Whoa, dude. That's so meta.

The constant conflict of theory versus practice plagues us daily. We find ourselves in between moments of pragmatism & rumination. We’re often told “just do something” in order to get the proverbial creative juices flowing. Those moments of pure lucid logic pop up at the least helpful times. I have built entire projects in my head in those briefly opaque moments before sleep. Every angle was laser straight & each idea was conveyed in the clearest fashion while still staying a bit abstract & functional. How do we get these concepts to unfold into their respective fields?

I constantly find myself battling against the process. I am well aware of how long it takes to develop a design process; most designers are still trying to nail down the proper technique to attack the project put in front of them. Is opening up a discussion about the process a step forward or does it cease being functional when viewed in this light? Are we happier in producing or in figuring out how we produce? Are we pleased with the tangible outcome or the theories behind the production?

"I have weird memories of you..."

The break from the day to day worked wonders for me. It was a souvenir of what I am striving towards: that existence I always wanted yet never had the ambition to go for. This invisible fear used to linger over everything I did; I over analyzed every task, often thinking things were much more convoluted than they actually are or take much more time than they actually do. It took that steadfast desire to transcend what I was always eluding: actually following through. I would procrastinate to a fault & become horribly overwhelmed when it was absolutely unnecessary.

I witnessed new things & was reminded of what I left behind. Every moment of thinking I was above it all was immediate negated by a trip passed the house I grew up in. Maybe the actual visual reminder is what I need to rekindle that desire to leave it all. I parked & stared at the newly painted house that made me who I am. Whatever we learned in that house stuck with us to this day. Some of us try to hide it beneath a bombastic vocabulary while others pine for it, so much that we are “stuck” there: listening to the same music, keeping in touch with the same kids, & acting as if it was all wonderful when we know how bad it sometimes got.

I fell into cliché roles of what it meant to leave. Time flew by at mind-boggling speeds. I find myself counting backwards to that night I left. It’s a lot of subtracting in a life full of perpetual additions. I came to realize I don’t live here—it’s just a stop on the way back. All that poor grammar & excitable hand waving is indelible in me. I wouldn’t eradicate it if I could.

Unstructured Summer

It feels like I started this behavior ages ago. The motion gives time that extra thrust; that fervor seems to make you want to move faster than humanly possible. There are countdowns-- or "looking forward to's"- we constantly keep in our minds. I'm saddled to the whims of Deans of departments and in that tricky space of wanting to speed things up without wishing part of my life away. For every instance I say I have control over my actions I'm facing all new circumstances that I never thought I’d be dealing with.

I'm making these days longer than they need to be. I'm filling them to keep the restlessness at bay. The constant reminders are welcomed with a grin disguised as a grimace. What's ahead of us is ours and only ours. I see the reeling and fear hidden in the messages sent. The words are mere veilities at this point in time. There's an action happening in us; its motion in us forces us to sleep off the distance. All the "wish you were here's" bring us closer to it. We’ve witnessed the failures of wishing. The perfection isn't attained by their ineptitude and naysaying.

We've rested in that sleepy haze, expressed our desires from their very centers, and now we have forced them into a form we have created. The truly unstructured days will cease when we realize what we’ve built.

"Now I'm even further away"

The days are melting away; consumed by the day-to-day. I waltz through each moment like a tourist who is wondering when it's time to leave. Everything I know is located a thousand plus miles from here. The disconnect is lessened with each trip to the mail box. "Everything's here, wish you were fine." The summer rains are giving the Groundhog Day effect to my fervor & I'll avoid the torpor with everything I have. I'm scribbling down the rhetoric spewed from the id. All the laughter is a catalyst for the woolgathering. You're setting more than the world on fire.

new beginnings

as the school year comes to a close, i find that where i had recently passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow, my restlessness now has me tossing. four more days until the year becomes a thing of the past. in these four days i will give and receive the most innocent and genuine hugs of my life. i will then close up the classroom, packing away the lessons of my childhood and covering up the shelves i never thought would come back to me as they have. i will walk away with the pictures and letters as the only reminder. it's the simple times that i always seem to place myself in after a period of chaos. and it has once again wet my appetite for the tireless lifestyle that i was never quite finished with. each year is another move. and with each location, i find myself at the beginning, starting over. this is square one, again. only this time i may have found what i never knew i needed. maybe this is what was missing. maybe, together, we can create everything we ever wanted, that we tried for so long to convince ourselves we didn't.
the city and you.
revisited.

