Meaning

It has been my intention for some time now to build a life of meaning. Not one of happiness as happiness is fleeting. Meaning has weight. It is in the truest sense, sustainable. What moves the ebb and flow and nudges chaos back to its order.

I believe meaning to be the objects that surround us. The house that becomes a home and the hello that turns to love. It is without doubt the mountains we scale, the fear we push through and the whispers we speak in the ending of our day. Meaning is where words cannot fully go. The abyss of the gut. 

I can say with all honesty I do not know where my path leads. These words as I write them are my spectacles. My bobsled and pack mule. I can say with all honesty that my life lacks. Time has a way of taking. But I too can say with conviction that my determination is what drives my meaning. It is what finds the gaps needing to be filled and then pushes and pulls, giving meaning its room to breathe and sow its seeds. 

In this time of uncertainty, of so much bad emotion, meaning is our life vest. My parachute as I glide and fall knowing eventually I will land. Knowing my course will avail itself and meaning will become my map. That meaning will become our map as time clears the brush for future viewing. Future building. 

CB 01/28/18

This Is My Desire

I feel as if I grapple with all that I do. What I have to offer this world. I am consumed by the weight of our current times. Our two stepping approach to the future. I know that design cannot save the world and beauty is simply a pillow on the path of the weary. So what is my resolve and how do I perpetuate my active determination. My need to facilitate the future positive. 

Thoreau once wrote, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." Perhaps it's my approach to the problem. My instinct to push. Unaware of what I am not seeing and blinded by my own determined path digging.  My compass fixation and overreaching desires. It could be then a matter of easing up on the reigns. Allowing that I may not know where it's all heading. Where I am heading and being fine with that. Or at least ok..ish. 

There is one thing I know for sure. I know who I am. I live here. What I have to offer may not put a dent into this world but I am determined to scratch the surface. Make my mark. Give, not because I have been given but because this is my desire. This is my composition. My all, outward. The determination of one who does not have the answers but lives for possibility. Lives for the bloom of beauty. The bloom of inspiration. 

CB 01/26/18

I Live For This

We're living in an era that requires much more action. Much more inspiration. Social media's screaming into a pillow no longer satiates our need to express. That dam has broken. We have gone beyond the rim and are spilling over to the streets with marches, graphics and installations. Into our everyday.  

We are now at a place where our emotions require a physicality to boost our voices and expand on our words. This is a turning place. A marker of what is needed. It is a socio-political mindset that is showing up increasingly in architecture, product design and site specific installations. This is a manifestation of a growing desire for change. To act. Our need to make real our emotions and over rote minds. To put arm to arm, brick to mortar and to walk the walk. 

History has shown us this need to express. Our documentations of protests seal our troubled past. We have erected statues and built museums to somehow solidify and make peace with our emotions. Our struggles to gain the universal freedom we are born into. To come to terms with the past and somehow learn from mistakes and celebrate the winning. 

The future will tell us we are on the right path. This I know to be true. I live for this. The inspiration. The hairs on my body raise as I dig and sift through the inter-web, searching. Satisfying my need to know. My deep desire to be a part of a bigger picture and express my frustrations. To pick up a stone and throw it into the abyss of the future positive. 

CB 01/20/18 

Documents

I always find it interesting what we collect. How we surround ourselves and what inspires us. Our attachments. Person, place and thing. 

In this time and place I find my needs are more emotionally based. My thoughts on marriage come up more often. This is something I've never allowed myself and am now more than ever needing. The need of family. Home. And yes, even a dog. 

These thoughts visit often. Unlike many thoughts in this era these are most welcome. I tuck them into my subconscious and pull them out to revisit. Turn through them as pages in a journal or a calendar as they seem to repeat and document each day. 

My attachments to things have lessoned though my thoughts attached to certain things have grown. I am drawn to the handmade. Mostly ceramics. I admire the skill. The evidence of the hand. The story of the maker and my story that I give it. This is what brings me to the hand created. What keeps me emotionally attached. The other person. The maker. The intimate physicality. 

As I continue to build my life, I surround myself with the things that bring me joy. The solace of my home and the memories that create warmth. I collect less and create more of what I desire from my life. What I desire in my life. I collect and create the documents of my living. The evidence of my life lived. 

CB 01/18/18

Determination

Determination acts as inner voice. It knows our fears and histories and uses this knowledge well. Speaking with picture perfect detail and precise language to pull and prod, push and mock as we move forward. Night vision goggles on, compass in hand. 

Though fear is its fraternal twin, determination has the balls. Has the steady. Owns the deeper truths to who we are and leverages with self love. Leverages as it lifts us from our lowest points, repeated histories. Failures. 

Determination is our deepest desire and purest wants. Blood work and bone. Heart and lungs. Born from our first cry and stays with us to guide our final breath. 

CB 01/15/18