I have always enjoyed creating things with my hands. I believe it is a good way to counter our contemporary society when it encourages us to be mindless consumers, with our days spent sitting, riveted to a screen of some sort, rather than skilled artisans. Crafts connect us to our profound human nature and our innate desire to create something useful, beautiful or both from an abstract concept, giving it life with the help of raw materials, sheer strength and skill.
1. Respect
Seeing how hard it is to create out of nothing teaches you to appreciate the value of your possessions. One can only understand the talent artisans need when building furniture or weaving fabric, by trying to duplicate it. Before doing one myself, I had no idea that a table took so long to build, making sure all the angles are correct, the pieces fit neatly together and it does not wobble.
You will know humility when you try to sell you craft, noticing how people haggle while you remember how many hours you spent on your creation. You will respect, and not worship, your material possessions.
You will learn the importance of good tools. By choosing poor quality tools or material, you cannot expect good results, just like surrounding yourself with low quality people.
2. Ingenuity
“This item I want costs two hundred dollars, which I cannot afford now. No worries, I will do it myself.”
If you spend a hundred hours to create what you could have bought at the click of the button if you had the means, what is the lesson? If it was unpleasant, you will want to reach a financial stability where these two hundred dollars can be spent every day. You might want to create passive income, find a niche or discover a new way to gain financial success so you can afford those nice things that take long hours to build.
You will learn to improvise and circle around problems when you lack the tool, material or resources necessary to reach your goal.
3. Concentration
Extreme focus will be required on the task at hand. It is a welcome change in an era where multitasking, fooling around and short attention span are common place. Only dedication will help you improve.
Martial arts and handicrafts need a similar state of mind. If you are not able to blank the troubles and the various ideas in your mind, you will be thrown on the ground or punched, the same way you can overheat steel because you were busy chatting or cut too short the plank that you carefully measured seven times. Dedicate your total brain power to what you are doing.
Multitasking could come when the task is mastered or involves minimal risk. But I notice that the large majority of people that get hurt do so out of carelessness. While I advocate focus, the activity should still be enjoyable.
4. Motivation
It improves your patience and shows you how easily a mistake is made. The success of your projects will make you want to build more, you find purpose in your art. These skills will help you in the future.
For example, I am not as proficient as I would like to be in carpentry and this is something I would like to change. One of my projects is to build a traditional Norse long house. I have the plans and the land, now I just need to learn the technique. I long to build a place where I can gather my close circle, a sanctuary that I can entirely call mine as I will bring it into this world and will take care of it, just like a child.
5. Peace of mind
A majority of our hobbies need a screen nowadays (chatting with friends, watching films or Youtube, reading, blogging, video games, etc). We remain static and get rusty. Keeping our eyes on those devices disrupt our Circadian rhythm and prevents us from sleeping correctly.
Crafts keep you away from electronic screens, bring you good fatigue and quality sleep. They are a dynamic hobby and are simply good for the body and soul.
It can be compared to a meditation in motion. After hours spent in the workshop, I am tired and my mind is at peace. I am convinced that I have not wasted the hours I put into it.
L’oisiveté est mère de tous les vices
I try to follow what I preach. I needed a Viking practice steel sword for HEMA so I decided to built one. I enjoyed doing it although it took long hours. Click here to see the video.
What crafts teach you will always be beneficial, by its practical or therapeutic aspect. They can be enjoyed until an advanced age. You just need a sturdy work station, a few tools, steady hands and a fertile mind.
Read More: In Praise of Painting
In the land of my ancestors(Soviet Russia) its not you that build things with your own hands. It is things that build you and your hands!!
HAHAHAHAHAH!!!
Cheers,
Ilya
There’s also that moment when you have friends over and you casually mention that you built the deck everyone’s sitting on, the sheds, the kitchen garden… you get the idea.
manningthewall.com
Look at these Hands!
