[TheForge] Fw: Can't compete w/ this

[Ben Barrett]

I agree, David, I'm a young'un and I've caught on to the obvious need
for a revival of the depression-era lifestyles and home habits --
namely scrimping and saving and operating in ways that seem today like
OCD, but involve mindfulness of every material bit going in and out of
our homesteads.  In many ways, this strikes me as the engineering
approach of KISS, however many interpret the keep-it-simple philosophy
as an excuse to give up on things they seem too busy to handle.  I
think the opposite is true, and that the more time we spend working on
our homesteads, shops, domiciles, and basic survival needs, the more
bearable the coming years will be, and the less sudden the coming
shift will seem.  Granted, I am not a minimalist by any means, and
instead burden myself with trying to integrate seemingly opposite
worlds :)  I now have a mortgage, tennants, and self-employment, and
the omens seem good.  I'm prolly coming from a different angle than
many folks here, since metal is still a novelty of sorts and making
any decent money on it sure is ;)  But I'm learning like a banshee and
creating enough "free" time to screw around with putting knowledge
into practice, while still supporting myself and growing my shop.  I
am very lucky -- and by that token, it seems absurd to ignore the
disparity outside my happy little bubble here.  The best efforts to
date seem to involve intentional communities & gatherings of the
nomadic festival sort:  practicing snippets of some envisioned life...
however many appear lost to it all the same.  Ho hum, anywhoo the
grassroots level organization of amateur radio, blacksmiths, etc
americana & free-minded sharing citizens beyond such as having local
chapters of blacksmiths works great for me.  My little neighborhood is
about to "catch up with the times" of gentrification and the like,
which can be a painful blessing... I'm scheming with others on how to
grow [a] community center[s] for gathering, fostering creativity,
sharing tools, etc.  We've got loads of goodwill but also apply
critical thinking and plan for a few failures.  How could we go wrong?
 :))

Aside from the point, I'm guessing you've got teenage kids?

best regards,

Ben


On Dec 10, 2007 12:45 PM, David Childress <trollkeep at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nobody can compete with that.  The real mystery is that I make more
> than $50K/yr. and can still barely pay my bills.  I do not have many
> bad habits, except blacksmithing, and I still barely can pay my bills
> and It takes me more tham half a year to come up with enough to buy an
> anvil.
>    I work in a factory an daily see the wonders of modern production,
> no hand work can compete even at $0.05/ day wages.  The efficiency of
> scale.  A couple of years ago Wally World had shepards hooks cheap
> enough local smiths were buying them because they could not get the
> material for that price.  But it still cost $50K/yr to live, maybe we
> need to look real hard at how our grandparents and great grandparents
> lived.
>
> David Childress
> Rocky Forge Blacksmith Guild
>
...