We are a Number

Backlog

I have found that these times, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, that I have been struggling to find who I am. I have been hit pretty hard emotionally due to some of the circumstances that I have gone through. I was seeking a companionship with a long lost friend, who has been through a lot. And that didn’t pan out the way I had hoped. It hit me really hard with my self-worth this semester because of the circumstances of the way things ended. And looking at other options for a companionship it has been hard to even pursue them because of that. I was hoping that would change as I had been accepted into a study abroad program – after trying to get into the program for two years. I was excited for a change of scene, as well as the unimaginable opportunities that I could encounter in my first trip to Europe. Not just the people but the sites I would be able to experience. However, I had just arrived in Poland and starting the semester as the pandemic grew to catastrophic levels. And with the numbers of cases and fatalities in Italy, I was required to return home immediately with everything moving online. Now, I was back to square one. After returning home to Michigan, the state was shut down. Making and forcing an almost complete isolation from other people. The prospect of finding a companion to build a life together has been shut off as well as most of my own self respect and characterization of my unique identity.

The Number

I have long told people that Individuality is dead. In the modern era we are consumed with the ideas of connectivity through the internet and the many ways we can connect with people. However, we are feeling even more disconnected than ever, even prior to the pandemic. I have realized that we are in a society that doesn’t see individuals. We have all become a number. We have all been sold into the idea that we are universal. We are somehow better as a vague collective group. We have been Cataloged, Valued, and Deemed of Worth by our capacity to do or be of use to the whole. The individual is dead in this modern era. I have often taken my uniqueness to be a strong suite of mine. I have known I am not like other people. Not only in the way I think or of my beliefs, but in my own self expression. When walking around campus at school, I was known as the guy with crazy hats. I have a collection of baseball caps (80+). But the ones that I enjoyed to wear were the Crazy or somewhat bizarre hats. I enjoyed the looks that people would give. Some would smile, others cringe at the thought of wearing something that could draw that much attention. It Made me Unique! It was my own identity. My dad has described me as a passive extrovert. I am very out going but I would draw attention to me not through voluminous rambunctiousness but a more passive complexity. People often in the first class will think that I will be the one to disrupt the lectures and be annoying. They have found that I am not though. I just don’t fit in. And I believe that it is something that should be addressed in society. We label everything and even perceive the world differently but we seem to be able to label people and individuals as outcasts quicker than lighting.

I have met so many people that have told me that they love my hats. That it brings them happiness or joy in some level. I have often heard the comment: “I wish I could wear a hat like that.” I have yet to get an clear answer as to why they can’t. It is often brushed off with it wouldn’t look good on me or something else. But in reality it is the idea that they fit in a mold. They have had walls placed on their identity that would keep them from being able to really express that. I have been told that my hats make me look like a child or just full of tomfoolery. I have been mocked for being different. But maybe that is just because I actually can be me. I think that it is because I actually challenge the norm. I am not a cookie cut person. I am not a factory modeled product. I am not a number.

Bought or Sold?

In the modern era we believe that everything has to be labeled and defined. We live in a cookie cut world. Homes are just repetitive models built over and over again. McDonald’s, Walmart, and other chain stores are the same way almost identical replicas built on a repeating factory line. Since the industrial revolution we have been standardizing the world. At first it was with parts and small things, but has grown into this defeating monstrosity. In this great discovery we have done this to speed up production. We have energized the streamlined manufacturing by doing this. Little do I believe that we intended to Streamline this into our own identity. Now we go to find variety but for the most part it is just the color we get to pick. There is nothing that is unique in and of itself. One of a kind. We live in a society where we can buy almost anything and the idea of hand crafted or artistry has become just cosmetic and not necessary. We have defiled our own individualism with the idea of the collectivism and those that think otherwise are enemies that threaten the collective. It is as if we have become the part of the machine and are no longer an individual but a cog in a wheel of function in deism.

We have commodified our identity into a soulless and baseless value that can be traded and sold to anyone who wishes to exploit us, which we gladly welcome and offer to the lowest bidder. We publicly declare our identities in baseless megabits and gigabits of data through social media. We even lash out as Social Justice Warriors in the pretense that through our ability in public shaming we are somehow better than individuals who can express thought, even when their ideas are morally unethical. As a whole we are more bigoted than the worst of the abuses they impose with their idealisms, because at least they are willing to express ideas that are not popular. Imagine history 100 years from now as our descendants look on the many ideas that we shut down because we are more narrow minded than the people who declared emphatically that “The World is FLAT.” We tout acceptance of thought as long as the collective agrees. We tout with raising banners of ideals that we are somehow more superior to the individual because of our collectiveness; right after bartering our identities and desecrating the sanctity of our own self for naught. We give it up to become a member of “the collective” while becoming just a number.

Architecture is built for the users and is based on the ideals of them as a whole. If Society as a whole values something, Architecture will reflect that. In Ancient History we find the historic buildings of our past that dominated the ideas of that culture. In Ancient Egypt it was the Death of the Pharaohs and their belief of carrying their wealth into the afterlife that formed the base for the Great Pyramids. It was the War Clamoring of the Romans that provided us with the Colosseum. It was the Religious Ideas of the Ancient Americans that left us with their temples. It was the fear of invaders that left us with the Great Wall of China. These ideas are what drive buildings. In the recent years of history, Architecture has been focused on Power and Influence. Many large enterprises have built sky scrapers and large developments in a demonstration of Influence and Power. The Willis Tower in Chicago is also known as Sear’s Tower. The Original Hudson Building In Detroit was known as the “Big Store.” Both being manifestations of the wealth of the retail industry. The New Hudson Tower being built is a symbol of the Rebirth of Detroit, along with the other major projects that have come about in the recent years. The last thing we need to have is our buildings treat us like a Number. If they do we could find ourselves in a spot of where there is no identity of ownership of where we live. We could fall into a society where our living environment will become part of the collective and there will be little to no motivation to maintain it. We will lose our identity. We already do this with our homes and other buildings as cookie cutter designs. All we need is a little nudge and buildings will also start to exploit us like we have allowed with the internet.

Resolution

The only way to address to progress and resolve our own identities is to realize our potential and to understand the individual that we are. The best place for this is in the Home and with true Family. Family being more than just a biological bond. I come from a large family and I Love and adore each of them. I have 3 sisters and 3 brothers (these are just the biological and this doesn’t include the others I see as family). Yet, I don’t think of them as my sisters/brothers but by their names, faces, characters….Their identity. And I see my parents as individuals learning just as much as I am but with wisdom from experience. I have found that the home and the family unit is where we are the most free to express this. It gives us the freedom that we seek to be ourselves. It gives us the ability to belong even with the uniqueness of our own identities. There we are allowed to be ourselves. Even with all our troubles and individual circumstances and issues, There we can be individuals in this world.