Friday, April 1, 2016

I'm Sitting Here Wondering



I’m sitting here wondering about this month’s journal entry.  Usually an idea strikes me and I write about whatever is on my mind at the time.  I think about a lot of things but one recurring theme is how ineffectual I am in expressing my awareness that we are overpopulating ourselves out of a quality share of earth’s bounty.  Perhaps worse, we are displacing the rest of earth’s life forms with more people and more tracts, suburbs, malls, and box stores.
 
I sense this; I feel it; I have no doubts; yet it seems hopeless to get others to even recognize that such a dilemma exists, let alone to actually do anything about it.  It’s not easy to do much about it… the key action points seem to be to 1) reduce family size, 2) reduce (practically stop) immigration, and 3) develop a mindset working towards an economy based on perpetual stability, not increased growth.  It has been said that we will have to double the productivity of present agricultural lands to feed the world population of 2050. The salmon fishing season is presently being shortened due to overharvesting.  The pressure of population is upon us everywhere – just look at your newspaper.  This kind of thinking seems backwards and just does not sit right with me.
My architecture (and art) is influenced by this dilemma, but alas, you would hardly know it. Population density and architectural quality have an adversarial relationship and don’t really speak to each other in the friendliest of terms.  I feel motivated to do the best I am capable of and am not inclined to dilute my work in order to accommodate more and more humanity.  It seems that the level of thought and skill I put into each project is becoming a vanishing standard, but I won’t give up…I keep on working and keep on wondering.