Your point about craftsmen is important, younger people seem to look down on getting their hands dirty or touching anything other than a computer mouse! I am all about developing a breadth of skills, and took pride as my late wife would tell people that I "could do anything" with a big smile when 'broken stuff' came up for discussion. Growing up with a father (PhD scientist, a brilliant man) who did pretty much everything himself because that was how HE was raised, I just incorporated this automatically.
My clothes drier was new in 1995/6 winter. Had to replace the heating element some years back & the belt. Nothing really to break, just replace bearings next!
Hand cutting meat - now there is a lost art! My neighbor who raises beef has spoken to me of the consolidation of meat packers buying out the small operations. It is hard for them to make much on the cow as the market is controlled. I suggested he ought to consider setting up a shop, but then the .gov intrusion & "regulations" become the issue.
We need a FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE in how we view our daily lives & how much intrusion we will put up with. I'm old enough that I can momentarily comfort myself in a selfish way (by ignoring it all) but my conscience won't allow that for long.
What happened to vocational tracks in high school? Since when does everybody "go to college" and WHY are they doing it? I try to convince young people to consider learning skills such as plumbing & electrical work. Much of carpentry is being taken over by immigrant labor who work for less money, but the craftsman is still needed. Of course everybody should garden & know how to cook - even that seems to be fading away.
I have always like to broke things down to the smallest pieces to understand how they work, and attempt to fix them, since e very early age (what led to a lot of failures and broken toys, but you live you learn I guess).
Most young people these days live a life ruled by algorithms and by trends, imitating their peers, and since the educational system led them to believe college is the only key to prosperity, you get this result.
Doing anything with your hands is becoming a lost art, from cutting meat to building things and that is for the worse to all of us, our lives get a little less colorful and happy every each passing day.
I completely agree with your fundamental change point, that is one of the reasons I sometimes share these things, with the goal of initiating some change, knowing cascade effects will play a role.
Everything as a service is a plague of modernity and one of the reasons a large portion of the population can't cook, can't grow anything, can't fix anything, can't do anything.
I have had people say "you're a doctor, why don't you pay somebody to do xxx". The question itself betrays a very disturbing approach to life, as though there is no value in labor, effort, accomplishment, and SWEAT! I have been baking most of the bread that crosses my table for >25 years. Pay someone to mow the lawn? Why would I do that when I can have headphones on to either listen to a good podcast, or some good (= OLD) music!
Part of the enjoyment involves problem solving, but even that goes back to another lost activity: jigsaw puzzles. As a kid my folks frequently had a card table in the corner with a puzzle on it (and always around the holidays). I wonder if even 1% of the under 30 crowd have ever even seen one partially assembled.
Years ago I knew a surgeon who spent almost all of his free time woodworking, from nice cabinetry & such to some lovely carving. Even as his health deteriorated he wasn't about to give that up. And lets be honest: if you want a TOMATO, you pretty much have to grow it yourself. I don't know what it is they sell at the grocery ...
Keep at it - the great writing AND the activities.
I am not a doctor, but I am the same, people often ask why I try to fix everything if "you can just buy a new one". It is a matter of principle, not monetary.
I think working with your hands is an assured way to keep your mental faculties so to speak, people who don't work with their hands as they age not only lose dexterity, perception, but some of the capacity to think, it is observational but the amount of time I have observed people I refuse to label as anecdotal.
Thank you very much for both the comment and the encouraging words.
You are most welcome! Kindred spirits & such. And just an hour it ago I got a message from my neighbor’s son (in another state). His dad had been taken to the hospital a few days ago, house was locked up by son, now dad gets home & is locked out. I’m the problem solver, got in without any damage (and showed a need to make a change for security) and validated his trust in me (& also show I need a key!).
How many people would break a window or call a locksmith? Silly!
I have indulged myself in building small sailboats over 60 years, starting with rafts from driftwood and nails. After a hard day of listening to complaints and handing out prescriptions, I considered my workshop to be "Occupational Therapy." Evidently I could afford to replace broken things, but my mother grew up in the Canadian prairies during the depression, so waste was not part of my background. As I am not really "handy" my wife is not totally supportive of my repair results.
Our local butcher has been in the same situation for the past year, and could not find people to keep the shop staffed; they raise their own livestock so we have a reasonably clean supply. The cobbler an hour's drive away still has most of the traditional machinery and skills and looks good for a few more years.
"items we use in our daily lives are rather soulless, mundane"
Yeah, just look at the furniture... It warms my heart watching well made Victorian/Edwardian movies or series, like the 1980s Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett, just for the furniture and accessoires there :D
I demand brass make a comeback. (if someone else cleans it)
Today, furniture seems to be designed by either some ultra minimalist, or sometimes, Picasso. Usually made from throw-away wood particles with lots of glue and formaldehyde.