"I wouldn't trade one stupid decision for another five years of lies"

In a very short period of time (in the the grand scheme of things, that is) I have become enamored with the idea of amor fati. The idea that one must love their fate -- every second of it, not just the good times -- in order to truly live. All of our time spent toiling in the trivialities, the truly banal, have just as much weight as the real adventures of life. I guess it makes one realize just how much time is spent wasted on the the more assiduous aspects of existence.
This thought forces us to appreciate every moment that we would not only like to forget, but perhaps even omit from our memory wholesale. Every unbearable moment that fills you with complete dread has to be held with the same esteem as those moments you wished would go on ad infinitum. It sounds completely absurd, yet it is the only way to transcend those listless routines that create apathy amongst our peers.
When posed with the question of "If you had to re-live your life, without the ability to revise your past, would you welcome the idea or become filled with trepidation?". I felt the same umbrage that occurs with every funeral I have ever attended; that transient wake up call clamoring "You only get to go around once." This involuntarily forces us to realize how we have lived and brings forward the notions of not only embracing, but actually making your fate. Now that I am fully aware that it's up to me, will I embrace such a proposition or continue to inanely loll through life with an ever-growing wish list?

True Forms

The wonderful thing about incessant striving is that it constantly shifts to ensure unfailing movement. All stagnation can fizzle to an end through ulterior means or be stopped without an extrinsic force. That fire must be stoked often-- at the expense of everything you can afford to lose- and never allow it to be extinguished. I have had a bantam amount of eidolons in the past-- some fleeting, some lasting- and a few that were mere distractions from a boring, aimless waltz through certain areas of life. They all represent something I needed -- or at the least, thought I needed- to round out my life. The true forms of an anfractuous destination I thought would make me want to remain in that particular moment for all eternity.
Now I look to them to keep provoking a curiosity for all things unfamiliar. Whenever I feel that I have warranted some form of rest, as if I have earned the right due to my "setting the world on fire", they remind me that I am far from finished. I treat the nicknames with kid gloves, but continue to couch each statement with the name in mind. If we can't be intrepid with those we hold dear, we're the lowest ilk of coward. All the knowledge obtained throughout our days shows its ineffectual properties when we fail to act upon our inmost deprival.

Call It What You Will

I have always felt that unexplainable desire to investigate the larger gestures of life. The need to find that intangible occurrence that truly moves me. Those late nights lost their power after some time. I used to think they held the key to a major breakthrough that will leave me satisfied with some ultimate solution. The need to be satisfied has been replaced by the excitement of the actual search for it. There are so many ineffable aspects to life; so many things that remained unnamed or unspoken. When given the chance to say something we truly mean, we have to take full advantage of that opening and run with it. Every last one of us would profit from such candor, no matter the rejoinder to our averment. I have been given a chance to do just this and I welcome such the encounter with everything I have.
The notion of reverence has been peppering my thoughts for quite some time. Knowing that I still hold certain entities to be sacred has always kept me grounded and it has been essential to protect them from becoming trivial and picayune. It's been ages since I have done so with a person, but all of the emotions that it entails come back to me daily. Those small moments spent aching mirror that of the ache spent searching for the ultimate gesture of truth. All of our fleeting days should be spent trying to live within the domain of such Beauty. No matter what you call it, the connatural desire to keep it in your regard when making your way through the days ahead.

"Let these things fill your heart, vast as they are
And when you're entirely happy in that feeling
Then call it what you will:
Heart, Fortune, Love, or God!
I have no name for it.
Feeling is everything,
Names are sound and smoke
Obscuring heaven's glow."

- Faust, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Life affirmative moments:

1. The National's "Fake Empire"
2. fresh Gruyere
3. salt air
4. cold brewed iced blackeyes
5. counting down the days
6. Stars "Take Me to the Riot" and all of the fist pumping madness it induces
7. re-watching The Sopranos from the beginning
8. quality time with Pops
9. Classic Stamos in all of his charming, salacious glory
10. planning trips to Austin & the Northeast and all that it entails

Dude, you're posing all over me.

