Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Forgotten Crafts; Forgotten Joy

John Seymour — from across the pond — wrote a book in the mid-80s titled Forgotten Crafts, A Guide to Forgotten Skills.

He introduces the book thusly (wow, that sounds pretentious, doesn’t it?):  “Practically every artifact that a person uses nowadays can be made from oil-derived plastic, in a large factory by machine-minders [or even robots] whose chief quality is their ability to survive lives of intense boredom.”

True, these “artifacts” do their jobs well.  But, they are ugly and short-lived.  Where is the joy in that?

What can I do?

Slowly and steadily I can rid my house of mass-produced, built oversees by slave labor factories CRAP!  Either live without it or, even better, replace it with quality, hand-crafted items by my neighbors.  Yes, “Buy Local!”  

When you buy from your neighbor craftsman, you’re adding joy to the world. “What makes a person happy,” writes Seymour, “is doing work that he or she loves doing and is superbly good at, being fairly paid for it, and having it properly appreciated.”  

And we enjoy using it.

Carpe diem Life,
David Kuhn

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