What To Do?
Begin with the featured Wednesday Quotes.
Responding to Economic Pressures
Our economy especially rewards work that is removed from real needs and real life. You can make your profession more meaningful and find other enriching good work.
Reconnecting through Better Work
Often our work is shallow or even soul-numbing, and we feel disconnected from our bodies, the earth, and our community. Good work can reconnect you and build surprising new ties.
Rediscovering Your Inner Craftsman
We can’t find time or occasion to develop deeper, richer skills, and we feel incompetent in basic areas of life. The inner craftsman in you can come alive through a variety of soul-enhancing works.
Featured Posts:
The Economics of Splitting Wood by Hand
*This is a reposting of the first piece I ever posted online, almost exactly eight years ago, at Front Porch Republic. It has remained one of the most popular I’ve posted. Also, here is short video sharing my joy in splitting wood. Hilaire Belloc once wrote that he...
Working by Hand: Reconnecting with Our Humanity
“In all manual work we find the primal phenomenon of culture that is human but close to nature.” “The sphere in which we live is becoming more and more artificial, less and less human,” Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como We have lost something today, but we can...
In Praise of Hand Work
“The hand is a tool of tools.” Aristotle, On the Soul Recently I was watching a blacksmith work. I was mesmerized. There is something so satisfying and so fitting—indeed, so human—about the ability to do that kind of work. What most struck me is how glad he must be to...
Recent Posts:
Craftsmanship Vs. Money-Making
“...you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banqueter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd.” Plato, Republic Both...
The Economics of Splitting Wood by Hand
*This is a reposting of the first piece I ever posted online, almost exactly eight years ago, at Front Porch Republic. It has remained one of the most popular I’ve posted. Also, here is short video sharing my joy in splitting wood. Hilaire Belloc once wrote that he...
A Plan for Winter: Receive the Gift of Slowdown
“We’ve gotten stuck in the summer mode, in chronic summer... In fall and winter we should move into a new mode, a contractive and restorative mode... like coming home at the end of the day... with a sense of settling, of slowing down, of peace, of belonging, of...
When Medicine Becomes a Business
“And it belongs to...the medical art to produce health, not to make money. Nevertheless, some men turn every art into a means of money-making, as if this is the end.” Aristotle, Politics The state of medical practice in our country and in the world has been brought...
Useless Houses
“Well then, Critobulus,” said Socrates, “what if I demonstrate that, in the first place, some people spend a lot of money on building useless houses, whereas others spend far less and build perfectly adequate houses?” Xenophon, The Estate Manager I wonder what...
Planting as an Act of Hope
“But on a well-banked plot Odysseus found his father in solitude Spading the earth around a young fruit tree.” Homer, Odyssey It is one of the most powerful images of Greek literature. An old man is tilling the soil around a young tree. Most likely he will never see...
Working by Hand: Reconnecting with Our Humanity
“In all manual work we find the primal phenomenon of culture that is human but close to nature.” “The sphere in which we live is becoming more and more artificial, less and less human,” Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como We have lost something today, but we can...
Concentrate like a Roman
Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last...
In Praise of Hand Work
“The hand is a tool of tools.” Aristotle, On the Soul Recently I was watching a blacksmith work. I was mesmerized. There is something so satisfying and so fitting—indeed, so human—about the ability to do that kind of work. What most struck me is how glad he must be to...
What Fire Cannot Destroy
“Those bygone workmen did not serve, they worked. They had an absolute honor, which is honor proper. … A tradition coming, springing from deep within the [French] race, a history, an absolute, an honor, demanded that this chair rung be well made. Every part of the...
The Sight of Home After Work
“Unburdened of his toilsome mission, Amphitryon welcomed the sight of his own home With the loving eagerness A man welcomes escape from painful illness Or from chains of iron.” Hesiod, The Shield Many of us have to leave our homes to go to work. Even if we would have...
Those Bygone Workmen
“Those bygone workmen did not serve, they worked. They had an absolute honor, which is honor proper. A chair rung had to be well made. That was an understood thing. That was the first thing. It wasn’t that the chair rung had to be well made for the salary or on...