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Heaven on Earth
by BY EUGENE TSUI GIVEN FEBRUARY 3, 2003
Please allow me to begin by thanking David Schroeder, a recent graduate of your Landscape Architecture department, for having the enthusiasm to find a way to bring me here today. David could you please stand and show yourself? I wish also to thank the Harrelson lecture committee, Prof. Dennis Werner and University Chancellor Mary Ann Fox for organizing this lecture. Could Chancellor Fox and the Committee please stand? Thank you.
If we look around our world today, at the general state of humanity, at the built world we have fashioned, we can see that the attitudes and events of our times are shaped by violent chaos, confusion, and disregard. The arrogance of Man against Man, belief against belief and Man against nature is a tragic story, which continues to this day. The trouble with our world today is that we have allowed the physical means by which we live to outdistance the inquisitive and spiritual ends for which we live. We find ourselves caught in a desperate and turbulent world of our own making. Through our technological genius we have made the world a neighborhood but by succumbing to our fears we have failed to make it a brother and sisterhood. The real danger facing civilization today is within the heart and soul of each of us and our architecture is a clear reflection of this.
Through the veil of time conformity and ignorance controls our lives. A deep chasm forever divides image and truth. We often find ourselves trying to be somebody else. Our human made environments conspire to alienate and extinguish our sense of dignity and artistic power shutting ourselves off from one another behind soulless walls of brick and steel. And what about the living things around us who have no voice? What voice do the fearful and oppressed have among us? What voice do the birds and trees, the rivers, the sky and stars have? When the oceans are turned black and the sun is but a distant lantern hanging in a bleak landscape how shall we survive?
Yes my friends, now is the time in history where we must take a risk for humanity. A risk for all living things. A risk to work with nature not against it. This is what we need today. Not men and women concerned with the image of themselves. But men and women willing to ask what will happen to the world if I do not help. What will happen to the world if we let it erode away by the misuse of human ingenuity and freedom?
Somehow we must break this chain of hate, arrogance and conformity in this world.
It is my hope, that in the not too distant future people will look back at these times and say, there lived a people that were not afraid to turn their backs on the edicts of society, who were not afraid to turn away from the violent consequences of symbolism, nationalism and profiteering. A people who tried to bring beauty and sanity to the world; who tried to live by truth, who tried to express their own imaginative uniqueness and vitality in daily life!
Where does one learn this sense of beauty, this intelligence that brings order and responsibility? It is found in the mind of god itself. And nature is the only true body of god that we shall ever know. Nature is the open book of knowledge lifted to cosmic proportions. It is a force of intelligence that dwarfs human comprehension. A force that can reveal the solutions to problems that have plagued mankind since the beginning of time. A force that can inject new life and meaning into the veins of humanity.
And so my friends, I conclude by saying, that the world needs changing! Not in a little while. Not in some distant future, but here and now!
Every day the body and soul of another human being is demeaned. Every day the profound secrets of nature are blighted by the grotesque greed of consumerism. Every day another child is further calloused by the shallow emptiness of our built world. Every day our inquisitive, artistic and spiritual powers are severed by habitual routine.
To put it broadly, our passion for life is checked. We thus live far below our unique capabilities.
We must rise up from this! We must show the world the value and power of human dignity. Ours is the chance to change the world! To create a heaven on earth the way that nature has intended us to create it! Knowing is not enough! We must go out and do it!!
WITHERSPOON CINEMA THEATER
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, USA
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