Imagine if since we were children we were taught how to build on top of everything else we were taught. Imagine that we all knew how to build homes, structures, buildings, everything. Most of our lives we spend looking for entertainment because we get bored, we also look for the jobs that were advertised to us when we were children. But imagine if instead of whatever we’re doing we all just built? Think about it, if this skill was taught and advertised to everyone the way they advertise everything else... maybe there would be no homeless people in the streets. We’d all just be building. People would compete to see who built the most homes. If we wanted to live in a mansion, we’d build ourselves a mansion with our own hands, our own hard work. We don’t feel like working so hard and we don’t want a huge home? We build a small one. Where it’s still our work-ethic that determines what we have, and the entertainment and admiration is placed on builders and building. It’s an interesting thought, I think.
“Be thankful for the roof over your head”, they say. Well it didn’t just magically appear. You know when you’re in an airplane, and you look down? Yup. People built that. It’s beautiful and artistic huh? The people that build are not placed on a pedestal as they should be. Well here is my attempt. I pledged to write in honesty of what I see in my experience, so here it goes. I am thankful for human beings who are so humble and respectful to authority they don’t get angry at the fact they are doing the most physically burdensome work on earth, building. Not only that, they continue on, despite the fact they know the huge profit is kept by those who draw pictures on paper and those who bought the land with... paper. They don’t get jealous, they don’t rebel. No one looks at them as celebrity status, which they most definitely deserve, and yet they continue to sweat, ache, and risk their lives in all kinds of weather to accomplish the project set before them. These are people, human beings like you and I. I remember being so worried about working out and looking like the fitness girls on magazines, for looks and vanity, I’m still worried actually. Media brainwashing works, my excuse is I do it to be healthy, I’m actually obsessed with abs, I think they’re cool, vanity. What about if I actually do the physical work, of humility, like these people who create art we live and find shelter in? Let me get the dumbbell, what am I doing though? These men don’t use dumbbells, they lift bricks and they do it to build shelter, businesses, and high-rise buildings. I can’t do what they do. I’m too scared, too lazy, too proud, too clumsy, too selfish, I’m not strong enough, too good at making excuses, and I’m not as self-sacrificial as they are. Maybe if we were brainwashed with that desire and it was people building who were advertised in magazines and celebrated by society I’d feel different.
I know I can write though, so in this I pour my heart in gratitude to the artists I just barely realized are the most incredible and most unrecognized. How beautiful the heart and work-ethic of people who work not for praise, not for fame, not for huge profit in their pockets, but to feed their families doing the job most pay thousands of dollars to universities to AVOID doing. My most ultimate respects and admiration to all construction... artists of the world!
