in retirement, and subsequently, how to draw that money down. Draw it down too quickly, and you'll outlive your nest egg, and be desolate in your old age. Draw it down too slowly, and you'll have unnecessarily perhaps, sacrificed quality of life/experiences that you could have safely partaken. Of course, the comfort is that the nest egg will be left to your heirs. But is this in and of itself a satisfactory and comforting thought? Or is it far more desirable to be around our loved ones, and see them enjoy the inheritance, and see how it would change their lives? To pursue their passions without worrying about how to make a livelihood? To make life decisions without the constraints of the perhaps mundane but necessary questions that drive most of our life decisions?

Dogs are very loving and they love you with a love that is purer than any that we will ever experience. They don't hold grudges, for not taking them to the dog park yesterday when the sun was shining. They don't nurse ill will for forgetting to feed them or cutting short their walk. They love you more than they love anything in this earth. And they enjoy each moment and day to the fullest.

They do this because they are not aware of their own impending death. They are blissfully not aware that they may experience deteriorating health as they get older. Or that their days enjoying life with their beloved owners will one day come to a final and non-negotiable end. They are happy and in the moment because they live without this knowledge.

What if we could also live this way? How would we do that? By being at peace with one's own death? By accepting that our days with our beloved family and friends will one day come to a terminal end, and being 100% OK with that?