NotitiesBuilding
Mark Ellison
This document presents reflections on the nature of building and craftsmanship, emphasizing the importance of surfaces, the disconnect between appearance and reality, and the lessons learned from manual labor and creative endeavors. It discusses the value of effort, practice, and the acceptance of imperfections as part of the process, while highlighting the emotional and social impacts of construction work.
For the most part, all we see of the world is its reflective surface. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
Note: Doing
The real difference between my apartment and the apartments I build for a living is in their surfaces. Surface makes the show. It’s all anyone sees. But the illusion is millimeters thin and can be dispelled with a scratch. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
I’ve never had a customer who cares a whit about the systems or the materials that are behind those veneers as long as they keep functioning. People are willing to pay unthinkable sums for these places because the illusion works. Looking at a photograph of well-coiffed, superbly dressed people in lavishly composed surroundings, few of us can escape envy’s grasp. Our entire social order can be measured by envy’s accumulated gaze. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
Those of us who build the homes you see in a magazine finish many a day covered in grease and dirt and blood. All the world’s advertisers and tin-pot electronic barkers can shout themselves hoarse about the glamour and satisfaction of unbounded accumulation; it can’t penetrate our dark armor. We’ve seen too far behind the veneer. A private palazzo might boost your confidence when the dinner guests swoon, but it can’t make your children love you. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
I don’t think everyone needs to devote themselves to manual labor or a craft, but I firmly believe that most of life passes us by when we avoid mucking about in dirt, or dough, or dark thoughts. Doing anything from beginning to end brings understanding that no finished product can provide. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
It’s best to acknowledge that in any endeavor, falling short is the rule. Every serious effort is met with resistance, often from unexpected quarters. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
Markeren(Geel) - Pagina xix · Locatie 188 (Page 0)
Doing as I am told would mean building thousands of flaws into every project in which I’m involved. The thought never enters my mind. I have never been good at rules. I am terrible at recognizing authority. Somehow, after all these years of applying myself to my trade, I have turned these central character flaws into a lucrative and entertaining business model. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
We needed another plan. I often don’t have a ready solution for problems of this magnitude. Huge sums of money can be involved; egos get easily bruised; workers’ safety is at risk; everyone needs assurance that the new plan is markedly better than the old one. I generally give myself a week or two to empty my head of ideas and mull. I’m hard-pressed to explain how it happens, but over time, by carrying around a problem with me everywhere I go, not really thinking too directly on it, an answer will usually come to me. Sometimes it’s a good one. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
As long as I think of my job as a complicated puzzle, the absurdity of it rarely gets me down. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
Effort is its own reward, an effort made one day builds the strength to make another more easily and more effectively the next, and after a few thousand days of effort upon effort, things will have changed, completely. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
I have arranged them into chapters that are titled by the central concepts that have been meaningful to me on my way. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
Inspiration and guidance are all I can offer; no one can make any effort but their own. (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
Markeren(Geel) - Pagina 3 · Locatie 305 (Page 3)
Park, encircled by gawkers, tossing around old vaudeville (Page 3)
Tags: Geel
packed my banjo, found my clown, collected my check, (Page 6)
Tags: Geel
From time to time, I’ve been jolted by circumstance and chance into admitting the falsity of what I call “my beliefs.” Life’s tsunamic changes can bring about unpredictable behaviors in a person. I am not privy to what takes place in most other people’s hidden lives, but in my own, a thorough dunking and cleansing in the worst of life’s currents, no matter the discomfort of it, nor the dismay it brings, washes clean whole attics of nonsense, and makes some seldom-visited rooms suddenly inviting and inhabitable. (Page 8)
Tags: Geel
By firmly believing this position or that, we wind up not believing enough about ourselves; we exclude everything we cannot bear to be true. It’s not just the embarrassing, painful, and shameful that we won’t admit; there is a good deal we exclude that is pleasant, even joyful. (Page 9)
