Thursday, December 3, 2009

What I've learned



ON ARCHITECTURE:
-Build for the others, not for yourself.-The people you build for have memories, feelings and dreams;  respect them.  
-Class carries a building quite farther than wit.  
-Use materiales that´ll outlive you.  
-Brick for weight, steel for strenght.  
-If what you are building doesn´t improve the city blending friendly with what´s already there, spare it; there are enough showoffs in town already.  
-Clients are whimsical and will change their minds often; count on it . 
-God is really in details and light is the theme (thanks Louis)  
-Anything that goes with the fashion should remain mercifully kept in a blueprint for ever.  Fashion and good architecture don´t get along well.
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ON PHOTOGRAPHY
-You see as how you are. If you are slow,  fast, obsessive, organized, thrill seeker, idealist or  any other personality trait, this will display greatly in your images. More and more I use a tripod, take my time, and let the the architect in me take control: I do not battle this any more, after 10 years I relish on it.
-A camera is like a bird that has to be frozen in mid-air. To decide from where does this bird see the space (and with what eyes) is our job. Sometimes at floor level, others up in the air, from above that chandelier 15 feet in the air. Getting the wings is our problem.
-It´s all a struggle to catch an elusive “essence” that needs to be accented by a sometimes unfriendly light, to compress in two dimensions and an instant a full person and/or an environment with three and lasting... And to translate in just one chance all this for the benefit of an observer that, casually and disinformedly should, in an ideal situation, receive this data, decompress it, and feel something.
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ON EVERYTHING ELSE
-At 70 or 80, you’ll only regret what you didn’t dare do: the doors you didn’t dare go through, the planes you didn’t dare board, the relations you didn’t stop to take care of.
-It is not the “What” that matters. It is the “How”.
-When in any human argument there are 2 points of view that generete conflict is very seldom one is right and the other wrong. Points of view reflect and inner structure of thought that is far more different from person to the next than what most people wants to accept, and, deep there and into their own optics, everyone is right. Arguments and legal issues wouldn’t last so long if guilt or reason were on only one side.
-When one follows one’s own rules, it is very difficult not to fall in fundamentalism and to understand that two apparently contradictory truths could coexist, that a truth doesn’t eliminate the contrary; along our constant inner struggle, we are always risking a fall into one of two poles: Impotence and Omnipotence.
-To make a choice is to renounce something else. You can’t have it all.
-Nothing is more important than the relationship we build with our children. Every minute we spend together is our best investment. They look at and imitate us far more than what we acknowlegde, and repeat word by word what we sometimes shouldn’t have said.
We must deliver to them, basically, two things: Roots and wings. And, they don’t belong to us, but to theirselves.  Oh, and they spell “love” in a special manner” T-I-M-E.
-Nothing should be taken for granted.
-Some things are replaceable. For many others you don’t get spare parts.
-Life can be fun and long if you give it a good try, but it is fundamentally  unfair. The idea of “Justice” is not born out of nature, and does not exist in the order of things.
-Women are very complex and charming beings, that look very much alike us men from the outside (mouth, ears, arms..) but from the inside have some parts called the same way but very different indeed (heart, guts, sex). These creatures are to be taken with their own rules, and not to be understood, just felt. One has to enjoy the effects, without reserching into the causes.
-The choice for the woman with whom we’ll share our life will define 90% of our future happiness or lack of it. When the skin is over, conversation will be the main activity between you both, and it better be good. Remember that, some day, one of you may end up changing the other’s diapers.
-Never ever argue with your wife in the darkness.
-If have a good lawyer, a good doctor, good accountant and three true friends, you are a lucky guy.
-The best way to work and get things done consists in writing every morning a list of the 5 things one has planned to do in the day, and do them one at a time, beginning with the first. Don’t begin the second till you finish the first, and so on.
-About time management: set the big stones first, then the smaller ones around them. Then the sand and the water at the end..
-A secret is that while only one person knows it. If you do not want it known, don´t do it.
-Our inclinations have the amazing ability to disguise themselves into ideology.
-Badly used, power corrupts, technology stuns, and TV hypnotizes (About sex, I am looking for something bad to say, but can’t thing of anything at the moment)
-Friends are valuable. And friendships from a lifetime don’t get replaced easily, so they are to be watered, fertilized, and protected. And, sometimes, and even when that may hurt, pruned.
-Two things a man needs to know how to do: to take a risk and to say “Enough!”.
-You have to speak your thoughts out. Nobody can understand us if we don’t express ourselves. And communication is risky.  “Much” or ”Fun” may have a different meaning for each one. You have to use languaje with precission. (And if I say “language”, I mean words, looks, body and every form of expression)
-Some things should be written down, and some others should never be settled down.
-In good business everybody wins. That is why we live in cities, not alone in the fields (game theory). The most important asset in order to do business is the ability to generate confidence and credibility, and this asset is not to be learned: You are born with it or not.
-The only way to have people around you you can trust begins trusting someone.
-An ounce of image, like it or not, equals a Ton of work.
-There are many brilliant guys with plenty of wonderful ideas, but the ones that count are the ones that get it done. The ones with push and faith.
-The best way to get alive and well to 80 is to have a creative activity that pulls us to carry on, and seduces us into keep on delivering our goods. That  encourages us into endless output.
-You have to learn to love what you already have, which is probably enough without us realizing it, and get out of this desperate race to have MORE. And push if only this idea into our children’s brains.
-Among the weak, the strongest is the one that never forget his weakness.
-There are some instants in life where you are truly inmortal.
-Don’t push the river.
-One has to be very carefully in the choice of one’s own enemies.
-A thousand miles trip begins with a first step.
-Growing old one gets wilder and wiser. Also one can get to be a deeply religious non believer
-Do not worry about being known. Just try to be somebody worth knowing.
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And..  my compliments to all of you who had the patience to make it till here!!
Regards   
JR