Ex Nihilo

June 13

The worker gets up early, grabs the packed lunch from the fridge, and hits the job site with half an hour to spare. There are plans to consider: the kind of simple arithmetic that, when added up over the course of a sweaty morning, tends to line up exactly where it’s not supposed to. 

They strive and strain: setting their back against rough 2x4s and making calculated jokes to their coworkers, taking as good as they get, the kind of rough-and-tumble love of people who still work for a living. Michaelangelo hewed David from stone but some bring something out of nothing entirely, cobbling wood to other pieces of wood in semi-random fashion until the outline of walls suddenly comes into focus—a corner, butting up against itself. 

The worker can feel the drip of sweat down the inside of their arm. Feel the sting of matted hair as focus beings to slip and minds turn from lunch to calling it, squeezing the last few hours of productivity out of the day like drops out of a dying tube of toothpaste. 

When the worker steps back to see the work they have done—the things brought out of nothing—they may see the walls of the home. The joinery, the precision, the attention to detail.

But the person who lives in the home? All they see is the place they will live, the negative space between the walls they will one day call home—all that work, just to carve out their own little space of not-work, putting up walls just to love the empty space between them.

Morning Reading is a daily email to help center yourself, reflect, and prepare for the day. It’s sent with love from your friend, Zach in Austin, Texas. He even drew the logo himself.

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