I am a lucky person in today's world. I have a job and it's one I like. I get to enrich people's lives and help the planet.
Above you can see part of the big challenging urban project I have been working on all week. Finally....after a year and a half...I am meeting my client to show them a landscape concept. This is an exciting process with MUCH interaction and give & take, not just with the client, but with excellent architects, contractors, and arborists. It has really stretched me since where we started from is quite different from where we are now. As well, my design process was almost the reverse of normal, demanded by the necessity of dealing with many architectural and construction site details before the landscape could be addressed.
As I sit in my office, getting up to stretch my legs and check the (rare) falling snow below, I reflect on how my concentration has been challenged this week by politics & religion. It being an election year, and an especially ugly one at that, each day seems to stretch my incredulity. In business, we are not supposed to discuss religion & politics, but since that's what is guiding most conversations these days, how is it possible not to? I felt I had no choice but to quit a local design organization I had belonged to for over a dozen years because the group reported on something neutral with a very right-wing bias that it would not own up to. Forget even discussing policy...
I am a second-generation American. One grandfather had to leave Russian due to political persecution, the other had to leave due to religious persecution. Given my last name (which I did not change when I married), you can guess which was maternal, which paternal. But with that history so recently a part of my being and with what is passing for discussion these days, how can I not spend a lot of energy on politics & religion? Especially as a woman.
Design always happens in context. And today I was reflecting on how much more regressive certain powers that be in our society are than when I was in high school! Never having been mainstream, this makes me appreciate those progressive people I connect with even more.
5 comments:
Oh, I too have been upset by discussions of politics lately, in my ordinarily Democratic family. It does seem that people in successful businesses start to read the Wall Street Journal and change their political outlook. It's very difficult to have even handed discussions. I'm sorry you had to quit your design organization, but it is probably best for your peace of mind.
Altoon, I think the discussion started to go awry when "compassion" became a negative word to some. As a country, I believe we are partially suffering from our values deriving from our financial worth. Or seeing "the other" as the repository of all evil, never us. Or harkening back to a time when only white Christian men with land (who stole the land and had slaves) could vote. I say this as a lover of Thomas Jefferson in his roles as thinker, architect and gardener.
As for my design group: you are right about feeling more peaceful now. The conservative nature of that group always meant I was never stimulated by anything professionally. And I knew others levels of discourse were extremely constrained. But I always felt it important to know other people who came at things differently than I. In the group's unwillingness to claim its clear prejudices, I felt less willing to share what little extra time I have with people for whom I had so little respect.
Julie, I don't know if you're a music fan, but this new Bruce Springsteen video moved me deeply; it is about what we should be as a country "We Take Care of Our Own": http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-x8zBzxCwsM
Thanks Altoon! Nice to see a celebrity still committed to what's important. A beacon of hope amidst the SuperPACS and corporations being accorded "free speech" (and endless anonymous donations) by our Supreme Court.
Thanks to both of you for all your thoughtful comments. As you know, it is all politics all the time here in Wisconsin these days. One of the potential gubernatorial candidates is a woman dairy farmer (currently in the state senate) but she is not where I wish she was on reproductive rights. But at this point, I am looking for a rational candidate not from Madison or Milwkee who is interested in healing. So I am ready to support her. You can't have everything in one person. We'll see what happens.
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