angry generation

On reading the news in the last few years one my wonder ‘has the world gone mad? ‘Perhaps the question may better be put, what is wrong with our nation? A few weeks ago, while driving past a local night spot, I was caught in the midst of an act of violence. While walking down the street an incredibly drunk man arbitrarily decided to throw a bottle at a passing vehicle. The owner stop got out his car and proceeded to remove a crowbar from his boot. Within seconds the street flooded with people throwing bottles, wielding knives , throwing rocks. There I was watching, them chase this guy and his friends down. With murderous intent. I have no doubt if they had caught him they would have killed him. For throwing a bottle. What is wrong with a nation which feels it has the right to take undue revenge on another human being outside of the law. Has our criminal process failed so badly we feel this is the only solution to our grievances? For in my mine it’s fairly easy to kill a man with a gun you need not even see his face. But to chase after a man with a bottle, rock or crowbar revealed something else; this is personal this is some other sort of madness.
By way of illustration a few years go, I visited Rwanda. A country which has been marred by violence, of this horrendous sort. What drives a man to take the life of a family member or neighbour? The overwhelming sense was best summed up in this statement ‘I was over taken by some devil ‘ But what I came away with was the sense that unless we learn to love, we will learn to fear, and fear will turn to hate.
When over come by hate we turn to senseless violence, it would be as if we where overtake by some force of nature. If our countries recent events of mob violence against foreign nationals is anything to go on, then it is clear something needs to be done and soon. When one reads in the news that polices have fired upon one another over wage negotiations and the national leading party has killed their own members in violent factions one must become concerned.
One might ask how we could have gone from a national of peacefulness, to this state of violence in such a short time? The answer is simply, we have always been a violent nation. We are a nation with a lot of anger suppressed. Be it by apartheid oppression, joblessness, inability to support ourselves or our families. Lack of educational equality, inability to understanding today’s problems as global issues. If one Lacks faith in the government to defend one form global issues or local political problems. One may simply see no hope for a better tomorrow, all things which have lead to our current simmer.
One finds most disturbing perhaps is our inability to see other human beings as valuable, as indispensable to our well being. Gone are the slogans of ubuntu. Post 1994 south Africa has shown more and more to be a time of take what you can get. Line your pockets and screw the guy next to you. It is reflected in recent court cases of embezzlement, in charges of corruption , of wasting government funds ….We are a nation sick from the ground up. We are hungry and not fed, we are cold and not warmed, we are sick and not given access to medicine. While some few elite people line their pockets with money intended for others , while we lie steel and destroy. Were we believe I am the most important person we will only move closer to the cliff. One might blame poverty, one might blame the white man , one might blame the government . When what we aught to be doing is looking to ourselves. When last did we give a without asking anything in return? When last did we offer a kind word to a stranger or a seat to the elderly. When we realise that other people are people too, young or old , rich or poor , black or white , male or female. When we take a look around, and realise we need each other. When we realise violence aught to be a last resort. Then maybe we may be able to take a step back from the edge.
How do we begin to do this ? I believe the nation will go where it is lead. When our leaders change their attitudes and start to behave like leaders we will begin to see change. While our leaders advocate violence, and criminality of all kinds we will remain as we are.

Archi- Teck

Making buildings beautiful

So what is it exactly that you do? “Well I’m an architect” . Blank stare, “Oh that’s exiting”. More blank stares, and some muttering. You’d think that this statement would inspire more enthusiasm from people. But no, apparently beyond you design buildings right?

No one seems to have a clue what it is I do from eight to five, or why on earth they have to pay so much for the service.

Recently I had a brief discussion with an ex-client as to why after I’d already completed a significant amount of work on their project that sorry no they just thought R5000 was too much to pay for my having measured up and drawn their house plans because city council had lost the originals. Because and I quote “its too much to pay for a drawing”. As you can imagine,

“Well fine then.” Press end call. To put things mildly I was livid. More because this person was a lawyer, some one who bills in thousands of rand per hour, could not comprehend why I was changing this amount. The general feeling being what I do for a living is not valuable in their eyes as worthy of actually paying for.

Let me state out right, it’s not about drawings. Actually I give you an uneducated person the same task and I’d guarantee council would not pass your house. So no it’s not about the drawings, I did not study for 6 years in higher education to learn to draw. That’s I could do when I was five, but you don’t pay five year olds to draw up a house for you do you? Come on here people, I bring more than drawing to the table. I’ve studies as long as a doctor; surely there must be a reason why?

