a heartfelt contemporary Fury piece, about his past, what legacy means, and what it means to build one, and erect physical monuments in one’s name, what does it mean to be a builder?
I was hesitant to write this. Dare I say, procrastinating, the thing I say I dont do. Why I wondered, why I wonder, still, a bit? Pacing to and fro, staring bit too long in my cup of green tea. Listening to the chirping of birds in the garden. Too long. Staring at a nameless google doc, classic cliché shit.
The thing Im about to write is about one of the most heftiest thing a man can ponder about. Legacy. There lies the heart of this all, the weight crux, Atlas-ean, this titanic crucible thrusted upon any boy and young man, for them to become man. Hesitancy, procrastination, because how can one ever hope to speak of legacy, in there younger years, right? There needs to be a passing of sorts, a certain finality to it, imbued within the message and about the subject-matter at hand – this finality, ah this leads to the dread! Not easily frightened or threatened but the weight of history, making it, what does that even mean, and especially these days, but as a man you must make moves, and you must leave a dent, in reality, in the known (outer and inner) Cosmos, a man must build.
For the crowd (Tal was known to play for the crowd, sac play, big screen outside the stadium he was playing, sac play, crowd goes wild again, and again, that fatal pivotal moment, that suspension, on a tightrope, will he make it, leap of faith…), the memes at play (because as men, as pieces on the board, we cant but help play within the realm of mimetics, ever since the hieroglyphs, one of the, if not first memes):
— intermezzo, sip of matcha green tea, nic pouch out, new one in —
Builders build.
F YEAH CONCRETE!
Only the misfits have a chance to make it.
YOU DONT KNOW ME SON
If you know the way, you see the way in all things.
What we do in life, echoes in eternity.
That’s why no one will remember your name.
HOOA
This is about the Fury name, this is about HOOA, the meme, the HOOA clan, leading from the front, by example. This is about legacy. This is about building. This is about being a builder. This is what man is. This is being undeniably totemic. A cratering impact, making a splash in the hearts and minds of your friends, loved ones, your rivals, your archnemeses, your loved ones.
Cracks open book.
Contents.
Finds it.
Page 9. Goes there. No not there. Leaf back.
Two pages.
Ah there.
Page 7. HERE. WE. GO:
“Generally speaking, there are four walks of life: the ways of the knight, the farmer (no link, yet), the artisan (new HOOA art piece/story coming soon).
… fourth is the way of the artisan. In terms of the way of the carpenter this involves skillful construction of all sorts of tools, knowing how to use each tool skillfully, drawing up plans correctly by means of the square and rules (ah brings me back years, almost half a decade – Fury), making a living by diligent practice of the craft.
These are the four walks of life…
…I will illustrate the science of martial arts by likening it to the way of the carpenter.
The carpenter is used as a metaphor in reference to the notion of a house.”
—Miyamoto Musashi, Earth Scroll, Book of Five rings.
I never built a house. But I’ve erected buildings, worked on sluices, and ports. Namely four ports in Saudi Arabia. The flex, the name, the legacy, never really worked in bars, picking up chicks. But amongst the men, for is a man not the man in the arena, competing with his fellow men…
And I’ve worked on bridges. My speciality. I am an engineer, currently not by professions, but I hold the Master’s Degree, Structural engineer (tldr: the exact same profession as Michael Scoffield, Prison Break, so if anyone ever wanna pull a Drive kinda heist, wanna bust someone out, or if we gonna bust banks, pull up), speciality, Concrete Design.
“Thats the thing about you (HOOA) Fury, theres always a new side to discover of you!”
Havent we we all, arent we all diamonds in the rough, waiting for a new light to shine on a new facet, to reveal our brilliancies!
Most dont know this about me. Especially if you’re a newcomer, to the sphere, the space, the brand, HOOA, the flyers of Twitter and IG and TG, the HOOA clan and The Sword of Fury and the HOOA Clan Scrolls. But I have a massive ego and a big head to go along with it and if something rubs me in the wrong way, and they talk smack and hate, and try to pin me down, box me, label me, you cant label me, much like you cant label any human being, for we are diving creatures, are we not made in the image of God?
“There’s no desire as common, as the desire to be uncommon.” — Shakespeare.
YOU DONT KNOW me SON — GOGGINS.
Long ago the seed was planted for this piece, when I Kanye West talked about, Dont talk to me about NFTs! Google is your friend. He talked about building real stuff, in real world. Contributing to society. Making a dent, a difference. And this put a fire alit inside of me. It triggered something inside of me.
I tweeted something along the lines:
“Lot of you dont know this. But Im an engineer. Cats here, running their mouth, when they dont know shit about me. They dont know half the story. And if they do, they never actually BUILD something in the real world. I have. [listed the aforementiond things I’ve build, not gonna repeat them haha]”
So now you know. There. It’s out, and I think, as all writing is biographical, and cathartic, getting it off your chest, exorcising some form of demon, lets dive deeper into that.
Because it is about finality.
Leaving the office
To speak of this, and how I feel, check this out. It underlies a certain dread, futility, almost nihilistic, morbid raw vibe that was hanging like a suspended Damoclesian miasma in the office and I was the only one seeing it, apparently. The sword was waiting to drop and no one was smiling and no one knew the sword there, or suspended, and they were blind to it:
“Yeah, I am never leaving this job. I basically built my own gilded cage.”
— senior, to Junior engineer Fury, when talking about buying stock in the company I worked for.
Lmao, this is also building something, but not the right things, not the proper aligning things, that nurture the soul.
