Couldn't agree more. Aged 74 I'm a polymath. I've built 2 houses, installed 3 off-grid systems on our property, do all the maintenance on our cars and farm and I write too. Oh and I speak fluent French...
As a result we live like kings on the old age pension, I never pay anyone to do anything..... In a post collapse situation we'll survive because I can butcher livestock, fix plumbing and yeah, turn a circuit breaker back on...
The last Citroën I worked on was over 13 years ago. My Xantia was the best car I'd ever owned until it suddenly became eye wateringly unreliable and expensive to fix…
Totally agree. You know how to do way more than I do, but I do have some skills,, and , also the attitude that I can learn what I need to. I think that’s one of the mindsets missing in so many people. The willingness to try. So much easier to get someone else to do….. it.
I needed to do some serious log repair on my log house. The supposed professionals were going to cost way too much. So I talked to the owners of companies that sold wood repair products, got advice, and taught myself. Saved a lot, learned some seriously useful skills, and built my self respect at the same time.
This is who you are, and it’s better than gold, and it’s so refreshing to read what you have to say. Thank you.
Necessity makes us Jacks & Jills of all trades. We may be masters of none, but the masters will be left in our dust. I just want to pass down my knowledge and skills to someone before I die. I do so worry about the utter lack of any actionable knowledge amongst so many of the younger people I meet. Good people, solid people, but clueless people.
But very few know that that idiom ends with "oftentimes better than a master of one". A jack of all trades has been used as a pejorative, but that isn't the true ending....
That’s impressive! I’d love to learn carpentry. I think there’s basic, non-qualification courses out there too. I’m also trying to live with less convenience eg don’t switch on cooling straight up, adjust the body to discomfort etc. basically toughen up LOL.
This is probably THE BEST advice an academic could give to others who have lived in their heads or from their heads for a very long time.
Thank you, Jessica.
Delighted to have this last jolt of connecting with the experiential world through my hands and social skills like learning a new language that helps me connect meaningfully with more people on my travels.
This is very good advice, Jessica. I've always made it a point to learn to do many different things. It has been such a big part of my life that I probably seemed like an oddball to friends and family. It has worked out well, though, as they will admit now.
I know how to do a lot of things from scratch, without electricity, clothes and food and camping and more, from years spent in enthusiastic medieval reenactment... before I got hit with ME/CFS. Now I still have the knowledge but lack the physical capacity to sit up long enough to do any of the things that demand a baseline level of non-disability. It's bitterly unfair that I did everything I could to survive the unchecked global plague and am now too sick to face the sun or even be a passenger in a car, and all the things I'm still able to do, like writing, are about to be made worthless for survival thanks to the slop engine. I have no idea how to make what I know into something people will still be willing to support my disabled life with five years from now. And I spent too long in my university's non-Social Security system to have any fallback available.
Yes, it's deeply unfair. Every day, I have to deal with the rage I feel at the world for abandoning the pandemic and everyone impacted by it. Are you able to write? Can you turn your knowledge into articles?
The problem isn't the writing, the problem is the monetization in an Internet full of AI slop. I'm not safe advertising on anything Meta touches because of the probably illegal but eagerly consumed cross site tracking paired with the removal of protections for anyone queer, disabled, or othered. I've written three books and am finishing a fourth but I can't get attention or traction when the AI generated search results dropped clickthrough from 1:10 to 1:600 (not to mention scraping the contents and regurgitating them wrong). I have no idea how to keep my head above water. My therapist says despair and anxiety are not irrational responses to the fascist takeover of the country and the abandonment of public health standards...
I spent much of my life doing grunt work. I have dug ditches, wells, and septic systems. I have done plumbing (I can recite all the swear words to prove it), basic electrical work, laid a lot of concrete, wood frame construction, roofing, rebuilt old tractor engines, and foundry work. I also leaned drafting (pre-CAD ), and worked on maps with the Corps of Engineers. Much of that was due to the era I grew up in, and having very little money.
I'm about as analog as one can be. I sew some (my mother and grandmother taught me) mostly to repair clothes and other fabrics. I use a typewriter, send handwritten letters, garden, and learned how to make stone age tools. But trust me, dont fall into the fallacy that only vocational skills etc will be of value. As an analytical chemist, I confidently say we will need historians librarians, poets, musicians, writers, as well as physicians and unfortunately lawyers (honestly I think old Mr. Shakespeare had the right idea, however impractical). If all goes to hell, with or without a handbasket, many vocational jobs will also be superfluous, at least at first.
"My grandpa was a car mechanic. He even knew how to fix a tank."
As a military historian, that's cool.
Not that I can fix a tank, it just being an academic interest.
I'm very tech averse, so rather than learn to be an electrician I'd rather learn ways to do without. Which will come to us all in the end anyway. Even when the scavengers of modernity 30 years after collapse use remnant solar panels and windmills for some electricity, eventually those machines will break or be swept away in mega-storms, and the knowledge won't be passed on because the ability to manufacture spares will be gone.
Makes you think, what can I do?
