Iain Hollingshead, writing for the Telegraph, decides to test out the theories in a book by Matthew Crawford on the benefits of working with one’s hands. He decides to help his favorite mechanic services his Alpha Romeo:
I have a minor triumph of my own when, after an hour of gentle, blokey ribbing for knowing nothing about cars, I mend a fiddly rear numberplate light. As we celebrate with a mug of builder’s tea, I’m surprised by how pathetically, disproportionately happy I feel. Then I remember Crawford’s words: “The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, because he has no real effect in the world.”
Mondegreen II has a great idea I should try to implement in my homeowners association (I’m the president):
Think of the specialty tools we buy that we don’t need more than once a year (if that). Not only do we incur the cost of buying them, we also incur the cost of storing them. I am more than happy to share my small collection of such tools with neighbors–thinks like the DeWalt compound miter saw that I bought for a deck project, or the sturdy hand truck hanging in a corner of the garage. There is absolutely no need for every suburban family to own their own copy of such things.
I agree. I own four different types of shovel, three of which I use at most a few times a year. I’m glad to have them when I need them, but really…
Melanie Williams at Where Simplicity Leads has some excellent thoughts on the difference between tools and skills in self reliance:
When I was just getting serious about simple living a few years ago I read an article about self-reliance which really stuck with me. The author said that the biggest mistake people make when starting out is thinking that in order to become self-reliant they have to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. I remember thinking that was kind of funny–what kind of self-reliance is that? Self-reliance is really more about skill-building than it is about tool-getting, but in the early stages it’s easy to believe all you need are the right tools (or at least to believe that the right tools will get you a very long way).
Tools of course are important, and when we’re first adopting a simpler and more resilient lifestyle it might become very obvious, very quickly that all the tools and gadgets and gizmos we’ve acquired over the years are precisely all the wrong tools and gadgets and gizmos needed for self-reliance. Riding lawn mowers, microwave ovens, GPS navigation, bread machines, rototillers, dishwashers…not so important. Root cellars, chicken coops, grain mills, spades, shovels, buckets, jars…very important tools.
Read the whole thing. And not just because she uses the same blog template I used to! 😉
And we’re all clearly fighting an up-hill battle against government’s well-funded campaign to remove all risk and consequence from our lives. We’re encouraged to live as milk-calves to government’s bottomless teat.
Responsibility and self-reliance require effort on the part of the individual. Why put forth effort when you don’t have to?
I think Greece is providing a great example to us all on why we don’t want to become too dependent on the government. Too few politicians are businessmen, so they don’t pay attention to such minor details as solvency. When the state goes down a lot of people will suddenly be helpless and looking for someone to teach them what to do–that is, after they give up looking for someone to bail them out.
The deck demolition project continues. Last weekend we got all the deck structure removed, and over the week friends have been coming to lay claim to the scrap lumber. We still have some of it, but enough is gone to be able to begin working on the exposed area, getting it ready to put into garden beds.
Today’s project was been to remove all the posts and their concrete pilings. I spent much of the morning just unearthing the piles, getting them loosened enough for removal. Then I had to figure out a way to get them out of the holes–safely. Understand I am not a big boy. I weigh 130 lbs. These piles weigh at least 50 lbs, and they are in a hole below ground level. A recipe for pain.
But then came the idea. This is one of the reasons I enjoy working with my hands on projects like this because invariably there will come a point when muscle alone will not solve the problem. I get to engage my brain more significantly to come up with a solution.
In this case the solution was a lever. I found some rope and a 5′ length of 2×4. I tied one end of the rope around the post still exposed above the concrete. I tied the other end around one end of the 2×4. Placing the other end of the 2×4 firmly against the ground, I could then pull backward on the top end of the 2×4, which would drag the concrete piling out of the hole. By moving the bottom end of the 2×4, then pulling on the top end, I could continue dragging the piling to the collection point much more easily than I could roll it or boost it into a wheelbarrow.
Here, let me demonstrate with a diagram:
You will note, of course, my big, burly muscles, and that I can do it one-handed. And yes, I really do float on air! (Note: picture is not drawn to scale, nor is really at all indicative of my appearance, nor my physique (especially the muscles), nor the gravitational conditions in my area.)
So anyway, thanks to my simple machine, I have cleared out all the posts that are in the way. There are a few I will just leave, as they’re not in the way of anything. But it’s amazing how simple machines can make such a difference. I continually had difficulty getting the piles to budge with just my shovel, but the minute I got the idea to get one of my 25-pound landscaping blocks to knock against the top of the post, things went much easier. I could knock the piles loose much more quickly than I could excavate them. And the lever was simply wonderful! I couldn’t have done it otherwise.
If there are enough people who care about raising and growing their own food, it will inevitably encourage people to cook more and spend more time on food preparation. And consequently, people will lead healthier lives and have healthier bodies.
There are certainly people who don’t have the time and aren’t interested, and that’s fine. We’re not telling people that they ought to choose any particular lifestyle. We are providing the information about growing and raising your own food and getting in touch with the soil and with cooking.
Animals can be great for individuals, great for families, and even for a neighborhood. Many of the people who have chickens in Denver tell me that neighbors come from doors down, sometimes blocks down, to visit them just because they want to see the chickens or let their kids play with the chickens.
