Hand Economics
I had written a 400 word rant about the economic state of hysteria and how we got there, but none of us really wants to read anymore about that, especially from someone like me.
I’d just like to point out that although not all hand crafts are really that economical in and of themselves (knitting…) they stem from something far richer and rewarding. There was a time when people had to do what we now do for leisure. I COULD create a garment from the fleece (I actually have the know how, which just kind of freaked me out), but I do not yet have to. Why do we craft? Honestly, there is immense satisfaction in creating something by hand. There is creativity and thought and skill and all sorts of stuff rolled up into the process of hand craft. There is tradition as well.
It’s funny, even when I look at my enormous stashes and even larger piles of unfinished objects, I don’t see waste. I don’t even see bad financial planning or waste of money. There is immense value recoverable by my hands right there. Sure, sometimes the easiest thing to do would be to sell it off, give it away, but it keeps the creative juice flowing and provides me with opportunity to think with my hands, challenge myself, create anew.
I’d also like to say something about how we take hand craft for granted. In the economic situation there are a few trains of thought. You could buy from Wal-Mart, but then you’d really just be making the overall situation worst. Sure, they provide jobs… But for the 100 people that operate your local Wal-Mart, 1000s of manufacturing jobs are lost in North America. We could talk about China owning the US, but that’s just another layer. What it comes down to is cheap doesn’t pay. We could use our hard earned dollars to support our own economies. You could go locavore. You could hand knit all of your garments. But that’s all a bit of an exaggeration.
Think about it. In the height of real North American economic stability, we made things. We don’t do that anymore. Not that there’s anything wrong with the intellectual work we do now, except, with all this thinking we’ve exported skills elsewhere that we now lack. With all the intellectual work, we are now paying people to think about how to make more and more money for the higher ups, while basically screwing and dehumanizing the lower ranks. Here’s a case: A friend’s friend works 35 years at a Canadian insurance company. He dedicates his entire career to them and manages to survive three major rounds of layoffs, taking pay cut after pay cut and rebuilding. He has been laid off this year… 2 years prior to his retirement. Somebodies ‘intellectual’ job is to sit there and think of ways to save the corporation money, and that was to give someone a severance now as opposed to his retirement package in two years. Essentially, what I’m saying is: when we think too much, we get out of touch (I should know).
Hand craft is a mark of being capable of doing something again. Even if it’s leisurely, there’s a bit of security knowing that you can feed yourself, clothe yourself and maybe even protect yourself. At an intermediate stage somewhere before the primitive outlook, creating our own luxuries and appreciating the handmade allows us to slow down our consumption at some level and support actually human beings. Every hour I knit is an hour I am content with myself. Everytime I buy handmade or appreciate someone else’s work is me supporting another human being and acknowledging them.
I say hand craft is integral to finding our way out of the dark of these economic storms. It just makes sense. It’s uplifting, human, productive and supportive. My twenty cents.
