The beauty of manual labour

When I was a kid, I spent much of my time producing something: I’d do woodwork with my grandfather, try sewing with my grandmother or build a dam on a small stream in a forest close to our house.

Everything was very tangible, solid and lasting. Fast forward some years, I dropped out of secondary school, taught myself programming and started working in IT.

Technology is great, it helps us a lot, but it’s a double-edged sword. On one hand there’s all the knowledge I could ever want on Wikipedia, I can get anywhere thanks to Google Maps and I can keep in touch with my friends I met when I was travelling on Facebook.

But on the other hand, it’s the ever-shortening attention spans and a depressing lack of mental presence of people. Like walking zombies. “What? Yeah, sure … sorry, I’m on my phone right now.”

I was glued to my screen for about 8 years. A few months ago I run into a problem — where to buy decent bow ties in London. Not an easy task. At the end I ended up making some myself.

And I remembered how great it feels to actually be disconnected. Just to concentrate on one simple task. No multitasking. Just me and my sewing machine. Being quiet and having time to think. And to make something tangible, lasting. Something that everyone says “oh my God, where did you get it from?”.