

The Case for Working With Your Hands - signa11
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?_r=1

======
fnid2
I work with my hands and I love it. Not only do I code, but during the day, I
am renovating my house, shoveling horse manure into my garden, and caring for
a flock of 9 chickens.

No one around me understands what I'm doing on the internet or what all these
keystrokes mean. When they see a chicken coop I built, my beautiful tomatoes
or home that looks 100x better than before I started on it, I get to see a
look of appreciation for that work on their face.

Programming is abstract and the appreciation of it is only a surface level
appreciation because they only see what's on the web page, not all the nuts,
bolts, and pipes that make it work.

It sounds vain to want that appreciation, but I do. I spend thousands and
thousands of hours building an elaborate web system, lots of them actually,
and I barely get a smile. People don't even know what it is. How can they
appreciate it?

When I work with my hands, I spend a couple hours painting a room and people
are like, "Wow! That looks SOOOO much better!" Or "Did you build those chicken
pens yourself? You should do that for a living, people will pay good money for
pens like that!"

~~~
mrvir
That's a neat story :) Did one interior renovation myself with tight
budget/schedule before we could move in. My wife still wonders how we survived
that. I nowadays take very seriously the advice my in-laws gave me:
"Concentrate on doing what you do best. Hire the pros for other serious work."

PS Just wait, your computer skills will get you appreciation from the younger
generations.

~~~
shpxnvz
_I nowadays take very seriously the advice my in-laws gave me: "Concentrate on
doing what you do best. Hire the pros for other serious work."_

Ah, but you miss out on so much in life by focusing on only one thing. I've
found much satisfaction by taking quite the opposite approach; to learn by
doing as many different things as possible.

Of course, it's also important to know your limits lest you wind up in over
your head.

[http://elise.com/quotes/a/heinlein_-
_specialization_is_for_i...](http://elise.com/quotes/a/heinlein_-
_specialization_is_for_insects.php)

~~~
fnid2
Nice quote. I loved "Stranger in a Strange Land." Recommended reading for
all...

------
sethrq
Possibly more rewarding than just 'working with your hands' is accomplishing
something by yourself. Whether you are programming your own small project or
fixing a bike/car it's the learning new skills and having something to show
for it part that is most rewarding

------
stcredzero
_One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial
learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and
undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to
learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the
passions for learning will not be engaged.”_

This idea is why Montessori education is designed the way it is. It is also
behind the design of Smalltalk and original vision of the Dynabook. It's a
pity that Multitouch is being put to the service of consumption and not to
making the direct manipulation of objects and programming more accessible. (In
the Morphic framework, you can even open mini browsers on objects by clicking
on them and write scripts against them or change their methods. Imagine the
hands on exploration that would facilitate.)

I am also reminded of a visit by an admissions officer from Stanford to my
high school. He read us one essay that centered around the writer's motorcycle
repair hobby. It strikes me that a lot of the essay justified the repair
activity as an entry into engineering and science. This article talks about
such repair as a worthy thing in itself.

------
mattyb
Dupe:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=622303>

------
macrael
You could argue that the author is a knowledge worker as well. He talks about
how his job requires him to know and learn about a huge number of things, then
he applies that knowledge to solve a problem. Yes, his job is miles away from
writing position papers for a think tank or falsely summarizing complicated
research in a company, but it is pretty far away from laying brick or hauling
gravel as well.

In the end, I think we agree. Shitty jobs where you are not accomplishing Good
Things suck and should be avoided. You can find rewarding jobs in lots of
places, not just the ones our culture usually promotes. People should consider
some kind of trade more seriously. I don't think he is trying to claim that
manual labor is sweepingly special and more rewarding than other professions,
and I think he is right not to do so. Writing code is undeniably knowledge
work and I know that I derive great satisfaction from being able to hit the
right combination of keys to make what I imagine appear on the screen. Many
people I know are knowledge workers in some way and they have found real
fulfillment in those professions. Research, Psychiatry, Writing, etc.

It is very fulfilling to make things with your hands because the results of
your effort are so recognizable and tangible, but I think that many have found
equal satisfaction in other fields.

To each his own.

------
patrickk
This article touches on a lot of the concepts in "Flow". Getting feedback is
key to experiencing "flow" and this is clearly the case when working with your
hands as you are constantly getting tacile feedback on your work.

When doing the work so typical of cubicle farms, there is little or indirect
feedback so it can be difficult to enjoy the work.

I myself used to do some woodwork projects and they are incredibly enjoyable.
Whether it is making a simple join and using a miniture hacksaw to get an
exact cut, or turning a block of wood into a fruit bowl on a lathe, it's
extremely satisfying - both the process and the finished result.

See:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)#Components_of...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_\(psychology\)#Components_of_flow)

------
pwim
I'm reminded of Mike Rowe's TED talk:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=509172>

------
davidedicillo
Yeah, I love "making stuff" in the real world and not just in bits. I do a lot
of cooking (handmade pasta and stuff like that too). Also at home we grow our
(legal) plants, I silk print (I've done our GetAppsDone tshirts myself), sew
stuff, bake and more. I just wish I had a garage to do even more.

~~~
sethrq
I too love to cook and often find myself wishing I had more time for various
hands on projects

------
noisedom
This article reminds me of Philip K. Dick. The main characters in his novels
are usually technicians or mechanics. There's something about being a
craftsman who's dedicated to his craft that appeals to people with analytical
minds.

------
raintrees
Single page (with ads):
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?_r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all)

------
steveklabnik
I'm another one of those standard programmers who doesn't build physical
things.

Until I got involved with my startup (3d printing is all about making stuff!),
and starting the local hackerspace, and just learning about the process of
making stuff in general. When you don't know that it's not that hard to do
physical things, it's pretty rough to get started. I'd have thought hardware
was incredibly difficult three or four years ago. Or at least difficult for
me, and weird.

Now I fool around with electronics and garden. Good times.