I’m the president of a home owners association that doesn’t allow livestock, and doesn’t allow xeriscaping. The rules were written twenty years ago. Times have changed. I’m trying to not have to enforce those restrictions, but there is regular pressure to do so. So far no one has complained about the family with the chickens, but I’ve received several complaints about the two xeriscapers. I need to have a talk with them about keeping it as neat and tidy as they can so people won’t have as many grounds for complaint.
But ultimately, it’s a different world today. Governments, cities, and neighborhoods have to change with the times. And people have to change too–and be as responsible as possible to make it easier for people to accept.
Lauren at Path Across has an article on four ways to save money and time. To summarize:
Use smaller amounts of cleaning products
Eat leftovers and use up less-than-crisp vegetables
Cancel the cable TV
Grow a few houseplants and feed then kitchen compost
Read the whole article for details. These are good ideas, though we already do most of these. In our case our kitchen scraps already go into some composting bins I made a few years back. We never have had cable TV, and I am the “Leftover King”. Quite frankly it boggles my mind that people could actually throw away perfectly good food just because it’s leftovers. Some food tastes better the next day and beyond.
So the only one that we aren’t already on top of is the first one. I’ll have to check with my wife, as she handles the laundry. I know I could probably go a little easier on the cleaning products in cleaning the bathrooms.
That’s one problem with being frugal–it’s hard to cut back any further. Yet somehow we managed. When I lost my job we cut our budget by a third, and not all of that was the money we no longer put into savings. On the whole our lifestyle has not been impacted that much. On the other hand, I do pray regularly that none of our major appliances decides to go out before we get a solid income stream going again. When I get my first paycheck I intend to not mention it anywhere near the kitchen!
It was neither a astounding success nor a miserable failure. I’d call today a good, solid win. I didn’t last the entire eleven hours. I only made it nine before I got a headache, wore out, and called it a day. But I did make quite a few contacts and develop over a dozen good leads.
My prognosis: I can talk to people in person. But now the thought of calling these people back to set an appointment scares me. I hate the phone. I prefer face to face. But there’s no turning back now.
The funny thing is that I actually found the morning networking session invigorating. I enjoyed talking to people! Of course it helped that they were all energized, friendly, and there to make contacts, too. But as the day wore on and people wore down it got more difficult. People didn’t make eye contact as easily. People’s body language just wasn’t as welcoming. I think an eleven hour event is too long, quite frankly.
I did try to go to the last two hours, which were also a networking opportunity. But the energy of the room had changed dramatically from the morning session. People were tired. They were sitting down at tables. They were hanging out with their friends, and no one was budging. I quickly surmised that networking was going to be difficult, even without my headache and exhaustion, and beat a hasty retreat.
Onward to the next phase. It will be interesting to see how many of the people who were so welcoming today are still welcoming when I call them up. I hope I’m pleasantly surprised.
American Thinker published a column by Edward Bernard Glick about his grandmother and her insistence on learning English when she emigrated to America. I’m not above giving some help to immigrants, but I believe she mostly had the right attitude:
She came to America at 13, speaking only Yiddish. When she died some 70 years later, her Yiddish was still perfect. But so was her English. That’s because in the 1920s, teachers and parents did not know about diversity training and political correctness. So they placed her in classes with much younger English-speaking kids. She was ashamed and angry at first, but by the end of the school year she had conquered the national language of the United States. As an adult, she got hooked on New York Times crossword puzzles, which she always worked with a pen. She was very proud of that.
She believed it shouldn’t cost the government an extra dime to bring foreign-born kids up to linguistic snuff. After living in California for 25 years, she opposed bilingual education and ESL (English-as-a-second-language) programs because she observed that they cost too much, took too long, and didn’t work. She used to say that If she had been subjected to ESL and bilingual education as kid she’d now be speaking “Yinglish,” which she defined as Yiddish with an American accent and English with a Yiddish accent.
My wife and I have often discussed what would happen if we needed to move back to her country of birth. Chances are enough people in business speak English I could get along okay. But I would never presume for a moment that I would not need to learn Finnish, or that my kids should get bilingual education at the government’s expense. As difficult a language as Finnish can be, we would still need to learn it. When in Rome, and all that.
Should immigrants get help adjusting to America? Certainly. But that’s what families and churches are for. The government need not get involved, especially with programs that leave immigrants dependent on others to help them get through basic life activities. We’re doing them no favors if they are unable to fend for themselves in their new country because some people think they should be coddled along.
Facts and Opinions opines on the harmful effects of helping your kids out with cash:
You wouldn’t believe this is logical. How could you hurt your children by providing them dollars? Over the long term should you continually give your kids the maximum tax free money gift (currently $13,000 per year) and they come to expect it, you are only enabling their consumer way of life and aren’t genuinely teaching them to be self sufficient.
This idea is covered quite thoroughly in the book The Millionaire Next Door. I know that is one gift my parents gave me–they encouraged all of us kids to pay our own way. I got a paper route when I was nine. I worked part time in the early mornings to put myself through college. They helped by housing and feeding me. I learned to make do or do without, though I don’t recall ever really suffering from a lack of money. I graduated college without a single dollar of student loans to repay. It was a great gift to give myself–and I have my parents to thank for it.
They may not have had a choice–I wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t have afforded to put me through college. But by letting me fend for myself more or less, they taught me something quite valuable.