I did make many of my furniture items myself - the problem is just that I lack a proper workshop, tools, and am not very good at this and they're kinda rough, and without any nice embellishments, but they smell much better than bought things, and fit perfectly into their niches in my cramped apartment ;) (and they tend to have roller feet, for the same reason... but good ones, with ball bearings) Just looking at actual wood strucures, enhanced contrast by linseed oil treatment, so much nicer than the fake stuff.
And the keyboard on the photo is potentially a proper one :D None of this minimal travel laptop sleek seeming anti-ergonomical nonsense. I work in software, and had inflamed tendons in one arm maybe 8 years ago. Then switched to a keyboard with Cherry MX brown switches, the ones with tactile feedback but no click - and put rubber rings on all key necks, for the accidents bottoming out and hitting too hard, plastic on plastic. Once, both at work, and at home, absolutely every computer I was using more regularly had a keyboard like that, I could actually get used to typing without bottoming out the keys and using too much force holding them down, to make sure they really make contact - which is guaranteed for the brown switches to be established once you noticed the feedback blip.
And the problems went away and didn't come back so far.
Older furniture, almost anything old was purpose built and aesthetically pleasant, craftsman of old had a lot of pride on detailed work, functional but complex mechanisms. I wish I could afford a vintage desk but as of now, no way, they are absurdly expensive here, and I can't find a "find", a "steal" as they say, would love to be able to build my own regardless of apparencies but it would end up even more expensive.
You should feel pride of building your own furniture, I congratulate you =).
Keyboards never affected my tendons and hands that much, but mice, regardless of shape will after hours of use (games especially, which I don't do much anymore, once in a blue moon), so it is interesting to read that other people had problems with differently shaped keyboards. Glad you figure it out !
Have you tried mice that make the hand grip at a different angle? Some swear by those (there are a bunch of even weirder looking "sideways mouse", "ergo mouse" than this)
To me, this looks uncomfortable, but I never tried.
You can still buy traditional furniture if you want to pay for it. But I was told by an upholsterer that good springs are no longer made for cotton stuffing. So, you will end up with down, foam or a combination of the two.
o your only choices are foam and down or a combination of the two.
I'm going to thank you for something you might not expect - inadvertently, through your profile, leading me to Doc Anarchy and making me see the post-nasal-drip article. The kimchi thing, for re-colonizing with helpful bacteria, sounds fascinating, although I'm hesitant to make another experiment with my nose/throat area - the last one got me an infection that made me unable to sing for 2 months, and I'm still rebuilding my voice 4 months later, lol.
You can learn how to bind books on YouTube, it is not hard, just time consuming, but leatherwork, that takes a lot of practice for proper results and tools (which makes initiating the journey hard). You are welcome !
I love the outdoors, but don't go as much as I hope or wish for, so each time is burned into my memories. The place in the pictures, specifically, is one of my favorite in the entire world. Simple, yet gorgeous.
Is your weather a result of the "Climate Crisis?" If Covid eventually falls from favour for inducing fear among the proletariat are we prepared for the planned segue to "Carbon Shutdowns" and our upcoming "Social Credit Score System" disguised as "Citizen Carbon Compliance?"
I have recently attended a presentation on weather manipulation, including "ChemTrails", HAART, and Geoengineering. See <geoengineeringwatch.org> for some of their observations. I am a believer in Solar variation- sunspot cycles and the Maunder Minimum have been described long before the invention of Twitter or the CIA, so are probably not disinformation. CO2 is a good thing if you are a plant, and there is a programme to develop a greenbelt along the southern extent of the Sahara Desert. As your context is not North American or European, it would be of interest to know your thoughts when time is available.
I have an hypothesis which goes like this. The absurd lockdowns in 2020 shifted the weather of the entire planet to a degree never seen before, after all pollution and our activities do play a small role on the weather via pollution (particles themselves not gases). And this directly affected volcanic activity incentivizing eruptions globally, which in turn directly shifted the weather globally again, creating weather shift loops.
These can most certainly be manipulated by man, further incentivizing the drastic shift. A for, of weather warfare is probably happening at certain levels in many places.
I so agree re the dying of craftmanship. It brought to mind an Italian tailor who I used to go to all the time in the early 1980s in a small shop in an unnamed state.
It's getting harder to find people who know how to repair things too. Shoes, for example, heck, even appliances.