Tags: Geel
I offer a short list of things I no longer believe: I am a nice man. I am honest. Love lasts forever. Life goes on. I am not an artist. Everyone gets to make their own list. (Page 9)
Tags: Geel
A misalignment of a few millimeters in any direction and the spell is broken. (Page 12)
Tags: Geel
Markeren(Geel) - Pagina 15 · Locatie 469 (Page 15)
Note: Untested
An untested belief isn’t worth much. (Page 15)
Tags: Geel
We are all confounded by: What we believe life is. What we believe we are. What we believe we are capable of, And what we believe we are allowed to do. We work so hard to pin ourselves down. There’s no shame in letting some of it go. (Page 16)
Tags: Geel
It really doesn’t matter how good a person is at something; what matters is the meaning they derive from its pursuit. (Page 21)
Tags: Geel
Talent, no matter how spectacular, is often more liability than asset unless it avails itself of benevolent parenting, rigorous practice, wise instruction, and the near-impossible feat of levelheaded humility. (Page 22)
Tags: Geel
Circumstance, physiology, and temperament aren’t ours to decide. Pursuit and practice are. The joy of following something as far as one can is enough. Every endeavor is endless. No one ever gets to the bottom of anything. Did I have “gifts”? Did I have “talents”? Certainly. Does every child? I hope so. But the surefire way to extinguish them is to tell a child which “talents” they have and which ones they don’t. (Page 23)
Tags: Geel
Healing, although not entirely reliable, is the greatest benevolence this world has to offer. (Page 23)
Tags: Geel
As much as everything we have is lost at last, nothing can ever really be taken from us. (Page 24)
Tags: Geel
Very few architects remain who are capable of engineering and designing singular structures like this, so it falls on the contractors to produce unique elements that are often no more thoroughly conceived than a line drawing depicting their intended shape. I have come to see this design gap as my personal niche, although it is obviously a precarious career path. I just happen to like building things no one has built before, and I have for as long as I can remember. (Page 25)
Tags: Geel
Drawing is how I think about building, and often how I talk about it. Drawing in ink is how I make sure I mean what I say. (Page 26)
Tags: Geel
Most things worked. Sometimes a door would warp and need straightening, so I invented a method of invisibly installing a guitar-style truss rod to pull it straight. (Page 26)
Tags: Geel
If you want to do amazing things, there is only one road: practice. (Page 35)
Tags: Geel
The secret is that, with the right combination of ingredients, practice itself becomes rewarding. At times it is rewarding every day. As simply as I can make it out, here is the recipe: Find something fascinating. Find a person (or more than one) who knows how to do this thing well. They don’t need to be the world champion, just good enough that they can teach you properly. It’s best if you like them, admire them, somewhat fear them, and understand parts of what they tell you. Even better if they like you. Be polite. If they charge money, pay them on time. Listen to them. Do what they say—not what you think they say, what they actually say. Practice often and for the recommended duration. If, after trying hard to do something, you can’t, ask for help. Accept where you are weak. Work extra diligently in that area. This will speed your progress. Learn as much as you can about the thing that fascinates you, so you can find out that it is endlessly fascinating. Briefly celebrate progress when it is made. Enjoy the thing itself. Enjoy it in your mind and heart and body. Go as far as you can. Play. Feel free to overdo it. Once you are truly qualified, and by this I mean you have diligently practiced for many years, teach someone else who finds your thing fascinating. (Page 35)
Tags: Geel
Teachers should not take their responsibilities lightly; young minds are at stake. Steady, self-assured guidance can bring wonderful results. (Page 37)
Tags: Geel
Three years into my carpentry career, I was a budding craftsman, full of myself in my quickness to learn new things, and overimaginative in my assessment of my abilities. Because I could hang doors, put up moldings, and generally deposit things in their correct locations, I thought of myself as skilled. It’s amusing, and a dash painful, to look back at how little I knew, and how much I did stupidly back then. I was interested, useful, willing, and careful at best. But, to my credit, these are the beginnings of competence. (Page 40)
Tags: Geel
Despite my willingness to work hard, like most twenty-one-year-olds, I had a lot to learn about deadlines. If things got done whenever we got around to them, that was fine with me. I had not yet encountered the idea of doing everything within my power to meet a goal. (Page 41)
Tags: Geel
