With blood on my collar, I wish it were mine. Less friends before me, and more left behind.

What is it like to be young and so full of potential that it's almost too intimidating to move forward? At what point does that possibility become a disappointment? 25? 30? 50? Who knows.

Architecture is an old person's game, and unlike the more glamorous fields it seems that your youth is for teeth cutting and general screw-up-ery instead of your "glory days".

Please excuse the next segment as it borders on both the insufferably philosophical and the embarrassingly physical.

A friend of mine, an actor in New York, made the statement that you cannot become a truly great actor until you have made passionate love to someone and have them break your heart in return. While not a literal translation, I think the same may hold true for architecture. There can be victory without defeat, no wisdom without foolishness and no success without failure. Still we fight on, backs to the past, always blazing forward.

It's a hard kind of learning. The kind that bruises, the kind that wounds, the kind that is not easily forgotten or forgiven.

The best example of this is probably in Frank Ghery



It always surprises non architectural friends to learn that for a long time, Ghery was considered in turns obtuse and ignorant by the architectural elite. I recall overhearing Peter Eisenman calling him "dumb" at a lecture only just a few years ago.

Despite this, Frank survived and persevered. Whatever your opinions may be of the deconstructivist showmanship he puts out, there is no denying that he helped change the game. The same is true for many visionary architects who had early failures, Frank Lloyd Wright, Robert Venturi, James Sterling.

So where does this put a young or aspiring architect? What is the right path? Do you fight for recognition among your colleagues? Do you nestle yourself amongst the game of pride that is academics? Or do you simply go rogue and decide you will get there when you damn well feel like it? How do you know if you're even any good? Doubt, it seems, becomes intrinsically connected with faith.

There is no correct answer. You don't win. You just decide not to lose.

With all that being said, I am probably going back to Graduate school in the next few months and with any decision of this magnitude you wonder if you are making the right choice.

As I am still obsessed with Game of Thrones (Season 2 starting on April 1st!) we'll let Maester Aegeon sum up my feelings.

Only time will tell, but should you not hear back in a year, It should be safe to say that you could find Retly Corm here.