I spent a week away and I have come to realize I don't miss this place that much. All of the time spent here can be easily forgotten and be packed away forever under the more disinterested sectors of the mind. The lack of tangible inspiration and unmerited "cool" amounts to nil for me. It's no wonder it all fell apart here: the lack of substantial soul has plagued this tract for ages. Who needs tastemakers when the tide ebbs and flows without reason or determination?
I fooled myself once into thinking things would be different in this chapter, with a new fire, and it all went belly up without much provocation. I have recently looked at the things I possess as tools for progress. We have to use each and every asset to create our position in life. This place it collecting dust while I can't sit still. Dust means safety. Playing it safe for the sake of preserving some semblance of contentment is no longer regarded in my process. Our current epoch is pocked with uncertainty and retreat. We will forever be castigated as a nation of cowards if we keep this up.
I'm finished with such notions. Perhaps this place does have a touch of inspiration after all: It has shown me how i do not want to live.

The Turnaround

A lengthy discussion of past afflictions and future endeavors opened us up. We split from all former calamities and became fully aware that we have to become the fiery "dolphin-like" beasts we know we can be. We had it once, that burning appetence, and we know how to restart it's infirmed engine. All things considered, we're stronger now than ever. Inert no more, my friend. We have overcome more than we'd ever imagined. Those scared little boys huddled in the basement have grown up to realize the lessons taught by every action. Nothing will remain tacit, whether it is fortunate or formidable, its genius will no longer be dumbed down out of human fear or respect. Everything we own will be earned by fearless ardency we never knew existed within us.

Saturday nights & neon lights

I am still dumbfounded by the purview of emotions that can occur in the span of one day and how it can be expanded without warning. From ennui to elation within a span of a few hours; the dreaded packing of all things domestic was remedied with a quick, emphatic unwrapping. I am stunned by the fact that someone still cares and was left speechless by the act itself. The appreciation is infinite and won't fall victim a forgetful mindset or the whims of pride. Here's to a few more sleepless nights and the foot-tapping fatuousness they cincture.
This will be lauded for its role in the swelling, uplifting turn around- personally- for a year the was getting the best of most of us. We all are in need of a little potency added to our day-to-day to ensure nothing less than constant betterment against the odds, both visceral and external. This should do the trick. Merci.

Proceed without caution.

Throughout my World Literature class, we dealt with the the incessant battle between the notion of Beauty vs. Duty. We spent a great amount of our time discussing the idea of tangible divine beauty that transcends our cursory views on the topic and its effects upon our mindsets. Our professor gave us a simple, yet truly Daedalian, equation to try to help us traverse the rest of our days of battle: Love = Wound = Death = Heaven.

We later updated Heaven to include our temporal reality as we make it. This perception allows for us to not only work towards a terminus, but to use every waking moment to create our idealistic firmament with both feet on the ground. I sit here with virtually every forth coming minute for my avail and I count them each like the days left on a prison sentence. I've openly acknowledged my predilection towards Duty, but this may be bordering on complete ignorance towards the sanctity of Beauty. I am also fully cognizant of how vacillant I have been throughout my life. Any and all recognizable effort to change this has stemmed from the following excerpt on the multifarious forms of Pride:

Closely linked to this form of pride [pharisaical] is the pride of timidity, which stems from unreasonable fear. It makes us fearful of others' opinions, so that we cater to human respect. Under its impulse we fail to act when we should, because a groundless fear holds us to the bonds of a spiritual sloth that paralyzes our efforts and makes us incapable of determination, and so we let opportunities pass by unused.

We have all suffered from this. I realize this with every critique of my own work, both formal and informal. The bold, sweeping gestures I have envisioned get shelved in order to not gain attention from critics and classmates alike. After sitting in on a Design 1 crit, attending the Undergrad Pin-Up at University of Florida, and trying to develop my own process, I have realized how imperative it is to put it all out there and deal with any naysayers when the time is right and not a moment before. I have been afflicted by self-doubt for far too long and refuse to slow down my passions out of an unsolicited trepidation.

