Friday, June 06, 2008

We build factories with wonderful robotic devices to make things faster, cheaper and more reliably than can be made by human workers alone. Manufacturing had given work a bad name. It had become associated with stress, boredom, filth and fatigue. Now robots are being used as much as possible to alleviate men from the burden of hands-on creativity.

The Shakers were an American religious sect who practiced voluntary simplicity and regarded hand work as a form of worship, following the creed, "Hands to labor, hearts to God."

What if labor, hand labor, as proposed by the Shakers was a thing to escape to, instead of escape from? What if in hand labor, you found liberation rather than stress, boredom and fatigue and discovered your heart directed toward more meaningful things? That question can only be answered as a personal quest. Try it. Report back.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:02 PM

    Good question. That's partly why I use the tagline "Therpeutic woodworking™" on my website.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Woodworking is indeed "therapeutic".

    Among about 100 other things it does for us.

    ReplyDelete