V5 (5 Things 1 Topic)

Sometimes us humans have ideas that pop up and disappear without any action whatsoever.  I would say the majority of my article ideas arise and fade in a matter of moments, never to be thought of again.  It’s a wonder that any of my ideas actually make it to the keyboard.  Sometimes I write ideas down, only to forget where the scratch paper ended up, or what page of a book that an idea is scribbled into the margin.

My last piece “So You Wanna Stand Out” was an idea recovered from the margin of Nick Bostrom’s latest book Deep Utopia, and if I wasn’t looking for a very specific idea he laid out on the topic of “slack” it surely would have been eternally lost.

Not all ideas disappear forever.  Some ideas are recurring.  Since the inception of theDIHEDRAL I’ve wanted to write about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and I’ve just never been able to organize my words sufficiently.  Then, I figure that readers can just read the allegory themselves.  What could I possibly add to Plato’s work?  Then, I move on to something else, but the idea hits me every now and again.  I have the same types of recurring idea when it comes to Wittgenstein’s Ladder, and Scanlon’s Contractualism.  The ideas float around, and pop in for a visit now and then, but they evaporate as quickly as they surface.

Outside of writing, I have wanted to update a small closet bathroom situated under the stairs (Carrot’s Cave).  Like writing on Plato’s Cave, that idea is fleeting.  However, unlike the idea of writing on Plato’s Cave, sometimes our ideas are forced into action.

The AC unit above the bathroom leaked into the ceiling.  This caused the drywall to collapse and part of a duct to perish.  And so, with a hole in the ceiling, and the duct replaced, I am now moving forward on the project.

I’ve broken this project into five parts, I’m giving myself the summer to get this done, and hopefully within a couple months Carrot’s Cave will be a place worthy of its name (it’s a slow project as I’m teaching summer classes too).

There are a lot of details that go into a remod, here are five.

5 Things 1 Topic.

1. Gut the entire bathroom so that this idea has no way of escaping.  It would be easier to just replace the ceiling, but as with Plato’s Cave, taking the easy way out will not do.
2. Go beyond the Water Closet.  While the Bathroom is situated under the stairs, there is more dead space under the stairs that is not being used, so, I am in constant need of places to put books and climbing gear.  Once the bathroom is gutted, it will give me access to more space that I will attempt to make available for climbing gear and books.
3. It is but small, but also mighty.  This bathroom is tiny, so I want to make sure not to go cheap.  I want to make it powerful in terms of aesthetic.  This house is old, and it will be nice to modernize at least one faction of it.
4. I plan to do 100% of the work myself.  What I spend in material, I plan to make up in labor.
5. To hold myself accountable, I am going to revisit this post until the room is complete. I’m not good at taking pictures, but hopefully I can share some photos of a finished bathroom and storage space by the end of the summer.

I’m not sure how everything is going to turn out, but the wheels are in motion, and there is no turning back now!

V5 5 Things 1 Topic.