How I Became an Architect - Part Two: The Door

I had a rough go in my teen years. I come from a decent family but I was lost. There were many issues and I could go on casting blame which serves no value other than divert accountability away from myself. I started drinking when I was fourteen or fifteen, regularly, almost daily: sometimes during school. Gosh, as I write these words I realize how much there is to the complete story, but I will focus on the title.

After somehow making it through those times, I worked various jobs, never sticking around for more than a few months. I was like a ship lost at sea; a ship constructed with so much promise. Maybe I couldn’t handle the relentless pressures coming from all angles and I buckled. The frigid ocean waters streamed in and the ship slumped and lumbered with the random currents.

There was so much going on all at once yet nothing happening at all. The strange thing is I was always cognizant of where I was and my surroundings. One moment I’m in the midst of a crowd, the next, totally isolated. It seems unorthodox but that isolation saved me. It allowed me the time to think and reason with myself. I always knew there was more. Oddly, I always knew that I was totally capable of achieving anything. That confidence, which I probably had no business having, was somehow there. I don’t really know where it came from. I guess. I just spend time thinking about how to put things together and envisioning a completed work. I was at a moment where I was not utilizing that internal skill or instinct or persistence or gift.

In the late ‘90s I took a community college art class. It was interesting but I didn’t make any friends, and I did not re-enroll the next semester. A year goes by and I’m still just going along.

Things were getting rough at home and I spent a lot of time surfing. By this time I was not really communicating with anyone other than sparse contact with family at home. A few months later my father tells me he’s got less than a year to live. Oh shit.

It’s a strange sort of feeling when you are just numb in the heart but your mind is racing with a bombardment of thoughts. It’s strange because that racing is not loud, it’s that type of fear you get when it’s too quiet. It’s as if the volume of the questions are so powerful they bring the minds noise to equilibrium.

A firefighter. A cop. Sheet Metal. These pictures in my mind just didn’t fit. I remember driving around just asking the same question repeatedly. Then it came to me. The answer: Football!… and school.

I chose a different campus and went to the football office. I’ve written about this before, but I had no business playing the sport of football. I understood that from the beginning. This instance was different. Football was going to be the activity that would keep me in school. Football would serve as the purpose to drive me forward when things got difficult.

I went to the football office and expressed my desire and situation. I was provided the information and I needed a major. Another question to answer.

I set off walking around the campus looking at the various buildings and wayfinding signs. The campus was so beautiful. I could paint a picture from my mind and I can recall the exact route that I took during that walk of discovery.

Adjacent to the football office was the art school. “I don’t want to be a starving artist” I thought. Across the way there was another group of structures and finely manicured landscaping.“Building 100” the sign read. The business school was here. “I can do this. Maybe I’ll meet some friends and build a company or invent something.” I continued to walk.

Biological engineering. Psychology. English. Those subjects were interesting but not the fit. Across the circle road was the automotive department. That sounded really cool, but is that something to do forever?

I walked down a corridor along a gently descending paved slope. With so much going on I felt like I needed to make decisions quickly. I remember reminding myself to be patient.

I passed one set of classrooms and there it was: the door. “Architecture Department.”

“Architecture: yeah!” I can’t remember if I said it out loud or not but for the sake of an interesting story let’s say I did. This moment was one, if not the most, pure moment of my life. Without doubt, and in the flash of a moment of time faster than one millisecond compared to the chronological history of the universe, I knew with complete conviction what I was going to do.

I have never been more sure of anything in my whole life. I am going to be an Architect. I’m going to do architecture for the rest of my life and one day I’m going to build something awesome.

My father only lasted a few more months and he was gone. He got to watch me at one football practice and he got to see a nice illustration I worked on and a couple of models.

During his last months we mended our broken relationship and I believe he forgave me. During one of our last conversations he told me how important education was and he wanted me to promise I would complete my studies. Under tremendous adversity I accomplished that and more. Years later I would finally get licensed.

This journey started at a door. The door was not open and no one helped me find it. I found it. I found it because I was searching for a bright future. Another story tangent, but I somehow knew what the future held, I knew the challenges that would be imposed, especially for a profession that is so coveted and visible. The door was not going to open itself and no one was going to open it for me. As I reflect metaphorically, I don’t even think I opened the door to that new life, I passed through it.

When we pass through these doors alone it is dark and unwelcoming. What I’ve learned is that success is an element contained within the mind and ones ability to harness that power and move with it. It just goes and you simply follow along. In an industry that can sometimes be cold and doors are slammed, even nailed shut, I realized that thinking about success means existing beyond logic. I never saw doors in that realm being opened or closed. They are a representation, or sort of event horizon, or hub melding divergent paths.

We all have these wonderful things in our lives. For some they can be a place, or an object, or a creation that represents a pure truth that is detached from you as a persons. Many people come to these occasions, for me at that moment it was the door. The doors arrive and we do not take the action to move through. It could be that the truth is too harsh or the contents too complicated. These events arrive and depart and it is up to us to pass through them.

There is darkness and uncertainty. We sometimes attribute this feeling to the tunnel metaphor. We are all looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. I always thought of that and I even once had this amazingly vivid dream about it. What I realized is that we are not moving towards the light so that we somehow exit into a wide open space or thing we’ve illustrated in our minds. That is a fantasy.

We are the light. Me, you, them, everyone. You must not travel through life thinking that you are in darkness searching for a way out, you are the brightness that will illuminate the world around you. When a door or path arrives at you and someone opens the door or sets you on the path, that way is being illuminated by them for you.

Maybe that is when you know you are in the right place. Brightness wants to be around brightness. When someone illuminates your path it could be that we have just illuminated the path that they are embarking upon. Our meeting was therefore a convergence. The brighter the being the longer you can remain in their glow. Taking this analogy further away from the title, we can begin to look at these occurrences as what people call “chemistry.” I guess it is that social chemistry that we refer to. It is the magic we feel when we are illuminating each other, pulling and repelling constantly.

Just as we illuminate our way, so do the doors and paths. One could say it is fate. You could say that it is timing and a random occurrence. It could be God.

The most important lesson I have reflected on when thinking about doors and paths is that unmistakable feeling of complete sureness. The beauty is not that the door arrived but that you experienced the feeling. You may never have that feeling so pure again in your life, but you did have the feeling without one instance of doubt. That, along with other powerful life events, becomes a gauge you can locate various points of measurement, guidance, and insight.

Is it destiny? Is it a manifestation of your inner will? Is it predetermined, or selective; both or neither.

Break on through to the other side.