Thursday, November 6, 2014

Articulating anger...and finding a way out

Maybe not a complete way out, but somewhat.

I'm still here, still an architect, and still angry. A recent comment stated "it's not the profession, it's the people." There's a lot of truth in that statement. I think this profession warps people, but it's worse when it warps someone who was already a four-alarm-fire-flaming douche. And it's even worse when it warps a good, sane person and turns them into said type of douche.

I've been continually silent because it feels like everything I have to say is either a) raging against the machine, and b) isn't really an architecture problem but a white-collar worker in 21st-century America problem. I suppose both of those are true, and yet that doesn't make them less important. I'm furious when I watch a group of so-called seasoned design professionals refuse to think futuristically or at least creatively about how they run their businesses and their piece of the profession. And while I can't change that 100% right now, I can do something.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.
--Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm trying to find ways to articulate my thoughts, suggestions, advice, questions, and general pot-stirring commentary in a succinct manner. I've been undergoing a real change in how I spend my days and energy in the past year, and I still have work to do fixing my 31 Flavors of Shit (especially personally), so I'm trying to figure out how to write without giving myself another task/cross to bear.

But I'm here, with you, and still ultimately feel the same way: it's a good profession, but it's sick, and it CAN get better, if we try.