I was, am, a notorious chainsmoker. I never got to the office early, but if I did, I’d carve out a nice fifteen up to thirty minutes sweet time period before the dreadful nine, and start chainsmoking packets of Camel. And in the lunchbreaks was never there, for the “mandatory” walk, with the “gang”, I’d just go to the cigar shop, which was fifteen minutes away, back and forth that’s like thirty minutes already. Add to that an hour long smoke, I was gone for like 1-2 hours. “Where were you?!” They’d ask. Or I’d even go up to the rooftop balcony, sweet view of the city tho, and just puff up there, rofl.
Something was amiss, with myself, me there, and I knew it, and they mustve felt it, the whole time. Something is still amiss, with most, and the office culture, apparent in the oh so suddenly its allowed now to WFG, whereas that wasnt condone before. FOH. Wont be going to deep into that, this time, and the ramifications of a “covid” and the restrictions on the psyche and the psychical state it has left some humans, and my friends, man, my friends, poor them.
The Bridge
A family member said, Hey Fury wanna go check out your bridge? I was in transit this whole year. Did 7+ countries in between Q1 and 2, climbed a mountain in Norway, met the Tates, had a stag party in London, the subsequent ensued wedding;almost missing the JAS, JAS, but prodigal son has to come home to hold that title. I said, Sure lets go see. But I felt something. Couldnt place it, yet. And still cant, tbh, not fully at least.
This project was a big team, of engineers, many teams worked on the whole thing. Not just me, 100s of guys, but our team was the bridge team. And with the aforementioned senior, as manager and project director, we were tasked to redesign a whole city. Actually, technicall, it was an addendum to an existing city, to make it flourish, and draw in more tourist from all around the country, and the world. “Covid” did a bang up job of tanking that of course, en fin. Our team 3-5 guys took on the bridges, connecting the older parts of the city, to this new part, dont know how much in acres, but you need a cable car, a gondola, to go from one side to another, and that takes you about fifteen minutes, thats the scope of it.
One bridge was/is my bridge. I poured almost half a year into it, almost a full. Meetings, early mornings, long deep flow sessions, modelling, 3D rendering, lots of paper, scribbles, pen, laptop in hand, walking up and down the office floor, going to this guy, that expert, that senior, talks, this and that, calculations, and more calculations. Then later I’d hear, they completely come up with a newer design, F, enfin. You can never truly own anything, anyways. It all goes to shit!
But that bridge was mine, and it had a very characteristic protection barrier around the load bearing columns holding up the road, the main slab, crossing the small brook/river, making it able to cross from one, to the other side. There were a lot of bridges when I went to visit the site, now blooming, in full sun, lots of people, flowers, the name and the project was about flowers, I was looking for that barrier. Its to protect against ships and the potential danger when you hit the columns, due to impact, it would tear, and crack and bridge collapse would ensue.
The drive to it, there were big bridges, but I didnt feel it. No not that one, not that one. When we parked and started walking, I said, We need to find water. So we took the cable car, to the other side and found a stream and there it was. People with me could see it meant something to me. I felt it. Goosebumps. I saw it. I build that.
It was a long part of me, and the whole academic life I had had, for so long, but it wasnt for me, wasnt my place, in terms of skill, you had some mad savants there, wicked autistic smart and analytic of the highest order, they could build, man. And the people, the normies, the beefs I had — I was notorious for shouting on the office floor, in the glass enclosed spaces, Your degree doesnt mean anything! — people’s identity are so tied to one thing, its uncanny, they spent their whole life being ONE single thing, its frightening, its stifling, it even makes me gasp for air. That wasnt for me and then the job itself and that office, that company — caveat: I have nothing against people who make an honest living with a 9-5 and are content and HAPPY, nothing against it, but guess I also have nothing for it; mean it would take one, and me, DECADES, to be able to build prominent pieces like lets say the Burj Khalifa, be respected in the community, and outside and get street cred, but thats a tangent and it would be outside the scope of this piece.
That’s all I felt in that one moment seeing that bridge, all misty eyes, and heartstrings tugged. I felt that, and more. This understanding, of being a carpenter, that finality, legacy, what does it mean to be a man, to build, to go your own path, the unpaved one, leaving a life behind, and the sunk cost fallacy and the balls, rather, the guts and the heart to forge your own path and life, and somehow the bridge was symbol of all that.
I walked closer, even more, and touched the abutment, thats the ends of it, where the foundation lies. I saw some new shit, which wasnt in the pre-design. Some details. Then I saw the columns. The protective barriers around it, against the boats, not even there, all the sweat and work and energy and LIFE that went into it.
I snapped a pic, or two, and pointed at the thing. It was mine. It is. But its not, you never own a thing, for ever, in this life. I looked at it, looked at it, then we walked away, and up the hill. To cross the bridge, stand on it. Use it. The sun was shining, they decorated the grass between the roads nicely, with flowers, and there were no cars, just a couple pedestrians and some cyclists. And a family. Two parents and a little girl. She in between. Both her hands up, holding the parents’. They were walking, and walking, into the distance, and the sun was shining and the bridge was now theirs. It was the little girl’s. And all the other people that will for ever (constructions of this magnitude and this span are tested to last 50 years min, max: 100 years) cross the bridge. Its theirs, now. Not mine, not anymore. I saw the small little feet of the girl standing on the tarmac, with underneath this massive concrete lump, little did she know. Little did the parents know. That I build it. No one knew. It’s not relevant, its just for me, my solace, I was the engineer, it doesnt matter, its for me, my ego. That should be enough. Its enough, I said to myself.