I hadn’t ruined too much, maybe two sheets of Formica, but I fretted over it painfully, and I lied about what happened, amplifying my agitation. The truth would have been a better choice; a little disapproval is less disturbing than the terror of discovery that lying grows in the gut. (Page 42)
Tags: Geel
Note: Terror
Finishing on time felt heroic. (Page 43)
Tags: Geel
Other people’s motivations are invisible. Some can be inferred. Parents, if they are decent, are concerned with their children’s safety, well-being, and success. Bosses are generally in the business of making profits and controlling costs. Lovers are often shamed into hiding what they want for fear of rejection and ridicule. Likewise, my motivations are invisible to others. It’s unreasonable to expect anyone to guess them, and inference is a notoriously inaccurate tool. (Page 47)
Tags: Geel
Ask for what you want. No one is likely to offer it. (Page 47)
Tags: Geel
I have learned that it might just be the asking that takes more practice than anything else. (Page 48)
Tags: Geel
A shaky security can be found in working for people who are unaffected by the ups and downs most of us endure. In times of hardship, I retreat to the companies that build for that set. The richest among us are always building something somewhere. (Page 52)
Tags: Geel
It pays to do the math before any negotiation; that way the boss knows that when you ask for a raise, you’ve already earned it. It also pays to throw in a bit of an incentive. And if anyone mentions a bonus, ignore it; if they want to give it to you, they will. I was hired on the spot. (Page 54)
Tags: Geel
Everyone’s math should be at least good enough that they can take measure of the world they inhabit. (Page 58)
Tags: Geel
Math’s beginnings were doubtlessly humble. When I was schooled, we were told stories of nomadic shepherds who kept pebbles in hide purses they hung from their belts. If each pebble could be matched to a sheep at the end of the day, all was well. Therein lies the beauty of Math: It works. Geometers calculated the curvature of Earth; Galileo reportedly dropped a marble and a cannonball from Pisa’s tower, pleased with himself when they landed together; Newton boiled it all down to a few simple laws; and an optimistic intellectual elite was seduced into the sunny belief that human beings can figure out anything. They weren’t entirely deluded. They looked out, they looked in, they measured, they calculated, and much of the world was made comprehensible. Then, in 1931, following the impulse of so many of his contemporaries, Gödel blew the whole thing to pieces. I can only imagine the mathematicians of his time working their way through the proofs of his incompleteness theorems and muttering, “Shit, No, Shit, Aaargh, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!” as their whole world dissolved before their eyes. He had proven that nothing is provable. Math had turned on itself and slit its own throat. (Page 58)
Tags: Geel
To me, the point is to make things, not to spend hours perfecting the tool that helps me do that. No matter how sharp an edge is honed, under a microscope it appears gullied and craggy. All methods are imperfect. Nothing is ever as sharp as we might wish it would be. I am happy to take a good enough chisel, sharpen it in a reliable, repeatable way, and get on with my work. Someone out there is waiting for their staircase. It won’t be a perfect staircase. It will be riddled with tiny errors, unnoticeable cheats, subtle compromises, no matter how far I go dividing inches into fractions while I make it. But made well enough, it will serve its purpose for years and someone may even grow to cherish it. (Page 59)
Tags: Geel
No one in Science or Mathematics is the least bit disturbed that, as a species, we don’t know everything. It provides both job security and a sense of delight that there is plenty left to figure out. (Page 67)
Tags: Geel
From these years of study, it became clear to me that language is a malleable thing. The words we say are the shaky screen with which we mask our objectives. As authors of our own scripts, we get to choose the details that make our stories palatable to ourselves and edit out the details that don’t show us in the best light. Meaning isn’t in the words, but in the way we say them, the little sugars and spices we add internally to make our stories tastier to ourselves and to our audiences. (Page 69)
Tags: Geel
The words don’t matter. When our objectives stray a little too far from what we want our listener to glean about us, words seamlessly slip into lies. (Page 69)
Tags: Geel
It seems silly to point out, but language works best when the speaker has something to say that they would like the listener to comprehend. Better still if they have thought the thing through a bit before talking about it. (Page 70)
Tags: Geel
Most people never really notice that rooms don’t bang up against one another. Countless schemes have been devised to wrangle these in-between elements we call “transitions.” The importance of transitions cannot be overstated. Like lawyers, preachers, and air traffic controllers, architects can rightly be judged by their ability to manage them. (Page 79)
