Sunday, June 3, 2012

Carry me home.

Do you realize that we are not young anymore?

By the time we know that planning is an option as a career, we are past the age of consent and the proclivities of youth.  Planners are old by default.

By the time we are done planning school and moving towards an actual career, we are deep in our twenties.  We shift and move, but it's not because we want to, it's because we have to.  There is someone at home.  We are not simply detached anymore.  We are settling.  Planners are old by conformity.

By the time we have some experience and can sway opinion, we're forty.  There are responsibilities.  There are roundly held opinions.  There are places we go for guidance and for censure.  We have internalized them.  Planners are old by contrition.

And by the time we have moved buildings, pushed design, or adapted zoning, we are well past fifty.  Planning is a slow profession, and we are the slowest projects.  Planners are old by consensus.

There is no young planner.  We can glow brighter than the sun, but it is not tonight, and it is not in this field.


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