The lack of interest by younger generations, who stress sustainability and such above all else, makes zero sense. When will they step up to learn from those toiling away but dying out?
And why don't people, especially those who are establishing households, value older furniture, especially furniture made using nicer wood than the particle-board glued-together furniture now?
I have witnessed so many craftsman dying of disease (caused by stress) or giving up on their life long pursuit because of how unsustainable it became, how hard it was for people to understand the value of their work (and these people didn't charge tons of money, these were simple, but skilled craftsman).
I hold the opinion and perspective the younger generations have a lower IQ and a significant cognitive "debt" (not deficit, debt), if you look into letters from late 1800's, early 19 you can gauge without efforts the abysm between language and writing skills between a "dumb rural solider from Kentucky" and a highly educated young adult today. As the meme goes "Name 10 books".
Well, on the older furniture, sometimes from my (third world) perspective it comes down to cost, at least here vintage, older furniture usually is expensive. As in, you can buy furniture for most of your house with the price of a desk. I think in the first world, other reasoning and thought process apply. From the scourge of minimalism, to "post-modern" belief from college, etc.
I know this is off topic and I sincerely apologize, but do you have any insights into the recent revelations about mRNA vaccines in pork, cattle, etc? Several states (AZ, Ia and MO) have proposed labeling legislation. Should we be concerned about stealth vaccinations of humans through the food supply? Are we there yet?
I highly suspect this mRNA pork talk is grifters grifting, I do not trust most of these people pushing these talking points, they are often political grifters (some are merely monetary grifters).
The law being proposed is feared by the producers not only because of vaccination, but GMO feed also impacts the final product (they would need to label) and genetic engineering too, and I have a strong suspicion they have been messing with genetic engineering for far longer than we may think.
No, you shouldn't worry about stealth vaccinations, but you should worry about tainted meat, yes.
Your point about craftsmen is important, younger people seem to look down on getting their hands dirty or touching anything other than a computer mouse! I am all about developing a breadth of skills, and took pride as my late wife would tell people that I "could do anything" with a big smile when 'broken stuff' came up for discussion. Growing up with a father (PhD scientist, a brilliant man) who did pretty much everything himself because that was how HE was raised, I just incorporated this automatically.
My clothes drier was new in 1995/6 winter. Had to replace the heating element some years back & the belt. Nothing really to break, just replace bearings next!
Hand cutting meat - now there is a lost art! My neighbor who raises beef has spoken to me of the consolidation of meat packers buying out the small operations. It is hard for them to make much on the cow as the market is controlled. I suggested he ought to consider setting up a shop, but then the .gov intrusion & "regulations" become the issue.
We need a FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE in how we view our daily lives & how much intrusion we will put up with. I'm old enough that I can momentarily comfort myself in a selfish way (by ignoring it all) but my conscience won't allow that for long.
What happened to vocational tracks in high school? Since when does everybody "go to college" and WHY are they doing it? I try to convince young people to consider learning skills such as plumbing & electrical work. Much of carpentry is being taken over by immigrant labor who work for less money, but the craftsman is still needed. Of course everybody should garden & know how to cook - even that seems to be fading away.
I have always like to broke things down to the smallest pieces to understand how they work, and attempt to fix them, since e very early age (what led to a lot of failures and broken toys, but you live you learn I guess).
Most young people these days live a life ruled by algorithms and by trends, imitating their peers, and since the educational system led them to believe college is the only key to prosperity, you get this result.
Doing anything with your hands is becoming a lost art, from cutting meat to building things and that is for the worse to all of us, our lives get a little less colorful and happy every each passing day.
I completely agree with your fundamental change point, that is one of the reasons I sometimes share these things, with the goal of initiating some change, knowing cascade effects will play a role.
Everything as a service is a plague of modernity and one of the reasons a large portion of the population can't cook, can't grow anything, can't fix anything, can't do anything.
I have had people say "you're a doctor, why don't you pay somebody to do xxx". The question itself betrays a very disturbing approach to life, as though there is no value in labor, effort, accomplishment, and SWEAT! I have been baking most of the bread that crosses my table for >25 years. Pay someone to mow the lawn? Why would I do that when I can have headphones on to either listen to a good podcast, or some good (= OLD) music!
Part of the enjoyment involves problem solving, but even that goes back to another lost activity: jigsaw puzzles. As a kid my folks frequently had a card table in the corner with a puzzle on it (and always around the holidays). I wonder if even 1% of the under 30 crowd have ever even seen one partially assembled.
Years ago I knew a surgeon who spent almost all of his free time woodworking, from nice cabinetry & such to some lovely carving. Even as his health deteriorated he wasn't about to give that up. And lets be honest: if you want a TOMATO, you pretty much have to grow it yourself. I don't know what it is they sell at the grocery ...