Think of the building as a body, the walls and windows as the skin. The rooms as organs, working together to make the building function properly. Electrics and lighting as nerves, Bring power on demand. pluming as veins and capillaries plumbing water at the right pressure and removing wastes from the ‘organs’, Air-conditioning as lungs, allowing the building to respirate

effectively and the whole building as the brain directing need and want, making sure everything works the way its supposed to. Designing a building is like designing a person , from scratch and making it look beautiful to boot.

The client comes to me, and says I want a house. I do ok, that’s great tell me what you imagine , most people would say, I have three kids I need 4 bedrooms, we like to entertain I need a big lounge and patio space. I love to cook, big kitchen. And I work from home so a study is important. You get the gist. Now what I do is look at all the wants and dreams and I may say, well how old are your children, or how long do you intend to keep the house for? Or perhaps where do you see yourself in 5 years? And quite importantly what can you afforded to spend. Possible I may send you out there to bring me back things you like textures or ideas. All the while making a picture of what it is you want in my head. Then I look at your site, its potential an possible problems, I look at your life style, what you love, who you are as a person or company. What your goals are and how you see yourself. And then only do I begin to design you a building.

I may consider in a renovation how to best maximise resale value on your house, in future. How to get the most benefit out of the least work. And then I begin to work on the system of how this building will function, how the systems will work best, where they are the most logical locations of various elements, what system you need in the foundation in order to support the roof. I look at how build able the project is in terms of who is available to build the project, what materials may be most accessible. I look at who the client is and bare in mind there may be other future client and uses you cannot imagine. And at the end of the day a year or two later, after many meeting and cross references to various other professionals who specialise in structural engineering, and air-conditioning and electrical ducting and construction, pluming, fixing. All this before we’ve even considered how it going to be finished all this hidden away stuff. You know nothing about, you never see except to turn on the tap or adjust the heating, I consult , on materials and colours and what handle is best on the front door. And at the end of the day you get a building beyond what you could imagine.

So next time you even begin to think, oh you draw pictures right. Stop for a second and remember this little article and go WOW!!! Don’t grumble when the architect want’s to charge you something for their services. Yes, sure you can get some drafts person to do it For less. Remember not to complain when they mess it up, don’t say the building industry is always a disaster. Take a step back and think for a minute, “is it a disaster because I the client was cutting corners trying to do it on the cheep.” Remember cheep equals cheep workman ship . You pay real money for quality. Try to smile happily as you sign the check. For The measly 5000 rand I’m charging you, for your home. To make it a better and more pleasant place for you. It a big part of you life you dream there, you grow there you spend a goodly portion of your time there if your house is lousy it will effect you work your mood possible even your relationships . Anyway that’s less money than you spent last week on your i-pod.

So what about Relegion

to begin with :

So what about religion?

To begin with :

GOD said. Perhaps the biggest conundrum of our generation, of moral decadence. What do you do with Faith? Believe, in the existence of things unseen. When Everything is called upon to be quantified, when God is dead according to niche. And there is no ultimate truth. I’d like to take a moment to tell you why an educated 21 century citizen who reads philosophy still believes in the existence of something so antiquated as God. But first I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize, I think there are two kinds of Christianity – one which condones certain evils and one which doesn’t. I don’t know about you but I’ve never read anywhere that Jesus ever condemned anyone except maybe religious bigots. Pharisees. But people this guy got one thing right, I think Gandhi said ‘the problem with Christianity is no one has ever tried it.’ So I’d like to apologise for television evangelists, for the crusades, for the Spanish inquisition, For every Christian who ever told anyone that they where going to hell. Or that God cannot love them, dude he’s God he invented it. I’d like to apologise for false representation, for prosperity gospel irreligion. For genocides, for every stupid action committed by Christians that may have turned you away from God. Because I believe we are human and flawed, poor ambassadors for Christ. I believe if Jesus walked into this room, and met you, tats, piercing, blue hair and all He’d like you. And trust me, when confronted with the unconditional love of Christ, truly you’d want to be a different person, because to love you must first be loved. And when a Christian isn’t loving the logical conclusion must be is he a Christian. And you have the right to ask us that.

Generation Sheep

Being a twenty something child of the computer generation, I've noticed a recent trend.Something my parent would have called crowed mentality, or my grandmother running with the herd. The Uncaring and often concerning desire to be ---- " just like everyone else". Why do we do this ? What are we doing here on this green glob? How do we enable a future for ourselves ? Can we learn from the past?

A million questions and so little time so tune into Generation Sheep.

http//:generationsheep.blogspot.com