When your moments of introspection induce feelings of regret- not only from poor judgment, but also from sitting on your hands- you must belay such a condition and react to your apprehension with a mettle I believe is an intrinsic drive in each and everyone of us. There is no way to see what happens unless you make it happen. No, you won't always come out the victor and may have to face Odyssean trials throughout your lifetime, but that should be no reason to never become the fiery materialization of unadulterated passion. Whether your cathexis is temporal or transcendental, you must own every particle of that ardor. En avant.

Tonight I have to leave it

Facing a few weeks of unstructured existence and a lengthy period of incommunicado from someone who I constantly bombard with the entire gauntlet of daily musings, from banal to pressing, I have come full circle into a well known domain of thought. This hazy time of waiting will encompass crucial activities, but nothing I'm looking forward to. Without that connection, no matter its tacitness, I envision a time of looking for that glimmer that constantly occurs in my periphery. We once concurred it's out there- we know it is- so its existence isn't our concern, it's the deciphering of it all we're trying to clear up.
I can float around this town, wasting my time in a truly shiftless manner, or I can eat the days alive with only the intrinsic biological needs to slow me down. A few years back, I had an evening of debauchery filled with booze and me commanding everyone to "Tear it up!", while barely heeding my own fomenting. I'll truly find out if I'm living for the experience or for the prospect to tell someone else about it.
I can handle the days, It's the nights without sharing of the day-to-day that I'm fretting over. Noon and three will be hollowed out until they no longer resemble what they truly mean. I constantly hear of post-crit sleep and how it's better than any other slumber you'll experience. Tonight I don't see it happening and tomorrow isn't looking to promising either. I was dead on my feet all week; for now I'll be dead on my back.

"If it is to be, it is up to me"

The deluge of knowledge finds new paths every day. You stumble upon new facts, ideas, and even entire systems of education that you've never knew existed. It's these small leads that unfold into big breakthroughs that I seek. Some pinhole that eventually evolves into a gorge. You have to constantly change with this knowledge; allowing it to shape and be shaped by your perspective.
I have a professor who constantly questions why we are not more ardent beings. He constantly challenges us, almost mockingly, to "save our generation." It's an idea that has been nagging American culture for ages. The prostration of our passions has caused us to become stagnant in the face of a gyroscopic society. There is something bigger out there in the ether waiting to be designed, formed, and learned by all of us. The collection of these creations will shape not only our future, but our place in a history that is in dire need of something favorable.
This all falls under the notion of how we design our surroundings. I have developed a conflagrant desire to use this all encompassing knowledge for an amelioration of not only my local surroundings, but for it to spread like the aforementioned pinhole. There is something in all of us to produce better mediums for everyone. I don't want this to be misconstrued as some socialist drivel; I have no desire to promote such a sentiment.
Having found myself in a situation I could not have foreseen, or maybe I was too guileless to want to believe was possible, I have decided to dedicate myself to the notions I have mentioned above. This idea of squeezing every last drop from life has become a new cynosure of my abilities and fervor. Whatever becomes of my life, it is because I shaped it myself. There are myriad encumbrances that must be dealt with in our lifetimes. We can either use them or be decimated by them until we no longer feel in control. I hope none of us ever lose that control.

Introduction / Methodology

The title of this blog was liberally borrowed from designer Bruce Mau's "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth". Statement number 14 says: "Don't be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort." This notion of a superficial armature against the world has had an adverse effect on us for far too long and I fear it may end up establishing a negative connotation. We decided to update the statement for use in contemporary times; which will continue the cycle of falling out of vogue and ironically become dated itself.
We will try to refrain from petty name calling and tawdry gossip no matter how petty and tawdry we feel at that particular point in time. Frankly, I have grown tired of wasting my time on the trivial and have decided to use my time developing a new outlook and trying to project my ideas, notions, whims, and fancies upon the zeitgeist.
I know both of us use our environment, no matter the circumstances, as inspiration and a catalyst for motivation. (Also, I'll try to stop speaking for the both of us). Feel free to comment, borrow, inspire, or discount anything written within this page. I am fully cognizant of how much I have to learn from others and will openly welcome confrontation and criticism.
En avant.