More Introspection
So today, I’ll look at the little sentences that carry me through the everyday, the thick and thin, and help shine some substance on the future that I strive to achieve.
Surviving is Mastering.
During my college years, I spent a year abroad in Rome, Italy. This was integrated into my architectural program and typically only done for a semester but I wanted to go for the full 12 months. A part of that was my desire to learn Italian and that led me to working for the young artist Pietro Ruffo.
Ruffo had a background similar to mine and even comes from a family of distinguished architects. But he (as was my budding sentiment at that age around 20-21yrs old) was interested in a whole host of other things and dove into the world of art and installation. He has, since graduating architecture school, built up a really impressive art career.
During the time that I worked for him, I learned a great deal of course. But the one sentence that he told me that has really stuck with me since then is the following - “Masters are the ones that survived the longest.” In a city cobbled together with the works of Renaissance masters that are in every history book and museum of the world, this sentence blew me away. Professionals of any kind need requisite skill and focus, but one aspect we typically don’t associate with success is sheer grit and longevity. Those who can hack it are the masters.
Go when you can, not when you have to.
During my first years of university, I had the privilege of traveling with a number of classmates and a few professors through South America for the first time. We toured several countries in 2 months, looking at the development of architecture through the ages. It still is one my absolute highlights as a young free person.
Now, being that it was the first time below the equator for most of us Americans in the group, we didn’t have the most pleasant time with food digestion. Many of us got sick along the journey, some of us even multiple times. The fairly large group made sure that we had plentiful bathroom breaks.
During one such stop, my professor told us a story about his friend who was drafted to serve in Vietnam. He told us how at a certain time after service, there was an opportunity to end deployment and return home. The motto amongst the soldiers became “go when you can, not when you have to.” It was amusing to put it in context of going to the toilet, but for some reason that phrase always stuck with me. I’ve, since then, applied it to all aspects of my life and career, understanding it as needing to take the necessary risk or move before getting to a point where it no longer is an option and you’re trapped. Being able to do something and needing to do something are two very different things. Quit your sh*tty job when you can, not when you have to. Discover your real passions in life when you can, not when you have to. Confess and hold onto those you love when you can, not when you have to.
Everything that happens is intrinsically like the man it happens to.
This last one for the day comes not from a person I’ve met but one of my favorite authors. Aldous Huxley, most well-known for “Brave New World,” wrote a book called “Point Counter-Point” in which he follows the lives of various family members and friends, all associated but in very different trajectories of their lives. The book is like a literary version of the movie “Amores Perros” if you’ve every seen that.
In any case, there is a scene towards the end of the book where many of the male characters are gathered around a fancy restaurant table discussing their pressing life matters. At one point (and I’m embarrassed to have forgotten the name of the character… it starts with a W I’m sure…) one protagonist says the phrase -
“Everything that happens is intrinsically like the man it happens to.”
This remains the only single quote I can ever remember from any book. I love reading but nothing has stuck with me more stickily than this string of words.
It’s hard to describe why I find this quote so compelling. It boils down to a very glass-half-empty/full type of outlook where good things happen to good people and the same goes for the opposite. This expands for me into a very empowering message that we are much more in control of the lives we lead and experience than we can even understand.
I hope you enjoyed these little mini-stories and the contexts in which they emerged from. These are the mottos and principles that really clarify the world for me and help me lay out a decisive path to a fulfilling future.
Until next time,
Steem on!
