When people try to describe how wonderful their last cruise to (wherever) was, I just keep my own counsel, as I cannot imagine anything more enervating and soul-mangling than being stuck in a space -no matter how luxurious- for a fixed amount of time with no hope of escape, and then being disgorged at an exact place for a fixed amount of time to rush around taking selfies "to prove you were there".....then get rounded up on board to repeat the exercise until the next virtual visit to an actual place...and so on. It's all just so utterly passive and almost like the ultimate make-believe travel-as-consumer-item. But to be fair, I am sure those same people are mystified that my holidays consist of making my own way over trackless bog and heather to make my way to a remote hill! However, I am sure that they may have had no life experience of that real satisfaction of working hard to achieve something, so maybe they don't know what they are missing. Nowt so queer as folk :)
Absolutely! As the saying goes, 'nothing worth having comes easy'. Enormous pleasure and satisfaction can be had from being creative whether that is carried out through writing a book or digging and shaping a garden. I find great inner peace from expending my energies on both.
The practical application of this approach has always been obvious to me, but your noting the moral dimension is something I’d not considered before, and it’s brilliant. Thank you for this.
Personally, I take great pleasure and accomplishment in repurposing old stuff. Doesn't have to something complex like a car, a stack of old planks and such is plenty enpough to get the creativity going.
Like the greenhouse.
Buying one, the size I wanted, would have been prohibitively expensive compared to the ROI of the vegetables grown.
Building a "proper" one from new materials would be cheaper but still too expensive, esp. the clear plastic for walls and roof as it must be able to stand -35C and snow in Winter.
But buying about $75 worth of materials, and using cheap plastic foil for walls and roof, and re-purosed planks, random mixed nails and screws, et cetera?
Very satisfying, especially when you do a rough tally of the price per kilo of the paprikas, tomatoes, peppers, cucmbers and so on and compare it to the same amount store-bought.
If you have access to a "metric f-ck ton" of cargo pallets and old tires, you can build a decent little house from that.
And if you fail? It's just time spent getting better, because failing is how we learn to succeed, and virtually no money lost anyway. Compare trying to make something and failing to trawling the net 1/3 of every 24 hour period.
Can confirm: that's how the mammalian brain works. Whatever it does, it learns to do better. If it "does nothing", it learns how to be good at doing nothing.
Compare:
Watching a TV-show vs reading a novel vs listening to someone lecturing while writing the lecture down simultaneously.
TV is passive, there's 1 process as the stream hits the brain.
Reading is active, it's a minimum of 2 processes in decoding the words and visualising them in the mind (plus generally a third process of remembering what you just read and a fourth of fitting it into older memories of the same and similar texts.
[It may seem as if TV, movies, gaming would need that too, but such isn't the case for some reason.]
And in the last example there are 5+ active processes running, meaning your brain really develops (fine motor skills makes the brain smarter - again, this doesn't happen if you're using a video-game control or some other technological interface, don't know why it's different).
Tech-heads, pedagogues and such may not like it, but the Bronze Age-methods of teaching remain the best, probably because they are in reality several thousands of years older than even Egyptian antiquity.
I wish we lived in a society where the masculine energy could flow in this fashion, but alas we do not. Simply to be a man and to create is the ultimate dissidence and is widely criminalized
I think that concedes too much to others. There are many ways to do this. It can create resentment of course. But part of the masculine drive must be to ignore the naysayers.
I don't disagree, but anything a man can do without being reviled is ultimately feminine, jewish, and fruitless in the west. Unless you work in the trades/crafts
There's a book called "everything I want to do is illegal", it's sadly quite true. The good and right ways to do things are mostly illegal in America, and that's been done on purpose over the course of a century. We have to confront the elephant in the room because you can't just keep your head down anymore unless you live in the middle of nowhere, and even not always then
I do agree. Smoking is an example. Who decided to ban a legal activity?
I remember seeing photos of Americans in the 50s with stripped down motorcycles, doing races on salt lakes. They did it because it was fun. That probably requires a permit these days.
Everything is over regulated. Fortunately I live in an area where smoking is pretty accepted, there's smoking bars and rednecks doing stupid stuff but Johnny law can still bust you down if he wants to. It's all in who you know, but the business environment is still not too good. Even in a relatively free area most regulations are federal and state so you always have them hanging over you. I wish the appetite for defiance was greater, just like with the COVID insanity all we gotta do is put out foot down and say, "no" and they can't enforce this crap on everyone
Yes. Men need to make things. When men can't make things they break things. (Including themselves.)
Agreed. Frustration, and resentment, account for a lot.
When people try to describe how wonderful their last cruise to (wherever) was, I just keep my own counsel, as I cannot imagine anything more enervating and soul-mangling than being stuck in a space -no matter how luxurious- for a fixed amount of time with no hope of escape, and then being disgorged at an exact place for a fixed amount of time to rush around taking selfies "to prove you were there".....then get rounded up on board to repeat the exercise until the next virtual visit to an actual place...and so on. It's all just so utterly passive and almost like the ultimate make-believe travel-as-consumer-item. But to be fair, I am sure those same people are mystified that my holidays consist of making my own way over trackless bog and heather to make my way to a remote hill! However, I am sure that they may have had no life experience of that real satisfaction of working hard to achieve something, so maybe they don't know what they are missing. Nowt so queer as folk :)
Indeed there is nowt as queer as folk.