Keep at it - the great writing AND the activities.
I am not a doctor, but I am the same, people often ask why I try to fix everything if "you can just buy a new one". It is a matter of principle, not monetary.
I think working with your hands is an assured way to keep your mental faculties so to speak, people who don't work with their hands as they age not only lose dexterity, perception, but some of the capacity to think, it is observational but the amount of time I have observed people I refuse to label as anecdotal.
Thank you very much for both the comment and the encouraging words.
You are most welcome! Kindred spirits & such. And just an hour it ago I got a message from my neighbor’s son (in another state). His dad had been taken to the hospital a few days ago, house was locked up by son, now dad gets home & is locked out. I’m the problem solver, got in without any damage (and showed a need to make a change for security) and validated his trust in me (& also show I need a key!).
How many people would break a window or call a locksmith? Silly!
I have indulged myself in building small sailboats over 60 years, starting with rafts from driftwood and nails. After a hard day of listening to complaints and handing out prescriptions, I considered my workshop to be "Occupational Therapy." Evidently I could afford to replace broken things, but my mother grew up in the Canadian prairies during the depression, so waste was not part of my background. As I am not really "handy" my wife is not totally supportive of my repair results.
Our local butcher has been in the same situation for the past year, and could not find people to keep the shop staffed; they raise their own livestock so we have a reasonably clean supply. The cobbler an hour's drive away still has most of the traditional machinery and skills and looks good for a few more years.
I fell in love with this post.
Thank you Bibi.
Purple is my favorite color too.
Purple bros unite !
"items we use in our daily lives are rather soulless, mundane"
Yeah, just look at the furniture... It warms my heart watching well made Victorian/Edwardian movies or series, like the 1980s Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett, just for the furniture and accessoires there :D
I demand brass make a comeback. (if someone else cleans it)
Today, furniture seems to be designed by either some ultra minimalist, or sometimes, Picasso. Usually made from throw-away wood particles with lots of glue and formaldehyde.
I did make many of my furniture items myself - the problem is just that I lack a proper workshop, tools, and am not very good at this and they're kinda rough, and without any nice embellishments, but they smell much better than bought things, and fit perfectly into their niches in my cramped apartment ;) (and they tend to have roller feet, for the same reason... but good ones, with ball bearings) Just looking at actual wood strucures, enhanced contrast by linseed oil treatment, so much nicer than the fake stuff.
And the keyboard on the photo is potentially a proper one :D None of this minimal travel laptop sleek seeming anti-ergonomical nonsense. I work in software, and had inflamed tendons in one arm maybe 8 years ago. Then switched to a keyboard with Cherry MX brown switches, the ones with tactile feedback but no click - and put rubber rings on all key necks, for the accidents bottoming out and hitting too hard, plastic on plastic. Once, both at work, and at home, absolutely every computer I was using more regularly had a keyboard like that, I could actually get used to typing without bottoming out the keys and using too much force holding them down, to make sure they really make contact - which is guaranteed for the brown switches to be established once you noticed the feedback blip.
And the problems went away and didn't come back so far.
Older furniture, almost anything old was purpose built and aesthetically pleasant, craftsman of old had a lot of pride on detailed work, functional but complex mechanisms. I wish I could afford a vintage desk but as of now, no way, they are absurdly expensive here, and I can't find a "find", a "steal" as they say, would love to be able to build my own regardless of apparencies but it would end up even more expensive.
You should feel pride of building your own furniture, I congratulate you =).
Keyboards never affected my tendons and hands that much, but mice, regardless of shape will after hours of use (games especially, which I don't do much anymore, once in a blue moon), so it is interesting to read that other people had problems with differently shaped keyboards. Glad you figure it out !
Have you tried mice that make the hand grip at a different angle? Some swear by those (there are a bunch of even weirder looking "sideways mouse", "ergo mouse" than this)
To me, this looks uncomfortable, but I never tried.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0836J7K52
I know people who prefer the good, old trackball, although, this bastard of a mouse and trackball is not like the really old trackballs:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TLYK78K
You can still buy traditional furniture if you want to pay for it. But I was told by an upholsterer that good springs are no longer made for cotton stuffing. So, you will end up with down, foam or a combination of the two.
o your only choices are foam and down or a combination of the two.
I'm going to thank you for something you might not expect - inadvertently, through your profile, leading me to Doc Anarchy and making me see the post-nasal-drip article. The kimchi thing, for re-colonizing with helpful bacteria, sounds fascinating, although I'm hesitant to make another experiment with my nose/throat area - the last one got me an infection that made me unable to sing for 2 months, and I'm still rebuilding my voice 4 months later, lol.
