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“I Could Live There”

 

From thearchmagazine:

Behind a quiet wall in Scottsdale, a different kind of desert residence begins.

From the street, it feels protective and sculptural, board-formed concrete, corten steel, black metal, sand-toned plaster, and desert stone shaped into a low industrial silhouette. But inside, the house softens into stillness: warm oak, limewashed textures, black reflective water, filtered courtyard light, and Japandi interiors guided by Wabi-Sabi calm.

This is a private residence designed around contrast, raw exterior, silent interior; urban edge, desert retreat; architectural strength, human warmth. Every frame is built for atmosphere: the corten entry portal, the courtyard pool, the rooftop terrace at sunset, and the living spaces that open quietly toward the Sonoran landscape.

A modern home for slow mornings, cinematic evenings, and refined desert living.

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Forcing Myself

Since WordPress first introduced the Block Editor in 2018, I have avoided using it like the plague, going to far as loading a plug-in that activates (or at least recreates) the Classic Editor.

After 8 years, however, I’ve decided it’s time to embrace change and give the Block Editor a serious try. It’s still confusing as hell to someone like me who has been using WordPress for the last twenty-some years and didn’t immediately adopt the new paradigm.

Maybe you can teach old dogs new tricks. Let’s see how it goes.

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What I Believe

Despite me posting copious amounts of atheist memes that for the most part I agree with wholeheartedly, I would not describe myself as a strict atheist. If anything, I would label myself “atheist light” or even agnostic if forced to put a label on my beliefs. If all I need is a total disbelief in a supreme being, then yes…I am a strict atheist. If, however, a belief in something beyond this life is also included, then I most certainly am not.

Admittedly, even though I have no evidence whatsoever to back this up, I believe that we are eternal beings, something that exists beyond space and time. Ultimately what powers us is totally separate from what we call “reality.” Further, we aren’t actually souls trapped in these bodies, but rather the energy piloting these bodies—our avatars—from beyond this physical reality. Why? To learn and grow. And possibly, just because from that external viewpoint and no matter how many horrific things may happen in our lives—for the pilots, our real selves, it’s ultimately fun. Think video games, or even a variation of The Matrix, but with each of us in control, not strapped in a pod somewhere against our will. We create the goals—be they for learning or just for fun—for each “game” before entering it, and once those goals are achieved, it’s time to move on to a new, different game.

Reincarnation? Absolutely, although viewed from the above lens. Reincarnation based on your deeds? Just like the proverbial heaven and hell, absolutely not. Reincarnation because—as I stated above—life is ultimately fun when viewed from this perspective. What curious, creative entity would not want to experience every possible variation available to them when there is an endless universe out there to explore?

Death—when it occurs—is the end each particular game, nothing more. You—or rather your pilot—is still you. (Perhaps minus the personality you took on for this particular life.) Take a break, come back, and try a new one.

The other day in therapy, the subject of suicide came up. I volunteered that I had frighteningly considered it once about thirty years ago. I had been out of work in SF and no matter what I did—despite being a seasoned tech worker—I couldn’t find a job and the walls were closing in around me. I thought how easy it would be to just take a drive own the coast highway (I was thinking Devil’s Slide in particular) and just drive my car over the cliff.  I told her the only thing preventing me was the knowledge that it was a coward’s way out and I didn’t want to have to come back in a new life and a new body and I wanted the choice to do so—and at the time I believed that a suicide would strip that ability. My worldview was a little different back then, but this is ultimately what I still believe. Think of it this way: suicide is the only guarantee that you will come back to this exact same game again and again until you reach those original goals. It’s like throwing down the controller mid-game and walking away, except when you return you can’t start up where you left off—you have to restart the game from the very beginning and all your previous successes are wiped out. She laughed when I said, “Can you imagine having to go through high school again?” She agreed that would be reason enough not to kill yourself. I mean, really…who wants to go through that again?

Granted, like with all belief systems, there are gaping holes in this philosophy, and to be honest, all this only gelled into the semi-coherent mess it is for me in the last few years, but it brings me solace when faced with the absolute shit-show that has enveloped my life, both personally and world-wide.

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“The Dome” designed by Paolo Soleri and Mark Mills completed in the summer of 1950 receiving international acclaim.

Soleri’s dome parallels work by Buckminster Fuller between 1949 and 1952 … and later Norman Foster and Fuller’s Autonomous Dwelling in 1982 which was to have a double skin dome, half glazed and half opaque, with inner and outer skins rotating independently.

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