Phil McCarron on our buying culture.
As consumer culture has bed its roots into society, the standard of self-reliance has plummeted. We are steadily forgetting where the things we use in our lives come from, and more importantly, how to make them.
By hand, from scratch, with love
I remember spending time at my grandparent’s house when I was younger and it was filled with wonderful things that they’d built by hand, from scratch, with love. Things like pieces of furniture carved by my grandfather’s hands, and curtains stitched and embroidered by my grandmothers nimble fingers. But my grandfather wasn’t a master carpenter and my grandmother wasn’t a seamstress, yet they still had the basic knowledge and drive to create the things that make a house a home.
Buy instead of make?
The realization that we now buy instead of making hit me as I was contemplating building my own electric guitar from scratch, and I discovered that I have no idea how to use any woodworking tools, nor wire electrics. Had this been 40 years ago, my grandfather would have had no problems cutting the wood to spec, molding it together, painting and lacquering it, and even installing the electrics. We live in a different time now, a time where we buy instead of make, and I think that is costing our culture dearly as the majority of us helplessly dependent on the few that learn these basics homegrown skills.
Most people of my generation are the same, they know where to buy furniture but have no idea where to begin to make a simple chair. It would seem that our knowledge for making the most basic things in life is becoming extinct, and we only focus on learning things that advance our careers and skip the basics of self-reliance.
My friends used to make fun of me for darning holes in socks when I was poor, but when one needed his trousers hemmed up, he was amazed at my needle and thread work. Thanks grandma.