Tags: Geel
People are fond of saying how difficult it is to change. They’re correct; biological necessity and habit conspire against it. But even as crude a system as the military knows how to rework a brain. It’s the first word every recruit hears: “Attention!” Gentler methods, at least until you try them, focus on precisely the same faculty. Tai chi, yoga, meditation, therapy, and all other systems of psychological change begin with attention. They do this because they recognize that attention is the only faculty we possess that we can reliably control. (Page 91)
Tags: Geel
Poor Attention, the untrained puppy of the psyche, sniffing at a stump one minute, then five steps later rolling in rot. But with patient training, the little scamp can be transformed into a hunting dog that chases down quarry, a guide accompanying its master down unfamiliar streets, or a rescuer that can find us buried in an avalanche and bring enough broth that we might work our way back to warmth. (Page 91)
Tags: Geel
I don’t think one can overstate the importance of developing attention. It is rightly described as a form of payment. We invest our attention in the things we value, and we pay with our psychological energy. As with any organism or device, there is only so much energy at our disposal. If all of my attention is captured by the next fetching attraction or the next sad thought, then that is where I will spend my life. There won’t be any energy left for anything else. (Page 91)
Tags: Geel
I would never suggest that it is harmful, after a hard week’s work, to enjoy a movie or a concert, but I would posit, in all seriousness, that half of our country’s infants would not be mistaken if they were to grow up thinking that their parents loved their phones more than them. Emotions, so unreliable in their assessments, grip me without warning. Thoughts stream through me unbidden and suspect in their origins. Sensations signal this or that function needs care. Attention is often the only capacity I have that can correct my course and lead me in a new direction. (Page 92)
Tags: Geel
People who build for a living are often in the awkward position of knowingly making other people’s lives miserable. (Page 101)
Tags: Geel
I have had only two or three clients in my career whom I would consider suitable babysitters for my children. (Page 103)
Tags: Geel
A lot can be gained when people get to know one another; a lot of kindness can be learned, but people conspire to keep attitudes as they are, and meanness is the result. (Page 103)
Tags: Geel
We in the trades are so unused to appreciation that when we encounter it, we will redouble our efforts to do right in return. (Page 105)
Tags: Geel
With few exceptions, everyone has redeeming qualities, people who count on them, and hidden capacities and histories. Uncover one of these, inquire about it, place several hundred-dollar bills in a plain white envelope, and make a new ally. (Page 106)
Tags: Geel
us faces unique difficulties, gets tripped up by our shortcomings, stumbles and (Page 0)
Tags: Geel
It took about twenty years for me to feel that I had reached the level of competence in my trade. (Page 113)
Tags: Geel
Competence at anything is a charmed, relaxed, and temporary station. (Page 114)
Tags: Geel
Mistakes get fixed by those who have the understanding needed to examine a problem’s component causes, weigh possible solutions, and implement practical processes to rectify them. In my professional world, those three steps can be carried out by a single experienced person. That is essentially my job description. (Page 115)
Tags: Geel
We live in a time when the most pressing priority is to fix the errors of our past. (Page 115)
Tags: Geel
Halting climate change means reworking entire industries: energy production and delivery, construction, agriculture, transportation, regulation, political discourse, and more. But none of these areas will be significantly changed unless we upend our priorities. (Page 115)
Tags: Geel
We are making heroes of the wrong people, and at a time when we actually need saving. (Page 116)
Tags: Geel
People enjoy teaching someone who wants to learn. (Page 117)
Tags: Geel
The question is, are we innovating intelligently in order to solve urgent, looming problems, or do we crave novelty for the attention it brings, its mantle of stylishness, and its illusion of progress? Enamored of the new, we have lost the intelligence of the traditional. (Page 120)
Tags: Geel
Inventiveness can have its shortcomings. Sometimes the most obvious failings are missed by innovators. (Page 122)
Tags: Geel
There is an enormous difference in graciousness between dashing someone’s dream and refining it to fruition. (Page 122)
Tags: Geel
Learning gotten from books brings nothing of the understanding that hard-won failure emblazons in us. (Page 124)
Tags: Geel
Some people succeed marvelously right through graduation and well into their careers without ever doing the thing they profess to instruct others in doing. I don’t think the designers of this staircase have ever built as much as a birdhouse with their own hands. Yet, at no time in the process did I ever hear them say, “I don’t know how to do this,” or anything near it. I can’t imagine a more effective roadblock to learning anything new. (Page 126)
