I had a Mostly Successful trip to IKEA on Monday, and during the drive remembered just how much I love NPR. On the way up, my iPod plug-in alternative to an iTrip broke, so I started to listen to the radio. As the stories went on, I listened to a section on organic farming/land trusts that described a lot of permaculture techniques; a section discussing “small schools” that emphasized that the quality of teaching is the most important factor in education; a section on “The Beauty Academy of Kabul;” a section on Christians United for Israel; a section about the new set of TV shows for the fall season; and a section on how Saturn’s moon Titan is actually a desert with ice as sand and mercury as rain.
So, I made it up to IKEA, walked around for 4 hours, bought a whole lot of furnture, and drove back down to Eugene. I ate dinner at the IKEA restaurant, which was sort of fun, and much of the time I wished that I had a companion, since the whole thing would have been considerably more fun and considerably easier with someone else to chat with and help me roll the two carts I had. In the end I chose the more expensive chest of drawers, but the quality leap was apparent and I felt like I could put together a more complete feeling room with them. (Here’s my table, chair, and stools to make my bookshelf) I also ended up buying soft items that they won’t ship, so I spent about as much as I would have spent ordering online, but got $250 more stuff, rather than $250 of shipping.
Anyway, I got to think about Thinking and Making, and how those two activities are totally central to life, the sort of yin and yang of my personal existence, but also universally an important dialectic. In particular, the organic farming, bread making, and small school segments on the radio inspired me to ponder the relationship between Thinking and Making. It sort of seems to me that high-quality Thinking demands high quality Making: when you make, for example, a computer chip that processes information with lasers (as I learned that Intel has just done, thanks to the trusty radio), you’ve thought a lot about this and you must make it well to test your theory. But beyond that, more in the sense of the Diamond Age – the Victorian phyle, a group of people who are well-educated and brought up in a neo-Victorian environment, demand high quality workmanship and “real” goods, not compiled with matter compilers, but crafted from natural materials, which the Dovetail phyle create for them. There’s even a discussion in the book in which Nell confronts a woman in Dovetail and asks her about Making vs. Thinking.
It’s clear that individuals can be vastly more talented at one facet than the other. You have a skilled craftsperson or an academic genius, and perhaps they are just terrible at feats of logic or construction, respectively. But, it seems to me that to be a great Maker, you have to be a pretty decent Thinker. On the other hand, I’m not sure that the reverse is true. In architecture, you must be able to make things with some degree of competancy to become a great thinker – your thoughts depend on constructed objects. But in discreet math, which I believe could be used to reason through some of the same problems that architects deal with using design skills, you don’t need to be able to make at all.
When you Make – when you build or tend, plant or teach – you must actively respond to your material, your environment, perhaps a budget: in any case, multiple dynamic influences. Those influences require that you think. You must decide, strategize, and reason. Making demands Thinking. In my definition, Making includes the manipulation of physical objects with the goal of creating a finished product, albeit using finished in the art school sense of the word (a project is never really finished. You reach a point at which you can no longer improve upon the work you have done, and you call that finished, despite its imperfections or potential for further change).
I think where I was going with these thoughts in the car was towards some sort of value judgement. It looks like I was leaning in favor of Making…I see a future in Design-Build. But it’s not that simple. I think that for me, perhaps it’s positive that I’m recognizing my desire for Making, a desire which makes me feel that if I weren’t an architect, I’d be a farmer/homesteader, just because I would be able to be so much closer to the process of making a life with my own two hands. Thank goodness I’m allowing myself to do what I love now, when I’m 23.
Yet, when I consider it objectively, everything I’ve been taught, all of my values, lean towards Thinking. Making is in service to Thinking – it’s what we must do to sustain our bodies so that our minds can soldier on, eventually perhaps reaching enlightenment, but at least coming up with some great ideas until then. The Idea is more important than the Object. The Object is temporal; the Idea is timeless.
So, a value judgement is of no use – I value the temporal as much as I value the timeless, I value the abstract as much as I value the concrete. I value Making and Thinking equally. I make no claim to do so in a constant manner: at noon I may value Making over Thinking, and at midnight the reverse. Nonetheless, right now, at this political and evolutionary moment, when Siberia is melting and we’re embroiled in war in the Middle East, with midterm elections looming, excellent television shows about to air, and the housing bubble deflating, I choose Making.
I don’t want the Making to become mechanistic, I don’t want the Making to edge out Thinking, and in fact, if Thinking doesn’t inspire the Making, then the Making is worthless. I do want the Making to be action taken towards grounding our country. Let’s put up lightning rods and pour strong foundations. Let’s craft things again, take a deep breath and slow down, reorder the economy. I’m not saying much different from Slow Food, Small is Beautiful, etc, but I’m just having a moment of rerevelation, where something you know to be true appears as such before your eyes.
I’m not sure that this is the conclusion I was working towards – my fascination with the Making/Thinking dialectic is still shimmering in front of my eyes, and I still want to get up close and squint at it a little longer, because I’m not ready for a conclusion. I guess I’m so used to coming up with conclusions when I write that I automatically arrived at one. There’s still a lot to consider though. Where does music, poetry, or visual art fit in? What’s up with the dialectic, when we know that anything you can set up as a dialectic is more likely a continuum? What about that whole quality question, and the question of the personal abilities of a Maker and a Thinker at Thinking and Making, respectively? So, I won’t conclude, instead I’ll invite thoughts in response and keep thinking my own.
Which is what I did today as I put together the IKEA furniture. I was disappointed to find that the lampshades didn’t fit my lamps quite right, but I’ve come up with creative solutions that satisfices. I was upset when the left side panel of my new dresser was broken in the box, but pleased when everything else was finally assembled and I could tell that when the replacement part arrived, I would have a lovely, comfortable room.
My two housemates and I made ridiculously fudgy brownies tonight, which three of our architecture school friends stopped by to taste, and it capped off a successful day. I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think I’m on the other side of the rough spot. No more losing things, no more looking and not finding. Back to being receptive, successful, mindful, and at peace with the world. Thank goodness for the rough spots though.
Photos: Tomorrow! The show to watch on TV: The Wire which is actually in its third season. And what else?: My [Christmas] wish list is coming any moment now.