Nothing wrong with fun hard honest work.
To me there is a sense of accomplishment in some simple tasks, but at same time working smarter and not harder or having right tools, training, experience and ability to help others in process makes me feel even more empowered.
Jack, I totally agree. Having the right tools, training and experience enhances the process of accomplishment. I also prefer to stop, think, determine a best course, use the better tools, and hopefully have a great completion!
In my example of the trail being cut, we needed to punch through the woods. There are better tools available but at a pretty high price. In all, we applied perhaps 100+ person hours to clear the rough trail. No one was hurt. Trees were moved to the side using machines. Lots of chain saw chains were used. (We used all electric chain saws save one tree which had fallen. On that one, I needed a bigger saw.) A task done using the tools we had and the experience of many to accomplish the goal.
Sometimes simple basic work is more meaningful than the super tech draft on computers or drafting table, but taking that work and implementing it from start to finish is the person I want to be or friends with.
Again I agree. There is also something to be said for the comradery enjoyed in a common sweat filled work task. The banter, the decision making of what to do next, the arrival of consensus and then the action of getting the need met, these too lead to meaningful experiences - read that fun! We had a lot of that.
At one point, Sage and Shaun joined me to work the trail. There was a dead, 10-12" diameter tree that needed to be taken out. I told the guys, "I don't like this one. I don't trust the lean and am not sure how best to take it down. What do you guys think?" They told me what they thought we should do. The old man looked and said, "Guys, that won't work." "Sure, it has to!" "Umm... no not really." Ten minutes of back and forth, I had no better idea so I said, "Ok. I'll do it your way but you guys get the hell out of the way - way back there. I'm old and if I die doing this, I have had a great life!" They laughed.. I was pretty serious.
I was not sure what was going to happen but I was pretty sure what we wanted to happen was not going to happen! We cleared all the brush from around the tree. I determined my run away route. I began the cut... Shaking my head all the way... the tree went where I said it was going to go. It was hung and I didn't see a way to bring her down.
I won't tell how I brought it down. I don't think they will tell either. That tree ended our work that day. I had to go change my undershorts!
But my point I think is your point: doing these things together builds the friendships and the sense of accomplish as a team. I long for these and I like when that team sense comes shining through. Life without relationships, without friends, is not much. I think it has taken 63.97 years (I will be 64 soon) to learn that life is best enjoyed in good relationships.
I think we rely on technology in some cases too much and forgetting basics & in all industry, not just auto, well it has breed a bunch of morons.
Somehow I feel in the back of my mind & with the monolith structures that exist we still can't replicate or move with existing equipment we have now, will again be there after us when something catastrophic happens we yet still to completely understand.
History will repeat itself!
Everyone should be taught or know how to find or make clean water, raise crops or other food, dirt mechanics and live under ground in a proper sheltered structure.
People to busy buried in phone on social media or watching dumb videos that go viral and sometimes hurt people, even I'm guilty!
This is why I have moved more to questions than answers to seek answers.
I share this view also. We have convinced ourselves that technology solves all problems. We worship the gods of technology. When power fails, what do we do?
Again, a Ross Mountain experience. In the ice storm last November (2018), when we lost power for 5 days, I observed our group struggling to know what to do and how to do it without power. We had propane so we had heat. We did not have electric to pump water. We did have some bottled water... there is a spring nearby and if we had gotten desperate, we could have gone and filled water bottles.
In the end, a generator was purchased to bring the house back up, making it so we could live in our creature comforts. But what if - what if we could not get power for the 400 foot deep well pump? How long would we have been able to survive?
I contend the training my father gave me would have allowed me to survive a long while. He taught me how to live off the land. While I am out of practice and I would have made many mistakes, I think I would made it. After all, I had very nice shelter. For some time, I would have had heat and could cook. It was cold out so food could be preserved in the outdoors. Town is less than 5 miles away. Supplies could be gotten.
In truth, technology does makes us comfortable. Knowing how to do things without it is a backup all should learn. As you said, history will repeat. The question is, "How soon?"
As to questioning rather than telling, I learned to do that with the staffs I have managed and with the children I have raised. "Dad, what should I do about ....." If one tells their child what to do and then it goes wrong, you never hear the end of it. You also run the risk in telling, of communicating they are not smart enough to determine a solution. You can't do that either. No, when the question is posed to me, I ask, "Have you considered ....." "Perhaps you might try ....." or the best, "You know, I have never faced that problem. Perhaps we can work on it together?"
I avoid giving answers. I prefer the person asking to discover their solution and in the process I might learn something new. You see Jack, even at near 64, I still hear the voice of one of my High School history teachers who said, "Any day you live in which you do not learn one new thing is a day you have wasted." I can honestly say, I have not wasted many days. I choose to learn. I choose to make mistakes. I am not now and I will never be one who is perfect, fully complete, all knowing. Only through experience can I grow in knowledge. Until my last breath, I will cling to that... learn, learn, learn! (Which really translates to listen, do, try again.)
I'm off my soap box!
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