…because todays “men” make absolutely NOTHING when they spend their time with stroking their d**ks in their hands and tickling a keyboard.
manliness masculinity and mental acuity, hand eye coordination and testosterone and well exercised intellect is reinforced DAILY and Task by task through the mental acuity and manual dexterity that comes from putting those two great tools ( mind and body) together and actually making or doing something long lasting and worthwhile. Case in point, what do women make that is lasting and worthwhile, especially if they have NO parenting skills, no kids, and pointless time wasting jobs that earn cash to SHOP nonstop until they are never happy…Hmm?
you want society to unscrew itself and make things right? The place to start is for all MEN, to learn a valuable trade skill ( carpentry, plumbing, electrical, machining, engineering) and put it to use. What follows from that is self discipline, self awareness, self RESPECT, and self assurance and confidence… all mental states that combat FEMINISM at its core and leads to treating women the way they should be treated, and that is not by catering to their stupid lazy vapid narcissistic selves. We WERE KINGS once, so it can be again.
Lots of poor guys posting on this forum, I generally employ other people to make stuff for me. Last thing I made myself was my son, but I did need help from a woman for that.
Its 300 Baht per day where you live.
I don’t lose sleep, nor feel like less of a man when I pay Chinese peasants from the hinterlands to design something for me.
I’ve performed enough manual labour for other people for a lifetime.
I dunno… I was a trained Farrier and blacksmith years ago shoeing horses and making wrought-iron gates for rich pricks and ten-buck millionaires. After they decided untrained amateurs could do the job for three quarters of the price and one tenth of the care and pride I put in, I packed up. Still a viable business, but for the chronic backache and the effort, it wasn’t worth what I could make elsewhere.
OT now that the British government is classifying anything to the right of state sponsored a*** sex the same as moslem terrorism, I recommend all poms look into getting a VPN installed.
I recommend Astrill.
I much prefer cooking my own meals from scratch and my skill matches that of top chefs. Most restaurants even high end ones use cheap Mexican labor for cooks and charge sky high prices.
I neglected to mention that as a skill to be learned. if you can make outstanding food and have impeccable understanding OF SPICES and cooking techniques, you will ALWAYS live well yourself, and always impress and be respected for your culinary skills. kudos to you SDC, spot on.
A pal owns a business delivering ingredients to decent Chinese and Indian restaurants, I tell him the odd day when I’m free and I go with him filling up their freezer. Even the high end restaurants there’s two or three proper Indian chefs, and about fifteen young white guys just got their shitty qualification from community college.
Inspiring article and good arguments. Nice to see how you made your sword. I am a bit ambivalent since I am not skilled or interested in handcraft of any kind. I am strong and can lift heavy things (used to work as a mover for while when I studied Oriental languages). I also like to watch beuatiful objects, buildings etcetera that others have made, but I focus more on physical exercise, reading, writing and interpersonal communication, things that I am good at.
Nice article JB, Character building, food for the soul. The sense of accomplishment you get from making a fine object yourself is hard to equal, whether you make money out of it or not.
#9:30Fap ?
6. A lot of women get turned on when they see hands on men fixing or constructing things. It gives off a masculine vibe and perhaps triggers an old primal ‘strong provider’ tribal status mechanism that modernity has tried to replace with paper wealth and materialism.
Oh brother .. they turned on by drug dealers , party boys , and criminals . You’re delusional
HAMMERED SHIT
You’re right. The real mudsharks on the Welfare line won’t be Jews or ethnic whites that live in the city. They will be poor rednecks with pallid Anglo-Celtic features who are “daughters of the soil”.
The reason is because the black hip thug who makes his money with his street savvy and smooth hustles is much more appealing than a hick in a pair of wrangler jeans.
Around half. Used to shoe horses and the girls would look forward to gathering round to watch me work. Bouncing on those horses all day seeing horse **** flopping around with their friends will do that to a bitch, (helped that I’m muscular and straight unlike 99% of guys who work at stables.) And yes, you do use that to fuck them silly in an empty stable after the work is finished. They’re usually the hot, but vapid idiot who chose her career because ‘Horses!!!’ Unfortunately, the rich refined type with a bit of money whom you wouldn’t mind having a relationship with view you as a dim-witted workman.
Yet Another SHIT article proclaiming.. yeah, the world is fucked and screwed you over.. solution?.. WORK EVEN HARDER you dumb cuck-slave! Advice straight out of Orwell’s Animal Farm. Pathetic.
Enjoyed the vid. You are a multi-talented dude.