We Build Up the World's Great Cities

I come from a family of engineers, teachers, and lawyers. My Grandma was an artist, as well as a teacher. My Grandpa was instrumental in building up the sewer system in Lincoln. My Dad has been building things my entire life, most recently solar ovens, in addition to being a computer programmer. My sister is a Physics teacher and my brother wants to build roller coasters. I myself have long been aware that I desire hands on projects.

Revelation came to me recently through an unlikely source. A facebook quiz. It marked me as an architect, and after listening to its explanation I have to agree with it. I am an artist who builds works of art. I am a philosopher who constantly builds my world view.

This is why I am drawn to collage. This is why I am fascinated by that which defies structure. This is why I am a poet who thinks in terms of physical texture as she is writing (another recent revelation). Who builds her poems out of "connections" she finds in the world. And this is why, all of my daydreams involve a certain whole environment I am working toward rather than a specific position in society.

It also explains why I have been called the hub of my friend group. The one who chooses friends and creates environments.

In addition my long standing obsession with a world made of one substance. As a kid this was candy. More recently I have found inspiration in the Greek philosophers who sought to pinpoint the one substance that the entire world is made out of. My two favorite theories being fire and air by Anaximanes & Democritus.

What a lofty goal indeed to understand the structure of the whole universe. The quiz points out that many would see this as arrogant. For me, it is my calling. I feel it is my duty. Not that I think I will ever succeed, just that I feel we are meant to try.

I don't take a break. I am constantly building. I am constantly burrowing.

I'll leave you with this:

We Are the Music-Makers

We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams. World-losers and world-forsakers, Upon whom the pale moon gleams; Yet we are the movers and shakers, Of the world forever, it seems. With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world's great cities, And out of a fabulous story We fashion an empire's glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure Can trample an empire down. We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself with our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world's worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth. Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy