Thesis? Where?

This is a thesis...

" A statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved" or in Helgian philosophy "a proposition forming the first stage in the process of dialectical reasoning"

I'm finding this whole business of outlining a thesis very disturbing. On one hand my over reaching foresight into the realms of a final design hinder my search for an appropriate one, and on the other not enough grounding into what I aim to achieve will equally hinder my progress. I can neither cling to keeping my eyes on the horizon, nor can I stare at my feet. The feeling being quite similar to being asked to walk in a completely new environment blindfolded, and my stumbling will somehow lead me to the interesting gems of discovery; which indeed makes sense, but my reflexes are on red alert.

Similar to being told what to wear as a child, clothes feeling rigid and constricting, the imagined sensation of asphyxiating collars and top buttons, this project feels like we have been forced into something new. What brief? There is no brief, write down one hundred ideas, pick your favourite, explore the idea. How? How do I know if this is right? Obviously there is no "right" path, but my rationality suggests that there MUST be an "incorrect" path, and the more I consider my choice of direction, the more I worry my choices will lead to a flimsy half baked project.

And so ensues a torrent of "escape" projects sideline trains of thought, because I know what I planned to do when I began this project, but now my ideas seem too hazy or irrevocably detached from a design path. My interest in the subject lies in the fabric of the history rather than design possibilities stemming from it. But then again, if I was already imagining designed outcomes, I fear I would have finished too soon, running out of options. But then some of my peers have already began "playing" already at the stage where ideas can be generated physically. I have my arena, but no focus or feeling as to where it may go.

Tommorow I'm getting out Howard's End, maybe something will come from that. Why are academic texts not in Audiobook, what student has time to read everything?

At the moment the project is looking at Rural life, and the way that "the city is the achievement of the countryside" I used to live on a farm, and now I have entered the city, so it remains a poignant topic. My nostalgic clutch of memories grow every year, life in the sticks. And its something that has apparently been of quite some interest in the nineteenth century when due to rising imports, farming waned, and due to their poverished state, people were forced into the towns to find work. Man was severed from the land, and this nostalgia for it ensued.

In the "single tax" campaign of Henry George, his analysis of the economic situation was simple "the wide - spreading social evils which everywhere oppress men amid advancing civilization spread from a great primary wrong - the appropriation by the few, of the land which and from we must live...no power on earth," he asserted "can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership of the land" he suggested that once this was sorted out 'all ills vice misery, poverty and pauperism' would dwindle away.

Blake's 'green and pleasant land' willing the destruction of those 'dark satanic mills'

their suggestion was that we should abolish the factories and return to the 'guilds and workshops' of the village, a sentiment later echoed by Vance Packard and Victor Papanek, that smaller worked better.

But I don't believe in any way that this is my direction, my skepticism is far too overpowering to believe that any attempt to alter society will result in anything more than to appear hippy-ish or idealistic. The project needs to feel more like a tangible, do I want to expose our roots with the ground? Or possibly subvert them?

I feel like my work should err towards a form of responsible design which encourages self sufficiency, or home industries, or some way of empowering a person. Design an object that tries to re-establish the link between man and the soil, or something like that. I guess I cant force a path, I just need to find it. Find what it is that I want to say. Oh fuck this is hard.