I used to study medieval manuscripts. I would love to learn how to bind books and tool leather. Wonderful post. Thank you.
You can learn how to bind books on YouTube, it is not hard, just time consuming, but leatherwork, that takes a lot of practice for proper results and tools (which makes initiating the journey hard). You are welcome !
Nice pics of the outdoors - it's great to breathe in the fresh air and take in the ambience.
I love the outdoors, but don't go as much as I hope or wish for, so each time is burned into my memories. The place in the pictures, specifically, is one of my favorite in the entire world. Simple, yet gorgeous.
Great pictures! Thank you:) Pity, no word about that wonder bird!
It is a type of Heron I think, not super sure on that. It was damn big thar is for sure.
it looks little bit like:
https://www.bird-sounds.net/great-egret/
Maybe. Here they are called Garça, which I think it directly equates to Herons, but maybe also Egrets ?
Is your weather a result of the "Climate Crisis?" If Covid eventually falls from favour for inducing fear among the proletariat are we prepared for the planned segue to "Carbon Shutdowns" and our upcoming "Social Credit Score System" disguised as "Citizen Carbon Compliance?"
I have recently attended a presentation on weather manipulation, including "ChemTrails", HAART, and Geoengineering. See <geoengineeringwatch.org> for some of their observations. I am a believer in Solar variation- sunspot cycles and the Maunder Minimum have been described long before the invention of Twitter or the CIA, so are probably not disinformation. CO2 is a good thing if you are a plant, and there is a programme to develop a greenbelt along the southern extent of the Sahara Desert. As your context is not North American or European, it would be of interest to know your thoughts when time is available.
I have an hypothesis which goes like this. The absurd lockdowns in 2020 shifted the weather of the entire planet to a degree never seen before, after all pollution and our activities do play a small role on the weather via pollution (particles themselves not gases). And this directly affected volcanic activity incentivizing eruptions globally, which in turn directly shifted the weather globally again, creating weather shift loops.
These can most certainly be manipulated by man, further incentivizing the drastic shift. A for, of weather warfare is probably happening at certain levels in many places.
I so agree re the dying of craftmanship. It brought to mind an Italian tailor who I used to go to all the time in the early 1980s in a small shop in an unnamed state.
It's getting harder to find people who know how to repair things too. Shoes, for example, heck, even appliances.
The lack of interest by younger generations, who stress sustainability and such above all else, makes zero sense. When will they step up to learn from those toiling away but dying out?
And why don't people, especially those who are establishing households, value older furniture, especially furniture made using nicer wood than the particle-board glued-together furniture now?
I have witnessed so many craftsman dying of disease (caused by stress) or giving up on their life long pursuit because of how unsustainable it became, how hard it was for people to understand the value of their work (and these people didn't charge tons of money, these were simple, but skilled craftsman).
I hold the opinion and perspective the younger generations have a lower IQ and a significant cognitive "debt" (not deficit, debt), if you look into letters from late 1800's, early 19 you can gauge without efforts the abysm between language and writing skills between a "dumb rural solider from Kentucky" and a highly educated young adult today. As the meme goes "Name 10 books".
Well, on the older furniture, sometimes from my (third world) perspective it comes down to cost, at least here vintage, older furniture usually is expensive. As in, you can buy furniture for most of your house with the price of a desk. I think in the first world, other reasoning and thought process apply. From the scourge of minimalism, to "post-modern" belief from college, etc.
Absolutely love 'learn to live with the miserable.' Definitely going to do something with it that can be put in a frame for constant reference!
Also love the pictures and 'comments' and agree about the craftsmen. Miss them so much. Miss the repair men, too.
Are they playing with the weather down there the way they are here? could be why all the rain??? Thank you!
I know this is off topic and I sincerely apologize, but do you have any insights into the recent revelations about mRNA vaccines in pork, cattle, etc? Several states (AZ, Ia and MO) have proposed labeling legislation. Should we be concerned about stealth vaccinations of humans through the food supply? Are we there yet?
I highly suspect this mRNA pork talk is grifters grifting, I do not trust most of these people pushing these talking points, they are often political grifters (some are merely monetary grifters).
The law being proposed is feared by the producers not only because of vaccination, but GMO feed also impacts the final product (they would need to label) and genetic engineering too, and I have a strong suspicion they have been messing with genetic engineering for far longer than we may think.
No, you shouldn't worry about stealth vaccinations, but you should worry about tainted meat, yes.