So I'm almost done with school. Now I'll be tasked with doing "something" now that I am out of the gates. I've been thinking a lot about my trajectory, almost all of my thoughts, outside of dodgeball, track, girls, and architecture. I guess because it involves everything I have learned in about the last 3 years. What is my plan to live the way I 'should'? I think I have a pretty nice grasp of who I am, or who I want to be. Maybe I am like 40% of the way into figuring myself out, which is substantial in my opinion.
Most recently, I have discovered I really am an observer and a helper. Hasheem Ansari. I feel the happiest being used to help others. My desires are truly minimal. Mommy texted me asking what I wanted culinarily for graduation, I was about to type "anything you want!" as usual, and that would make me feel good to be non burdensome. But you know what, it would be even better to be burdensome in a way that the person enjoys the burden. So, I asked for a rainbow cake, throwback.
So, my preliminary ideas to be Ansari are:
1. 3 years to get debt free working construction, move to Bolivia and build my own house and just be a citizen.
I have a hunch that Latin America will pioneer the next century. I think they are the most in touch with nature, and have a sense of communal well-being, universal healthcare, basic income, resistance to capitalist greed, self pride, fear of colonizing. So, once materials and technologies come down in price and become easier to cultivate, the Latin countries will be in the best position to handle it with the best Happiness Index, where the common man has agency and feels a part of the community.
In more capitalist countries, by time these technologies are readily available, the common man will be fighting for a low wage dollar to rent an apartment he will never own. The companies will not allow government to have a basic income program or free healthcare. Land will be long bought up.
But that is all projecting, I'm sure there are ills to the more communal model, but I think it is just mainly slower technological progress since competition is less important. But if you are happier, does any of that matter?
Now, I think the Bolivia (or Cuba, Netherlands, Switzerland, Puerto Rico, Denmark, etc) would only be until I am maybe 40. I think I still have a responsibility to the USA, in that I have an advantage of understanding and helping the American struggle more.
2. 3 years to get debt free, then keep working and saving for maybe 5-8 more years. Design studio in the hood.
It starts out as a design collective out of people's (my) apartments. We just meet and discuss topics, while designing, probably clothing. Not for profit, just to outfit ourselves and others. Developing a sense of agency over our lives. Then, as I round year 5-ish, I and my community, open a design shop in a store front location. It'll be a 24 hour design studio. Complete with sewing machines, tutorials, a library, places for simply sitting and watching the day. After-school participation will be welcome, the locals who were once taught by me and my community to sew (not only sew, but design) will now relay knowledge to the younger ones, creating a communal tie. Eventually, we will partner with local design schools and some companies to sponsor workshops or exhibitions of their stuff.
By year 11, I and my tight knit community will have secured the funds to buy land near a shopping center and design and build our stand-alone design studio (90'x40') with bedding above for anyone to stay. The studio will be designed to be able to hold events such as community meetings, prayers, rap battles, viewing parties, as well as the usual sewing and possibly screen printing and graphic design. The exterior of the building will be used for a 'weekly mural' which will be painted by a local artist every week and then painted over the next week. There will be a small communal garden surrounding the building to learn basics of planting, as well as seating for enjoying the parking lot of a shopping center, lol, but I'm serious (we need to activate these spaces people!!).
What do I hope to get out of this? I believe instilling in people the power to lead your own life builds the resistance to fall into the temptation of the fleeting vices of this world. Quick bursts of enjoyment such as alcohol, drugs, bad food, terribly designed t-shirts, bad tv shows, social media will be easier to resist, as the person knows they do matter. They do have skills, they can make their own clothing, culture, they don't need Mercedes to define their worth. We now have an entire community that will resist bad government policy with clear minds, a community that can now innovate on top of mid-century revolutionary ideas fitted for the contemporary.
That would be dope.
3. Work and get a family, raise them. Find out what fatherhood is and feel complete as a human being.
Here is the thing I have been thinking about in terms of revolutions and community activism; Revolutions are Hard. It is very easy for college kids who have no responsibilities to follow a cause and live off ramen. But what happens to all that energy?
People have children. Once children enter the picture, it becomes imperative to be gainfully employed and raise that child. What mechanism is in place to support that child? Only the system that is being revolted against. If a revolution only lives with the 'unlanded' 'untied' people, it will wither away as those people leave to have children or die. A successful alternate society is stable enough to fully support FAMILIES, without needing to use the other culture that one is revolting against. Why is this? Children born of an idea are much more staunch in those ideals than a 20 something who joins a cause. A child who has the undying ideological backing of parents is much more versed and passionate about a cause.
So how to achieve a revolution that can span generations? You somehow have to convince the women to buy into it and have the children. You have to have land, supply chains, maybe natural resource wealth, knowledge of construction, agriculture, access to fresh water. It gets hard really fast. A revolution is really not successful if your sitting in a corporate cubicle just listening to revolutionary speeches. It has to be done. And it is so hard to be done.
What happened to all the revolutionary energy in the mid-century? So many people, no architecture to show for it. We all had to crawl back into the main stream. I'm not mad at that, I'm just kinda overwhelmed at the difficulty.
