I always remember this poem by Rumi, a poet born in what is now Afghanistan, called "Craftsmanship and Emptiness." He says every craftsman is really looking for what isn't there yet, the missing piece his skill is meant to fill. I think about that a lot, because it's how I see a building site. It's never just an empty site to me. It's full of what's missing, the way light should fall, the way a space should move a person through it, the shape a place is quietly asking for.
That's what excites me about the built environment, the idea a place already knows what it needs, and design is the act of listening closely enough to find it. I grew up in Afghanistan, around houses built without architects, just people who knew, without writing it down, how thick a wall should be or where a courtyard should sit for the light to fall right. That knowledge is fading now, and almost nobody has studied it seriously.
That gap is the goal that shapes everything for me. I want to become an architect who can eventually go back and work on that, and I like that this field rewards precision as much as instinct.