Asking chatGBT life questions

23 Jul

why would a designer and researcher , trained in architecture with 5 years experience in architecture practice in housing and research - decide to spend 6 months training as a surf instructor and lifeguard on the beach? she also is an artist and writer and works with creating natural colour on textiles and makes clothes. she is thinking to start a slow fashion brand

ChatGPT said:

That designer and researcher might choose to spend 6 months training as a surf instructor and lifeguard on the beach for a deeply intuitive and holistic set of reasons—rooted in alignment, not escape. Here's why it could make sense, even seem inevitable:

1. Embodied Practice & Nervous System Repair

After years of cerebral and desk-based work—whether designing housing systems or writing research papers—her body is calling. The beach is a place of recalibration. Surfing and lifeguarding rewire the nervous system through rhythm, breath, and risk. It’s not just training; it’s nervous system recovery, post-burnout medicine, and a return to presence.

2. Ecology of Self & Place

Architecture and fashion both shape the environments we inhabit—externally and internally. By working on the beach, she builds a deeper, embodied relationship with landscape, tide, time, and weather. These experiences will inform her design values, perhaps making them slower, more seasonal, and place-attuned.

3. Diversifying Livelihoods in a Precarious Economy

Traditional architecture jobs are increasingly precarious, and the design industry rarely supports sustainability—either environmental or personal. Surf instruction and lifeguarding offer a simple, grounded form of income that’s physically located in the places she wants to be: coastal, alive, community-oriented.

4. Regenerative Creativity

Time in the water clears mental clutter. A slower life, one punctuated by surf sessions and swims, creates space for her other practices—writing, natural dyeing, art, fashion design—to emerge from a place of depth rather than stress. She's not abandoning her career; she’s composting, resting, regenerating.

5. Living the Question

The biggest creative decisions aren’t made from a desk. This is a woman building a life, not just a résumé. The ocean is a mentor. This is fieldwork for her next body of work—whether it ends up as a brand, a book, a built project, or something unnamed. She's researching alternative futures—by living one.

6. Community & Simplicity

Beaches and surf towns can be deeply communal places. They offer a sense of belonging that’s hard to find in professional silos. She may want to live more simply, connected to natural rhythms and real people. The surf course is not a detour—it’s a doorway.