Dig holes, I'm good at that. Gardening, I can do a bit of that. Growing veg that the slugs eat; making jam; planting trees; I can lay a hedge and build a dead hedge. I know a little about foraging. I know some birds by their song, and the raptor alarm call of crows. I can put shelves up on a dry-lined hollow wall.
Hohum, I might not be that useful after the end of modernity, but I might live longer than the Muskovites and Faragians. All the money in the world isn't going to get you a plumber or an electrician after the collapse of global industrial civilisation. But a box of jars of jam might :)
Years ago, I looked at the Giant White Carpet, and said "it's got to go". Quotes came in. $12,000 in labor cost for a straight forward "no surprises" hardwood parquetry floor. Wasn't happening, and YouTube is my friend. So, I borrowed my brother's circular saw, got 10,000 parquet blocks delivered and off I went. That "no surprises" thing? A LOT of surprises. I learned very fast how to handcut parquet. About 9,500 of them. The other 500 went in fine...IRL I'm a spreadsheet girl. But needs must. And my gorgeous floor made me happy, every single day.
In my first pre-college job in a gas station in early 1970s, the mechanic was a cum laude grad of a better high school than mine. Because he loved fixing cars, especially since most still didn’t require computer-assisted diagnostics. He liked using his eyes, ears, nose, sense of touch and intuition to make the lessons of hard science come to life for him.
Glad you pointed out the joy, satisfaction, and money- and job-saving value of the everyday “blue collar’ skills that actually keep our everyday lives functioning, and how “lost” or never-taught skills can be picked up.
I wish I was more handy like the things you mentioned. I was a coder in my career. I can create websites. But I left the career as the tech bros were changing how things were done. Overcomplicating everything.
I took a permaculture design course. Then I studied herbalism and recently was able to save myself a trip to the skin doctor treating a skin issue with plants. It felt so empowering. I can grow food (been gardening my whole life), I’m growing medicinal plants, and I can sew and knit. I’m hoping if it all collapses that I have something to offer in a bartering economy. Kudos to you for all you learned in such a short time. (Anything electric scares me.)
This definitely makes me want to learn how to do more than garden! Maybe do light carpentry or learn electrical wiring like you did! Do you have a course you would recommend?
Couldn't agree more. Aged 74 I'm a polymath. I've built 2 houses, installed 3 off-grid systems on our property, do all the maintenance on our cars and farm and I write too. Oh and I speak fluent French...
As a result we live like kings on the old age pension, I never pay anyone to do anything..... In a post collapse situation we'll survive because I can butcher livestock, fix plumbing and yeah, turn a circuit breaker back on...
You built two houses? Holy shit, that's amazing.
I sold the first one 11 years ago
https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/mon-abri-for-sale/
Merde, Mon ami...but are you happy to work on French cars? .... ;-)
The last Citroën I worked on was over 13 years ago. My Xantia was the best car I'd ever owned until it suddenly became eye wateringly unreliable and expensive to fix…
And you've mentioned the absolute pearler of French cars. Like your thinking and it establishes your authenticity.
LOL! fancy seeing you here. Waves
Totally agree. You know how to do way more than I do, but I do have some skills,, and , also the attitude that I can learn what I need to. I think that’s one of the mindsets missing in so many people. The willingness to try. So much easier to get someone else to do….. it.
I needed to do some serious log repair on my log house. The supposed professionals were going to cost way too much. So I talked to the owners of companies that sold wood repair products, got advice, and taught myself. Saved a lot, learned some seriously useful skills, and built my self respect at the same time.
This is who you are, and it’s better than gold, and it’s so refreshing to read what you have to say. Thank you.
Great comment! Also, I'm impressed with your cabin repairing skills.
Necessity makes us Jacks & Jills of all trades. We may be masters of none, but the masters will be left in our dust. I just want to pass down my knowledge and skills to someone before I die. I do so worry about the utter lack of any actionable knowledge amongst so many of the younger people I meet. Good people, solid people, but clueless people.
But very few know that that idiom ends with "oftentimes better than a master of one". A jack of all trades has been used as a pejorative, but that isn't the true ending....
I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.
That’s impressive! I’d love to learn carpentry. I think there’s basic, non-qualification courses out there too. I’m also trying to live with less convenience eg don’t switch on cooling straight up, adjust the body to discomfort etc. basically toughen up LOL.
Toughening up is a good practice, to the extent you can.
This is probably THE BEST advice an academic could give to others who have lived in their heads or from their heads for a very long time.
Thank you, Jessica.
Delighted to have this last jolt of connecting with the experiential world through my hands and social skills like learning a new language that helps me connect meaningfully with more people on my travels.
This is the one we're currently living in
https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2018/10/09/on-future-proof-building/
Well done. :)
This is very good advice, Jessica. I've always made it a point to learn to do many different things. It has been such a big part of my life that I probably seemed like an oddball to friends and family. It has worked out well, though, as they will admit now.
I'd also say it turned out well. Very well.
... And congratulations on your electrician's certificate!
Rock and roll! Congrats!
Thanks!
