I’ve come to the (very obvious but sobering) realization that we are coddled. As hard as our lives may be, we have such luxuries that our fore-bearers couldn’t fathom. Dishwashers, machine made cloth and clothing, washing machines and dryers, running hot and cold water. Truly we are living in an innovative and easy time. No longer are our days filled from sunup to sundown with backbreaking labor just to survive. Instead we fill our day with distractions, frozen meals, and cheaply made clothing made from plastics.
We have more downtime than any other time in history, and we fritter it away in our phones. This week I have challenged myself to go without in small ways. My days were spent chopping and stacking firewood, rearranging our existing wood pile, washing my dishes by hand, cooking all of my food completely from scratch, and spending as little time on my phone as possible. Every day I fall into bed, bone weary but satisfied. To know that i have done this work with my own two hands is very satisfying.
I think much of our modern misery comes from having no time to do things with our hands. We feel we have no time to create, and even when we do many of us have no idea where to start. Gardening, baking, sewing, cooking from scratch, all of this can feel incredibly daunting when you have no experience to pull from, many of our parents did not do these things or pass on those skills.
How do we relearn, where do we start?
Simple. If you don’t cook from scratch, make one meal at home. Start composting and learning the science behind it. Learn how to mend your own clothing, or how to create small projects. Small steps towards self reliance, but can have a big impact. If you have space, start a garden. Use your local library to checkout books on herbal medicine, fiber craft, building, or other topics that are fading out of our memory.
