“What is the point of a ball bearing?”, I asked a shocked Aran today afternoon. It sounds so typically me, trying to get to the fundamental truth of everything. My brain has found a wonderful target in Aran; and once past the grin, he and I usually set off on very interesting journeys of logic, working systems and possibilities. What makes for such conversation buddies? A common curiosity? I think it’s much, much more than that. It is the attitude of knowing that you don’t know, be accepting of the fact that what you think is your opinion only. It is about being argumentative but not competitive, to seek the actual truth together. Yes.

Howl.

“Doing nothing is one of my favourite things”, I happened to hear myself say recently – and immediately wondered if it was a commendable thing or not. Doesn’t it almost sound sad, lazy and pathetic? What do I actually do when I’m doing nothing? I’mthinking. Finding food for thought in my surroundings, I’m always looking everywhere. I wonder why things are the way they are, what would happen should someone turn everything around. I question, but do not answer. “You’re very easily amused”, Rahmat keeps saying to me, "I like how you question everything." Who benefitted only by thinking and saying but not doing? Critics? Theorists? Damn.

Watching the Pope at the midnight mass on Christmas eve outside St.Peter’s, I wondered what he must be thinking. What he must be going through, judging himself against, expecting from himself. Wonder what mattered to him most at that point? How his fellow peers looked up to him? Or scrutinized him? Or how thousands of people within and outside the church symbolized him as a messenger of God himself? Who was he living up to? I think no matter how high you go in life, you’re always living up to your peers, forgetting how much you impact the rest. Why do we keep raising our own expectations? Is it for a sense of self-achievement? Or respect from peers? What about those whose lives we're changing? Earning respect from peers/critics Vs inspiring hundreds of people: which is more valuable, more purposeful, more satisfying?

“Empty your brain” is the concept generation strategy at IDE. Very different from my previous understanding of the beginning to a project, I don’t yet know if this is working for me. “Pour it all out on paper,” they keep saying - fast, more and many is the aim here - as opposed to my previous understanding of one idea, one thought, one intent. “This ‘one idea’ ain’t coming to you, you need to get off your ass to get to it.” “If you cannot generate 30 ideas in 30 minutes, you shouldn’t be here,” Ashley once said to the class – does this reduce the intensity of passion for an idea? Or does it actually place it in a context and avoid being carried away to neverland? “You have to be able to let go of the brilliant idea for some grounding, only to return to it with more context”, Ravikumar Kashi told me – how important is it to let your brain rest before you reassess your idea? I realize now that ideas can be generated out of ideas – it is a journey, not an unexplained spark. Is this what ‘options’ means?

“You are the backbone of this kitchen”, I was telling Dina as she shifted the big pile of washed vessels into the cupboard – “What would we do without you!” Trust a geeky biologist to say, “Well, we would be invertebrates!” Lol. Every sentence in this house begins with “Biologically speaking..” or “According to the theory of evolution-”. Jeez. What was I thinking, agreeing to stay with not one, but three such cartoons!

“Where are you from?” is a very difficult question to answer, sitting in a restaurant in Brussels - what with being a Maharashtrian from Bangalore, studying in London. As Jacob said, “It’s not where you are from, it’s where you are now.” Yale boy, will make for a smart diplomat. Missing international trains can sometimes be rewarding.

I’m still a big architectural geek. One trip to the TU Delft Library, and I’m on a high – blown away by the volume, light and spaces: I’m in dreamland still - speaking of human emotion, scale and experience. Not to mention the finishing materials, their meeting edges, frames, foreground and lines of sight. Clicking away on an SLR, I’m amused by my own excitement. No matter how deep I zoom into product design, their working systems and building exercises, my body still understands the language of the architectural scale. Additionally, I can now feel the strength that products bring to a space, the impact an installation has within a volume, and the potential of an integration. RCA: good call.