I know how to do a lot of things from scratch, without electricity, clothes and food and camping and more, from years spent in enthusiastic medieval reenactment... before I got hit with ME/CFS. Now I still have the knowledge but lack the physical capacity to sit up long enough to do any of the things that demand a baseline level of non-disability. It's bitterly unfair that I did everything I could to survive the unchecked global plague and am now too sick to face the sun or even be a passenger in a car, and all the things I'm still able to do, like writing, are about to be made worthless for survival thanks to the slop engine. I have no idea how to make what I know into something people will still be willing to support my disabled life with five years from now. And I spent too long in my university's non-Social Security system to have any fallback available.
Yes, it's deeply unfair. Every day, I have to deal with the rage I feel at the world for abandoning the pandemic and everyone impacted by it. Are you able to write? Can you turn your knowledge into articles?
The problem isn't the writing, the problem is the monetization in an Internet full of AI slop. I'm not safe advertising on anything Meta touches because of the probably illegal but eagerly consumed cross site tracking paired with the removal of protections for anyone queer, disabled, or othered. I've written three books and am finishing a fourth but I can't get attention or traction when the AI generated search results dropped clickthrough from 1:10 to 1:600 (not to mention scraping the contents and regurgitating them wrong). I have no idea how to keep my head above water. My therapist says despair and anxiety are not irrational responses to the fascist takeover of the country and the abandonment of public health standards...
The infrastructure being built right now isn’t being built by professional organizers or young activists or tech entrepreneurs. It’s being built by women over 60 working from their kitchen tables: https://thepeoplescommunity.substack.com/p/your-kitchen-table-is-a-command-center
I spent much of my life doing grunt work. I have dug ditches, wells, and septic systems. I have done plumbing (I can recite all the swear words to prove it), basic electrical work, laid a lot of concrete, wood frame construction, roofing, rebuilt old tractor engines, and foundry work. I also leaned drafting (pre-CAD ), and worked on maps with the Corps of Engineers. Much of that was due to the era I grew up in, and having very little money.
I'm about as analog as one can be. I sew some (my mother and grandmother taught me) mostly to repair clothes and other fabrics. I use a typewriter, send handwritten letters, garden, and learned how to make stone age tools. But trust me, dont fall into the fallacy that only vocational skills etc will be of value. As an analytical chemist, I confidently say we will need historians librarians, poets, musicians, writers, as well as physicians and unfortunately lawyers (honestly I think old Mr. Shakespeare had the right idea, however impractical). If all goes to hell, with or without a handbasket, many vocational jobs will also be superfluous, at least at first.
"My grandpa was a car mechanic. He even knew how to fix a tank."
As a military historian, that's cool.
Not that I can fix a tank, it just being an academic interest.
I'm very tech averse, so rather than learn to be an electrician I'd rather learn ways to do without. Which will come to us all in the end anyway. Even when the scavengers of modernity 30 years after collapse use remnant solar panels and windmills for some electricity, eventually those machines will break or be swept away in mega-storms, and the knowledge won't be passed on because the ability to manufacture spares will be gone.
Makes you think, what can I do?
Dig holes, I'm good at that. Gardening, I can do a bit of that. Growing veg that the slugs eat; making jam; planting trees; I can lay a hedge and build a dead hedge. I know a little about foraging. I know some birds by their song, and the raptor alarm call of crows. I can put shelves up on a dry-lined hollow wall.
Hohum, I might not be that useful after the end of modernity, but I might live longer than the Muskovites and Faragians. All the money in the world isn't going to get you a plumber or an electrician after the collapse of global industrial civilisation. But a box of jars of jam might :)
Years ago, I looked at the Giant White Carpet, and said "it's got to go". Quotes came in. $12,000 in labor cost for a straight forward "no surprises" hardwood parquetry floor. Wasn't happening, and YouTube is my friend. So, I borrowed my brother's circular saw, got 10,000 parquet blocks delivered and off I went. That "no surprises" thing? A LOT of surprises. I learned very fast how to handcut parquet. About 9,500 of them. The other 500 went in fine...IRL I'm a spreadsheet girl. But needs must. And my gorgeous floor made me happy, every single day.
In my first pre-college job in a gas station in early 1970s, the mechanic was a cum laude grad of a better high school than mine. Because he loved fixing cars, especially since most still didn’t require computer-assisted diagnostics. He liked using his eyes, ears, nose, sense of touch and intuition to make the lessons of hard science come to life for him.
Glad you pointed out the joy, satisfaction, and money- and job-saving value of the everyday “blue collar’ skills that actually keep our everyday lives functioning, and how “lost” or never-taught skills can be picked up.
I wish I was more handy like the things you mentioned. I was a coder in my career. I can create websites. But I left the career as the tech bros were changing how things were done. Overcomplicating everything.
I took a permaculture design course. Then I studied herbalism and recently was able to save myself a trip to the skin doctor treating a skin issue with plants. It felt so empowering. I can grow food (been gardening my whole life), I’m growing medicinal plants, and I can sew and knit. I’m hoping if it all collapses that I have something to offer in a bartering economy. Kudos to you for all you learned in such a short time. (Anything electric scares me.)
This definitely makes me want to learn how to do more than garden! Maybe do light carpentry or learn electrical wiring like you did! Do you have a course you would recommend?