How can we explore and express values of sustainability through the practice of a craft?

So far in this project, we have spent significant amounts of time working but remain slightly behind schedule. This has largely been due to weather restraints, but also unforeseen hindrances which we knew would come up. Such is the nature of doing any form of construction or craft work. As we have been working, I have found myself thinking about the very idea of having a schedule for such a project. And in conjunction, the conflict of crafting an experience around the meaning we hope to gain from it, as opposed to finding the meaning in the essence of the experience itself. At this point in the project (Wednesday of Week 2), we hoped to have completed the outdoor structure and forge, and been ready to start forging. We are not far off from our goal, but being behind makes me think of the redundancy of having a strict schedule in the face of factors outside of our control (such as weather). This is a microcosm for the shortcomings of the senior project format in the context of our project. I believe that it is counterintuitive to form an experience around an idea and a purpose (the essential question). It is through new experiences, impulsive decisions, and unbridled will that things are discovered. I certainly know what I know. What I don’t know is what I don’t know, and the conflict is that we have been asked to form an enlightening experience solely on the basis of what we already do know. There is certainly a lot to learn about my essential question, but the problem is that we have created an experience to answer that question in the first place, based on assumptions we already had. I recently watched the film “180˚ South,” a movie about a man who embarks on a journey to pursue his dreams of climbing a mountain in Patagonia. In the film, the narrator and protagonist talks about going on this journey not to answer a question or come to some profound realization, but essentially because he wants to. He is fueled by his interests and desires. Early in the film he says, “The best journey answers questions that, in the beginning, you didn’t even think to ask.” I don’t think that I have gained any new answers to my essential question, but what I have learned is that trying to answer a question or find a specific meaning makes it much more difficult to learn anything new. I also believe that this problem is specific to our project, as there is not much external information that we are interacting with. As we move into the forging side of our project, I think that there will be much more room for discovery, and I am feeling optimistic.