Drink Your Coffee in Peace
- Gil Rosa
- 54 minutes ago
- 2 min read
We practice, reflect, correct, and improve.
We strive to unite the vision with the physical.
Design and Build in one mind.
This is the maker’s journey.
One step. One kata. Every day.
Discipline is our mantra.
But discipline without rest is obsession.
Van Gogh once wrote:
“To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one’s fling from time to time, smoke one’s pipe, and drink one’s coffee in peace.”
There is something grounding in that list.
Eat well.
Live decently.
Enjoy something.
Sit in quiet.
No grand philosophy.
No heroic suffering.
Just the basic conditions required for good work.
Somewhere along the way,
Many of us forgot this.
In our world, exhaustion is admired.
Busyness is praised.
The last one on site feels honorable.
But fatigue is not mastery.
A tired builder reacts.
A rested builder sees.
A depleted mind solves today’s problem.
A steady mind prevents tomorrow’s.
We talk about sharpening the blade.
No one sharpens steel while swinging it.
Rest is not weakness.
It is maintenance.
Reflection is not laziness.
It is alignment.
Enjoyment is not a distraction.
It is renewal.
There is a quiet moment most mornings before the noise begins.
Coffee in hand.
Light touching the drawings.
No one asking for answers yet.
If you cannot sit in that moment without reaching for urgency,
something inside is unsettled.
The maker’s journey is not endless motion.
It is rhythm.
Work.
Pause.
Reflect.
Adjust.
Work again.
Design and Build in one mind also means knowing when to close the plans and step away.
Because the body you ignore becomes the judgment you lose.
The mind you overdrive becomes the mistake you miss.
The life you postpone becomes the bitterness you carry.
Van Gogh did not romanticize suffering.
He understood that good work requires good conditions.
So eat well.
Live well.
Laugh when you can.
Have your fling from time to time.
And drink your coffee in peace.
Field Note
Discipline builds skill.
Rest protects it.