Going Under

Going Under

   Occasionally I find myself wondering just what happened.  Friends whom I used to talk with on a regular basis have faded into the sunset, there, but rarely called.  It's not as if our friendship has diminished, for when we again meet (even if it's years later), all the time missed is forgotten and rather than acknowledge that we've changed, we seem to start off where we left off, our memories suddenly back and the clock starting over.  But what has happened?

   You can find this in your own past usually by going to a reunion.  Close friends in school seem different somehow;  they've become conservative or quiet or distant, or so it seems.  This can be the case with former neighbors, or often just by a change in your lifestyle.  You get married and your single friends vanish.  You have kids and your childless friends fade away.  You grow older and your kids start to distant themselves.  But with friends your age, it is a bit more puzzling, for who is the one who has changed?  Life moves on but who or what really changed?  Your interests?  Your viewpoints?  Your friendship?  Or did you simply discover something new and found it more interesting?  Are you growing in your world or are they?  Are you the one being left behind?

   I'm not sure why I began thinking about this, or why it happened as I was walking the dogs.  Somehow this one particular friend, one who dove deep into discussions of politics and religion, has become someone I rarely hear from and one whom I also rarely call.  And what spurred me thinking about her was the recent article in Esquire about the opening ceremony of the new One World Trade and its Freedom Tower, the gnarled politics of who would get credit and who owned the land and who would provide tenants and who would have the best view and who was the best architect and who promised what.  This was New York and after all the graft and the hanging heads of politicians sauntered away, the building stood ready for occupants, a new target standing tall but ironically, a new target to nobody.  Life simply moved on.

   The shift away from the fight for space, the Freedom Tower already eclipsed as tallest by the Shanghai Tower, was an epic one, the architects having to accomodate rail lines and water-sogged bedrock.  In Shanghai,  the architects used lasers from other buildings to guide their precision measurements, utilizing the wind to power the building's 270 wind turbines (it's LEED certified unlike the one in New York),  the spiral design of the building also intercepting the wind, reducing it's drag by 24% (and thus the wind's power to sway the building), meaning less concrete and less steel and less money.  The bottom line for Shanghai meant gardens and parks inside the building (cost cutting eliminated the public sitting park in New York's project), places for people to view and occupy the full building (the first 20 floors of the New York project are basically a giant cube of concrete meant to stabilize and fortify the building) and a grand final budget that was 50% less than that of the New York project.

   So that was interesting, watching this battle between architects across the oceans, each fighting for a claim to the top.  Interesting because all of it contrasted with Mexico's Esteban Suarez, an architect who designed a 65-story pyramid...downward.  Shooting underground, his proposed building's lighting and heating costs almost disappeared due to more constant temperatures and fiber optic lighting from the sun above.  This trend downward is happening even in Shanghai where underground building projects move at a 10% annual clip (and yes, even New York is now considering an underground park).  Ironically, this isn't something new, this idea of building underground.  Turkey's ancient Persian underground city of Derinkuyu once held 20,000 people on what archeologists think were 8 levels, including pens for livestock, churches, wine presses and slabs for sealing off corridors, all 275 feet below ground.  Life simply moved on.

   Perhaps all of this is what has happened with us on a social level.  On one hand, we "build" our experiences as we grow, reaching "ever higher" and aspiring to great "heights".  Meanwhile, we "bury" our emotions, hiding our "deepest" feelings.  It's all a matter of perspective isn't it, of looking at something so similar, so common, from yet another angle.  And so it may be with friends and family, of changes in life happening and falling out of sync.  If the friendship was there all along, then the time and distance and being out of sync are temporary, the changes in attitudes and opinions shifting as new developments come along.  But as with the saying "life moves on" is so common, so is the saying, "it's just a matter of time."

   And in time, my friend and I will likely chat over how long it has been and how much time has indeed passed, laughing and sharing thoughts as if no time has passed at all...which in the end, viewed from a different angle, will prove to be true.