Tags: Geel
People who think speed doesn’t matter are fooling themselves. (Page 137)
Tags: Geel
I developed a few rules for efficiency: Plan until you have a good one. Others are possible, but any good plan will do. Once you have a plan, stop thinking about work. Just work. Do the hardest task, the one you don’t want to do, first. Dread is a clear indicator of which task to choose. Do all like tasks together. If you’re holding a broom, sweep everything you can, then move to the next task and tool. Without getting anyone hurt, see how fast you can go. I have carried this simple system through my entire career. To this day, I start by trying to understand the thing I am about to do as fully as I can. I analyze its parts in detailed drawings, plan the steps involved and write them down, measure, calculate, and make lists, ordering every material and component in advance. Once this is done, I do it all over again, looking for mistakes until I am assured that all my work is as correct as it can be. This is the proper work of my thinking brain. It is a wonderful tool for the job. But for the next job, the thinking brain is a hindrance. Building things is a largely physical task. The body learns through mimicry, practice, repetition, and refinement. Thinking brains participate in the learning part of this process, which is often slow and frustrating, but once a skill is learned, it belongs to the body; the thinking brain should butt out. Except for the occasional inspired improvement, it doesn’t have any business here. (Page 139)
Tags: Geel
Sometimes in my career, to see where the limit to speed might be, I’ve intentionally worked two or three times faster than my accustomed pace. (Page 140)
Tags: Geel
Friendly competition makes for an interesting workday. If your thinking brain needs something to occupy itself, there’s always clever trash talk. (Page 140)
Tags: Geel
I am always impressed by people who can do things that I can’t. (Page 142)
Tags: Geel
I refined myself all the way to utter boredom. (Page 145)
Tags: Geel
That’s the conundrum of competence: All that effort, everything that goes wrong, countless corrections and solutions finally come together, and for a glorious while work is a banquet. But the next day comes, and sooner or later a body needs breakfast. (Page 146)
Tags: Geel
Industry standards don’t provide a useful guide to building things people will love; they’re just talking points for lawyers to follow when they fight about the things people hate. When work gets rejected, citing industry standards might help with arbitration, but at that point things have already gone too far. (Page 151)
Tags: Geel
can: It’s easier to build something right than it is to build it wrong and then fix it. (Page 152)
Tags: Geel
Clients care deeply about schedules. The only part of the finished product they really care about is the part they and their peers see. That’s the part that makes the neighbors look around and say, “Damn.” (Page 152)
Tags: Geel
People love things that feel right. Better still if they look great doing it. (Page 153)
Tags: Geel
Jesus was assistant super. He was the best at interacting with the crew; he enjoyed authority but lacked the impulse to abuse it. (Page 161)
Tags: Geel
Even in mildly frightening circumstances fear slows the brain and sets it to calculating everything that could go wrong, complete with visions of embarrassing or painful outcomes. The next thing you know, you’ve scratched on the eight ball or tumbled off a cliff. Many try to pass off this slowing down as deliberate, calling it thoughtfulness or care. I’ve seen carpenters spend hours pondering an iffy process long past the point when they should have just given it a try. Usually all that pondering only increases the pressure and worry; they’ll find out soon enough whether they have the skills or not. (Page 171)
Tags: Geel
Any fighter knows that one of the most difficult aspects of fighting is learning to relax when things get the most heated. (Page 172)
Tags: Geel
More internally, fear keeps us from admitting what we are. There is so much in us that doesn’t like to be looked at; we think that if our friends and neighbors found out about it, they would drag us to the town square and throw us in the stocks. (Page 173)
Tags: Geel
The most interesting and challenging projects were always available to anyone who was willing to say, “I’ll do it.” (Page 174)
Tags: Geel
By comparison, taking on a challenging project isn’t worth hesitating over. I want to learn more, to become more proficient, to make things that I think are astonishing. If that means enduring days or weeks of self-doubt and intestinal discomfort, then that is the price I must pay. I face real consequences when I screw something up. But unlike surgeons and professional dancers, I have had the chance to fix the majority of the mistakes I’ve made in carpentry. I have to live with the imperfection of my work. Imperfections are the first thing that come to mind every time I remember a past project, but most of the fun and satisfaction I’ve had in my career has come from finding solutions to problems nearly everyone around me turned away from. (Page 174)