Even if I have the design studio, I'll be spending 40 hours a week at a company to pay for the place. Everyone in the community that will be designing, will still have to go to school or work. How much can really be done when we are still technically a slave to the dollar? Can you really liberate the mind when your actions are still tied to a corporations interests? .... so..... Bolivia.
Endnote - I'm still hopeful there's another way
Most recently, I have discovered I really am an observer and a helper. Hasheem Ansari. I feel the happiest being used to help others. My desires are truly minimal. Mommy texted me asking what I wanted culinarily for graduation, I was about to type "anything you want!" as usual, and that would make me feel good to be non burdensome. But you know what, it would be even better to be burdensome in a way that the person enjoys the burden. So, I asked for a rainbow cake, throwback.
So, my preliminary ideas to be Ansari are:
1. 3 years to get debt free working construction, move to Bolivia and build my own house and just be a citizen.
I have a hunch that Latin America will pioneer the next century. I think they are the most in touch with nature, and have a sense of communal well-being, universal healthcare, basic income, resistance to capitalist greed, self pride, fear of colonizing. So, once materials and technologies come down in price and become easier to cultivate, the Latin countries will be in the best position to handle it with the best Happiness Index, where the common man has agency and feels a part of the community.
In more capitalist countries, by time these technologies are readily available, the common man will be fighting for a low wage dollar to rent an apartment he will never own. The companies will not allow government to have a basic income program or free healthcare. Land will be long bought up.
But that is all projecting, I'm sure there are ills to the more communal model, but I think it is just mainly slower technological progress since competition is less important. But if you are happier, does any of that matter?
Now, I think the Bolivia (or Cuba, Netherlands, Switzerland, Puerto Rico, Denmark, etc) would only be until I am maybe 40. I think I still have a responsibility to the USA, in that I have an advantage of understanding and helping the American struggle more.
2. 3 years to get debt free, then keep working and saving for maybe 5-8 more years. Design studio in the hood.
It starts out as a design collective out of people's (my) apartments. We just meet and discuss topics, while designing, probably clothing. Not for profit, just to outfit ourselves and others. Developing a sense of agency over our lives. Then, as I round year 5-ish, I and my community, open a design shop in a store front location. It'll be a 24 hour design studio. Complete with sewing machines, tutorials, a library, places for simply sitting and watching the day. After-school participation will be welcome, the locals who were once taught by me and my community to sew (not only sew, but design) will now relay knowledge to the younger ones, creating a communal tie. Eventually, we will partner with local design schools and some companies to sponsor workshops or exhibitions of their stuff.
By year 11, I and my tight knit community will have secured the funds to buy land near a shopping center and design and build our stand-alone design studio (90'x40') with bedding above for anyone to stay. The studio will be designed to be able to hold events such as community meetings, prayers, rap battles, viewing parties, as well as the usual sewing and possibly screen printing and graphic design. The exterior of the building will be used for a 'weekly mural' which will be painted by a local artist every week and then painted over the next week. There will be a small communal garden surrounding the building to learn basics of planting, as well as seating for enjoying the parking lot of a shopping center, lol, but I'm serious (we need to activate these spaces people!!).
What do I hope to get out of this? I believe instilling in people the power to lead your own life builds the resistance to fall into the temptation of the fleeting vices of this world. Quick bursts of enjoyment such as alcohol, drugs, bad food, terribly designed t-shirts, bad tv shows, social media will be easier to resist, as the person knows they do matter. They do have skills, they can make their own clothing, culture, they don't need Mercedes to define their worth. We now have an entire community that will resist bad government policy with clear minds, a community that can now innovate on top of mid-century revolutionary ideas fitted for the contemporary.
That would be dope.
3. Work and get a family, raise them. Find out what fatherhood is and feel complete as a human being.
*****
Here is the thing I have been thinking about in terms of revolutions and community activism; Revolutions are Hard. It is very easy for college kids who have no responsibilities to follow a cause and live off ramen. But what happens to all that energy?
People have children. Once children enter the picture, it becomes imperative to be gainfully employed and raise that child. What mechanism is in place to support that child? Only the system that is being revolted against. If a revolution only lives with the 'unlanded' 'untied' people, it will wither away as those people leave to have children or die. A successful alternate society is stable enough to fully support FAMILIES, without needing to use the other culture that one is revolting against. Why is this? Children born of an idea are much more staunch in those ideals than a 20 something who joins a cause. A child who has the undying ideological backing of parents is much more versed and passionate about a cause.
So how to achieve a revolution that can span generations? You somehow have to convince the women to buy into it and have the children. You have to have land, supply chains, maybe natural resource wealth, knowledge of construction, agriculture, access to fresh water. It gets hard really fast. A revolution is really not successful if your sitting in a corporate cubicle just listening to revolutionary speeches. It has to be done. And it is so hard to be done.
What happened to all the revolutionary energy in the mid-century? So many people, no architecture to show for it. We all had to crawl back into the main stream. I'm not mad at that, I'm just kinda overwhelmed at the difficulty.
Even if I have the design studio, I'll be spending 40 hours a week at a company to pay for the place. Everyone in the community that will be designing, will still have to go to school or work. How much can really be done when we are still technically a slave to the dollar? Can you really liberate the mind when your actions are still tied to a corporations interests? .... so..... Bolivia.
Endnote - I'm still hopeful there's another way
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