Redefining "Handy" and Learning How to Make Things

As we’ve shifted so entirely from a making economy to a buying economy, we’ve lost a lot of inherited skills that we might have learned from doing or from observing rather than from formal instruction.

We very often do not have the time to create what we need by ourselves. It’s reasonable to ask who on Earth is expected to return our emails or make our dinners while we wile away our time crafting. We’ve increased the distance between ourselves and the things we need or want—and also made for ourselves a steeper learning curve for meeting our own ... See more

We don’t need to define ourselves by the things we make, but we can still make them. This goes back to the idea of handiness, right? This isn’t a book about becoming an expert in any one thing. It’s about trying lots of things and becoming increasingly capable as a result. It’s about getting comfortable experimenting with something you’ve never don... See more

It’s true that a farm family of the 1930s had to depend on their material intelligence for survival, while today’s city dwellers and office workers can get away with ignoring their physical environment and making a fine living. Maybe this feels like a sort of progress. But basic necessity is only one side of our relationship to materials. There are... See more

We can give ourselves permission to make things without those things being perfect. And the fact is, once you get started, you don’t stop. The more you make things, the more you can make things and the more you want to make things.

the more we have the confidence and ability to make things from what we already have, the less we feed the capitalist system that doesn’t care about us or the people making our stuff or the planet that our rampant consumerism is actively making uninhabitable.