Tags: Geel
Fear is a constant companion underlying much of what I do. But because we are old pals, I now hand the narrative over to Fear, who has cleverly combined dreaded elements from my childhood with nagging anxieties of today. Together, we present this report card evaluating some of my more notable inventions. I can hear the butterflies approaching.... (Page 175)
Tags: Geel
Prudence is a feeble reason for doing anything. (Page 176)
Tags: Geel
Markeren(Geel) - Pagina 182 · Locatie 2524 (Page 176)
I’ve done everything wrong at least once. (Page 182)
Tags: Geel
Young parents are torn every which way by life. Nascent careers, newly acquired spouses, sick kids and healthy ones, and not enough experience to be good with any of it make young parents an unreliable bunch. (Page 183)
Tags: Geel
Craftsmen often make up for in optimism what they lack in business sense. (Page 184)
Tags: Geel
This time, I prepared my price more carefully, looked it over critically, and doubled it. (Page 186)
Tags: Geel
To this day, I won’t give a set price for a project. I mistrust both my financial acumen and my optimistic outlook. After forty years, everything I build is new to me in some way and will have its surprises. I charge an hourly rate; I work hard and fast, and I try mightily to get things right. (Page 188)
Tags: Geel
If there’s a serious problem, these days I have the guts to talk about it; I’d rather not pile up any more mud on the cowardly side of the fence. Clients can fire me whenever they like. No client ever has. (Page 188)
Tags: Geel
Each of us has to live with ourselves; other people have to live with us, too. I think contentment, fulfillment, and decency are better measures of the quality of life one leads. Each of us must satisfy ourselves that our life has been worth the time we’ve spent living it. (Page 189)
Tags: Geel
There’s drama to be found in anything, and this is where drama is at its richest in the building world: when things go wrong. (Page 193)
Tags: Geel
Everyone screws up, and fixing it is almost always messy. A show about how to make a stretcher table is marginally interesting at best. A show about facing one’s flaws would be downright fascinating. (Page 193)
Tags: Geel
In forty years of building, this was the most efficient system I’ve ever seen. No hemming and hawing in “progress meetings,” no “We will have to revisit that” from indecisive design professionals, just ask, answer, build, an unheard-of trifecta in our industry. (Page 195)
Tags: Geel
Most dedicated craftspeople make things as skillfully as they can. When, through our efforts, we are able to make something truly beautiful, it is a source of real pride, but pride with an element of detachment. The things I’ve made have never been mine. My work is to make things for other people. (Page 200)
Tags: Geel
The older I get, the less I worry that someone will take me for a fool—I am a fool; I’ve proven it time and again. And the less I worry what they think, the more people tell me about themselves, because I ask and want to know. (Page 207)
Tags: Geel
Will is made by what a person does. It is the quality that is inseparable from ability and accomplishment in every sphere. Yet, it is not something that garners much notice. I have always found this peculiar. Without thinking of it as such, people celebrate Will, but they focus on its results, largely ignoring its process. We talk about the extraordinary talent exhibited by a musician or an athlete, but what we are responding to emotionally is the staged performance of the result of Will, the part that can be commodified, the culmination of years of practice and grueling determination to overcome personal doubts, setbacks, and shortcomings, the result of the tedious, triumphant, extraordinary effort we rarely try to see. Will is centered in doing, but its magic is in its ability to transform how and what we are, transformation powerful enough that it is palpable, even inspirational, when we witness Will’s results. (Page 213)
Tags: Geel
When we first met twenty-eight years ago, he was my foreman. He taught me the importance of doing rough work as neatly and thoughtfully as the fancy stuff. To him it showed care and competence to get every step of the work right. (Page 223)
Tags: Geel
When the brain outstripped the stomach as the governing organ of our bodies, twin paths of mutual understanding and mutual annihilation stretched into the future for our species, with seeds firmly planted in us for both. Vanishing points are entirely imaginary and starkly real. With every step taken down our paths, the conjoined parallels remain visible on the horizon, yet recede in the exact measure of the distance we travel. No matter how we ache for great conjunctions—joy to sorrow, life to death, reason to mystery, beauty to horror—the parallels pry themselves apart; we remain incomplete, and then we are gone. (Page 235)
