I want to share a profound article I read from last weekend’s New York Times Magazine, called “The Case for Working With Your Hands“, by Matthew Crawford, an academic who owns a shop repairing motorcycles in Richmond, VA.  Below is an example of his insight into the familiar angst and absurdity of modern “professional” life:

“Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts. What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive. “Dilbert,” “The Office” and similar portrayals of cubicle life attest to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white-collar jobs….The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with, such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody has to actually do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, build our houses.”

What do I most enjoy doing? I love creating and building things from scratch.  When I am at my day job downtown, I cannot wait to come home to do what I really love.  Even if I only get twenty minutes to work on my music, solder some connections in a new effects pedal, touch up some photos, think of a new web design, work on a script, or whatever it is, I get through the day because I have those things to look forward to.  Crawford’s article confirmed for me that it is good and right to find this kind of work more meaningful than what I do at the office. (more…)