I too share your horror of cruises. They seem like the voyage of the damned to me.
I do, however, now understand why some people get immense satisfaction from an allotment, which is much lower down the luxury scale.
Absolutely! As the saying goes, 'nothing worth having comes easy'. Enormous pleasure and satisfaction can be had from being creative whether that is carried out through writing a book or digging and shaping a garden. I find great inner peace from expending my energies on both.
Absolutely. I do fear many never learn this lesson. They associate effort with a hated day job.
I know many who think relaxation is doing nothing.
I love the title of this piece. Very easy to remember, like a great mantra. Thank you.
That's coz I'm gooder than most with wurdz and the like 👍 ABC!
I have read many true things, but it seems to me that this is the most true.
You are what you do. Everything else is just talk.
I think there is a lot of truth in that. You are what you consistently do. If you eat a lot of pizza and watch TV all the time, that is who you are.
It is a two-way street though. If you force yourself to go to the gym every day, you become a fit person.
Once you realize I AM, everything else is just pointless adjectives.
The practical application of this approach has always been obvious to me, but your noting the moral dimension is something I’d not considered before, and it’s brilliant. Thank you for this.
Thank you for reading.
Exactly! The Creator created us in his image... to be creators.
Bingo!
Fucking A!!!
Bang on, Spiff.
Thanks. Glad you liked.
Thank you for this inspiring post.
Not at all. Thank you for reading.
Personally, I take great pleasure and accomplishment in repurposing old stuff. Doesn't have to something complex like a car, a stack of old planks and such is plenty enpough to get the creativity going.
Like the greenhouse.
Buying one, the size I wanted, would have been prohibitively expensive compared to the ROI of the vegetables grown.
Building a "proper" one from new materials would be cheaper but still too expensive, esp. the clear plastic for walls and roof as it must be able to stand -35C and snow in Winter.
But buying about $75 worth of materials, and using cheap plastic foil for walls and roof, and re-purosed planks, random mixed nails and screws, et cetera?
Very satisfying, especially when you do a rough tally of the price per kilo of the paprikas, tomatoes, peppers, cucmbers and so on and compare it to the same amount store-bought.
If you have access to a "metric f-ck ton" of cargo pallets and old tires, you can build a decent little house from that.
And if you fail? It's just time spent getting better, because failing is how we learn to succeed, and virtually no money lost anyway. Compare trying to make something and failing to trawling the net 1/3 of every 24 hour period.
Which one is best for you?
I think anything counts, as long as it is active and not passive. Gardening, restoring old motorcycles, writing operas. Whatever appeals.
It is the association of passivity with relaxation that is troubling.
Can confirm: that's how the mammalian brain works. Whatever it does, it learns to do better. If it "does nothing", it learns how to be good at doing nothing.
Compare:
Watching a TV-show vs reading a novel vs listening to someone lecturing while writing the lecture down simultaneously.
TV is passive, there's 1 process as the stream hits the brain.
Reading is active, it's a minimum of 2 processes in decoding the words and visualising them in the mind (plus generally a third process of remembering what you just read and a fourth of fitting it into older memories of the same and similar texts.
[It may seem as if TV, movies, gaming would need that too, but such isn't the case for some reason.]
And in the last example there are 5+ active processes running, meaning your brain really develops (fine motor skills makes the brain smarter - again, this doesn't happen if you're using a video-game control or some other technological interface, don't know why it's different).
Tech-heads, pedagogues and such may not like it, but the Bronze Age-methods of teaching remain the best, probably because they are in reality several thousands of years older than even Egyptian antiquity.
I'll be linking back to this many times, I am sure. When I actually start writing a thing or two myself, that is. Great piece, Spiff!
Get stuck in. Just start. That's my advice.
And thanks for the compliment.
Thank you, good sir.
I wish we lived in a society where the masculine energy could flow in this fashion, but alas we do not. Simply to be a man and to create is the ultimate dissidence and is widely criminalized
I think that concedes too much to others. There are many ways to do this. It can create resentment of course. But part of the masculine drive must be to ignore the naysayers.
I don't disagree, but anything a man can do without being reviled is ultimately feminine, jewish, and fruitless in the west. Unless you work in the trades/crafts
Again, too bleak and absolute. There is lots we can do.
There's a book called "everything I want to do is illegal", it's sadly quite true. The good and right ways to do things are mostly illegal in America, and that's been done on purpose over the course of a century. We have to confront the elephant in the room because you can't just keep your head down anymore unless you live in the middle of nowhere, and even not always then
I do agree. Smoking is an example. Who decided to ban a legal activity?
I remember seeing photos of Americans in the 50s with stripped down motorcycles, doing races on salt lakes. They did it because it was fun. That probably requires a permit these days.
Everything is over regulated. Fortunately I live in an area where smoking is pretty accepted, there's smoking bars and rednecks doing stupid stuff but Johnny law can still bust you down if he wants to. It's all in who you know, but the business environment is still not too good. Even in a relatively free area most regulations are federal and state so you always have them hanging over you. I wish the appetite for defiance was greater, just like with the COVID insanity all we gotta do is put out foot down and say, "no" and they can't enforce this crap on everyone