Change

Can people ever really change?

We all want to think that we can; that ending the bad habits we have is just one decision away. Yet we all know that seeing someone really change is rare. You might notice a change in someone when they've met a new person or started a new job, but like so many New Year's resolutions to make it to the gym, those changes tend to be fleeting and it's not long before that friend of yours is back to being like who they were before they tried to make the change. I know it sounds cynical but more often than not the honeymoon period ends.

Yet on another level, the events in our lives are constantly changing us. Sometimes its the mundane aspects of life, like rudeness on the street and other times it's major ones like becoming an aunt that change us. One of these experiences can renew your faith in a positive meaning of life, and the other can reinforce the futility of existence. The way life has changed you leading up to those experiences will shape which of those turns out to be the positive experience.

Time and time again it seems that experiences in life tend to only harden people, to make them keep things internalized and to not let others see them being vulnerable. Cynicism again, but it I don't think too many of you would disagree with that.

I had an experience in grad school where through a series of decisions that I and those around me had made led to me being alone for about a month straight. Classes were just over and many close friends moved away, there were two friends that I had actually pushed away on purpose (one for the better, the other less so), I was dating someone who was traveling for several weeks (we broke up right after she got back), I moved into a studio apartment, was looking for a job, had no TV, no internet (this was about 12 years ago), and my family was in another city. I had the self awareness to know that this experience would change me, and I was determined that it would make me stronger.

I spent a lot of that time reading pulpy science fiction and playing video games on my ancient computer. I knew pretty quickly that this experience wasn't good for me. i didn't exercise, I didn't volunteer, I didn't pick up any hobbies - in fact I did nothing to better myself at all. This was an opportunity that was terrible for me to miss, and miss it I did.

The purpose of this blog is for me to push myself to be better at my job. It's helping, but I don't need to simply be better at my job, I need to be better at my life. I had a bad experience a few years ago and I've internalized pretty much all of my response to it. This has lead me to some pretty dark places inside and once again I've managed to change myself for the worse without trying to or even realizing it until now. The negative effect that this has had on me effects all aspects of my life, and I'm sure those around me note that change in my everyday behavior. To be sure, I'm not spending all day moping, I do enjoy much of my day to day life, but this internalized grief weighs on me and has changed my humor. I'm less funny, more abrupt, withdrawn and irritable.

People can change, and I believe that we are dynamic beings constantly responding to an existence that can be very hard and very, very beautiful. But it's easier to be changed by life rather than actually being the one making the change. At this point for me it's like the sum of the parts of my are all balled up into the coma of a comet and the one small part of my psyche that has remained unchanged is leaning hard against that giant mass to try to change its course. I want a different orbit than the one I'm on, but do I have the energy to alter the direction of that mass?

As always, the Deep Beam has to try. His survival depends on it, but can anyone do that from within?

The truth is probably not, change comes from without, and so I need to find the place that will help me make the change to my orbit.

Life is always good at the starting line.

I had a meeting on Friday with my client and the General Contractor that we're in the process of hiring to do the project.  We did a walk-though of the house with a salvage expert and identified which items in the house might have some value in salvage and which could be thrown away.  We're basically discussing door panels, door hardware, windows, cabinets and plumbing fixtures.  It was really interesting because there's the potential for the 3 people already on the project (Homeowner, GC, Architect) to have 3 different ideas of what should stay and what should go.  For his part, the GC thought that everything should go, which is good because it meant that he read our drawings and specifications correctly.  I had some ideas of what might be able to be reused or have other salvage value, but some of it didn't make it into the drawings just yet because we hadn't met with the salvage person yet.  The Homeowner was disappointed that we weren't reusing more of the doors on the project, which is something that can still be up for debate.  He's got his eyes on some light fixtures that might be original to the house that he wants to clean up and reuse, but what surprised me though was that he also really wants to find a use for some wood panelling up on the third floor.

One of the bedrooms up there has some really beautiful tongue and groove wood boards that make up the entirety of the walls and ceilings (it's an attic space so much of the ceiling is sloping).  The feeling of the room is very much like an old cottage on a lake somewhere, and I would love to leave it as is, but its not the right thing for a house in suburban New England.  Any family that moved in there would tear it down or paint it over to make it a kids bedroom.  It would make a great home office, but it's very dark and masculine so it would be hard to work with.  More importantly, there's no insulation behind it so we have to take it down to insulate properly.

Between the 4 of us we came up with a plan for the Homeowner to meet up with one of the GCs workers and they would work together to try to un-install (not demolish) the wood panelling.  The client very much wants to learn and actually perform some work here, so this will be fun for him - in fact I'd like to help too, but I don't know if that'll fit my schedule.  The intention is for them to take the panelling down without destroying it and then he will spend some time figuring out how to clean it up while my boss and I try to come with a way to use.  I'm already thinking of cabinetry or some wall panelling in the mudroom, it's a neat design challenge that is pretty exciting really.

I know from past experience with this salvage operation there can be trouble with some GCs.  Sometimes they get a low price on demo because they're basically just going to take a sledge hammer to everything and throw it in the dumpster.  It's hard to reuse a smashed sink or bathtub, so that won't work for our salvager.  So, it will cost the GC more to un-install items and then they have to ask the client for more money on top of what the salvage company is charging to place all the salvaged material.  This can lead to bad feelings early on in a project because the client can feel that they're getting nickeled and dimes and can mean that the salvage isn't actually done due in order to cut costs.  This leads to a wasteful abandonment of useful material, and can cripple attempts to get points on the LEED for Homes rating system (a major goal on this project).

Fortunately, its looking like our GC has allowed for careful de-installation of much of the material we have in mind to salvage and so it looks like this particular problem won't actually be a problem.

I left that meeting with a good feeling because, for now at least, Client, Architect and GC are all on the same page.  I try to savor that feeling because it will surely not last.  There are 4 versions of what the project is, one in each of our minds, and another is embodied in the drawing and specifications that we base the contract on.  I can assure you that those 4 versions of the this project are not the same and at some point there's going to be a conflict between what's expected and what's been budgeted.  I can only hope that this conflict will be a while from now and will be minor.  My other project was a near total disaster of missed expectations and underdeveloped budgets and has lead to my company and the GC losing money.  I hope that I've learned some lessons from that and won't be repeating that experience here.

But for now, we all seem to be on the same page and are happy, and I'm going to try to hold on to that feeling for a while.