reading frenzy

February was the month of books. Or atleast, the month of stories.

I gobbled up everything I could get my hands on, from Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Peter Heller's Kook, and the Zappos book, Delivering Happiness; all read in book format, to an audio version of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild and Woodshed Films' 180 degrees South.

Kerouac:
This is the kind of book I will need to read many more times, but for now I'll share something I wrote while reading: [We're all looking for a tool... something we can use to interpret the uninterpretable world, to imbue meaningless life with meaning. I've called it my lens onto the world, but it's also the means by which I interact with - and exist within - the world. Which is gratifying, because sometimes I worry that the reason I became an architect is that I am forever designing my own "dream house" - constructing the spaces in my head which would 'allow' for the narrative I'm trying to construct.]

Kook:
This was a beautifully written story, imbued with a sense of peacefulness, reflection or patience. Some of my favorite tidbits included: "There is nothing you can say about a surfboard that you cannot say about a sailboat, an airplane, a ski. The artistry follows the function and the beauty is in the marriage." and "...everything doubled itself, had two uses at least... what is so appealing about this kind of efficiency? I think people spaz out and buy RV's and yachts just because they see all the cabinetry, the ingenious tucking away of every day life, the whole thing fitting together like a puzzle, compact and hidden."

Delivering Happiness:
The most valuable thing I took away from this book was the notion of having an articulated set of 'core values.' I'm currently working to develop a list of my own core values.

I didn't notice the theme at first, but in retrospective, these were all stories of the epic journey. Namely, the epic journey and its role in an individual's development. It seems only men take epic journeys, but I can look into that more later. The Epic Journey is supposed to leave you forever changed for the better, more in tune with - aware of - yourself. You are supposed to realize your role in life or your place in the world, and come to peace with it.

As a designer, the questions are:
- Do Architectural Spaces play an integral role in anyone's epic journey? (Beyond the fact that we all must have shelter... )
- Can Architectural Spaces provide the opportunity for an internal reflection of similar quality?