driven to dust

The scene:

What element7concrete is all about is taking a lowly material (concrete) and applying as much creativity and raw human energy (spirit) to it as possible.  Sometimes it's researching materials and best practices, sometimes it's just vibrating a form thoroughly and hard troweling the slab. Though countertop fabrication is a tougher place to create value and fans of our company (our countertops are frankly expensive compared to our floors), having complete control allows for a better expression of this.

Yesterday, we found ourselves back out at Land Art on Hwy. 71 just west of Austin.  We had transformed the old funky grey floor months ago, and now it was time to finish out the counter we had poured last week.  Things came to a head though, when the sometimes dirty nature of our work ran against the efforts of the cleaning crew.  They are nearly ready to open, and there we are ready to grind out our slurry, control fibers, and router our edges.  It all came to a head around 11:00am when the owner had about had it.  I was truly sorry for the noise and dust (turns out a $2000 Ermator S26 vacuum isn't completely effective when using handheld tools on vertical edges, etc).  However, I am terribly thankful we were allowed to go on and add to the mess inherent in construction for the same reason I get up and do this everyday:  We have a chance today to make something awesome.

The realization:

That's the whole point.  Take your day, and even though your back hurts, your eyes are burning, and you are developing acne under your dust mask, MAKE SOMETHING AWESOME.  All we ever have is this moment (I would like to have had two more days to make dust in Land Art to really do it like I'd like to) to do our best.  If we relax until something awesome we can make comes to mind, and then doggedly work until it exists, we are pretty happy regardless of our physical conditions.  As soon as we take our eyes off the prize, one point of discomfort after another will pop up until we are miserable.  If you have a Bible and care to read it, check out Hebrews 12:2.  There is a pretty good example of enduring what you don't want "for the glory set" before you.