Tags: Geel
Decades of university theorizing have systematically divorced the profession from the physical act of construction so that a more accurate modern definition of architect might be “person possessing an interest in the compelling nature of built structures who, having earned a college degree and an elusive license, believe they have the authority to tell builders what to do.” (Page 237)
Tags: Geel
Trends never serve anyone well; they’re mainly marketing schemes, efforts to make a splash. I gave up on them at an early age after some failed attempts at fitting in. (Page 240)
Tags: Geel
Lately, I do what pleases me without apology and I encourage others to do the same, critics be damned. Everyone has to live in their home; no one has to live with critics. (Page 240)
Tags: Geel
As factories replaced workshops, management separated itself from labor, robbing it of its independence. The result is a world where two-thirds of us come home dirty every night, and one-third comes home clean. (Page 242)
Tags: Geel
Good buildings don’t ruin the Earth. (Page 244)
Tags: Geel
A hopeful attitude toward the future doesn’t exclude a critical view of the way things are. (Page 247)
Tags: Geel
The owners will be able to operate them without a manual. And if electricity in New York is ever generated in a renewable way, these houses will essentially cease polluting. Call it passive if you like; I think it’s pretty badass. (Page 248)
Tags: Geel
If you can build a house without causing too much irreparable harm, please yourself with its trappings, and not piss off the neighbors, in my book, you have done well. (Page 248)
Tags: Geel
I’m not trying to draw the distinction between art and craft here; to me there is none. (Page 251)
Tags: Geel
Any “craft” can be “art” if its purpose and execution align to make it so. (Page 252)
Tags: Geel
Music had long taken a back seat in my life, but at fifty the exodus of my children made more room in my days. After a few years of concentrated practice, I finally started liking my own playing. A close friend and I formed a jaunty local ensemble, and unexpectedly, I began writing songs at a surprising clip. Songs could always do for me what books never could: focus on one or two ideas, talk about them in oblique yet highly personal terms, and wrap things up before anyone noticed it was me who made them cry. (Page 255)
Tags: Geel
Half-made things are like half-kept promises; they gnaw at my conscience. (Page 260)
Tags: Geel
It hardly matters what I make. What matters is the doing. (Page 261)
Tags: Geel
Falling on my face hurts, but eventually it gets better. Nothing ever heals all the way. I carry all my life’s pain in my gait, in the fear that flashes behind my eyes when someone comes too close, in the lies I tell to cover my shame, and in the memory of the suffering I have inflicted on others that can’t be undone. (Page 265)
Tags: Geel
Every well-intentioned teacher I have had taught the same lesson: Do everything as perfectly as you can. One hundred percent correct is the only goal worth pursuing. It’s a lesson that demands rigor and promises the highest reward. There’s nothing wrong with the lesson. How could there be? It’s the recipe for perfection. But the harder lesson to learn is that failure, brokenness, weakness, and error cannot become the targets of our derision. They are our constant companions, and the most difficult to welcome. (Page 265)
Tags: Geel
We have built for ourselves exactly the world we deserve. It is a precise reflection of how far mankind has come, in every horrid and glorious detail. (Page 266)
Tags: Geel
Comfort and safety are strong opiates against the disconsonance and fear they stave off. (Page 266)
Tags: Geel
Up until now, I have resisted telling the morals to my stories. They’re in there, but it’s far more fruitful if you find them yourself. As this is my final opportunity, I aim to be as clear as I can, because this idea is a hard thing to hear. THE MORAL OF THE STORY Every error is a door. The keys to our cells are hidden behind our mistakes. (Page 267)
Tags: Geel
Don’t be afraid to be wrong. You are. I am. (Page 268)
Tags: Geel
What we do makes what we become. Working at something, or a few things every day, with guidance and attention, changes our physiology, psychology, and our feelings about ourselves and the world. Accomplishment and pride walk hand in hand. (Page 269)
Tags: Geel
Most of life is work. We live on a planet where everything needs tending: businesses, relationships, homes, gardens, machines, interests, bodies, psyches. Everything here falls apart unless someone makes an effort to keep it going or improve it. And things still fall apart sooner or later. (Page 271)
Tags: Geel
The only standards that matter are the ones to which I hold myself. (Page 271)
Tags: Geel
Everyone we walk among lives between devastation and joy. We all lose everything. (Page 272)
Tags: Geel
We are given the opportunity to rebuild the world. If you want to try, start small. If you succeed, expand. (Page 272)
Tags: Geel