I'm ashamed to admit to the number of times I am impressed by someone from a third-world country not only being resourceful but being able to create much more than I could from much less.
I think of William Kamkwamba creating windmills from car parts.
We need to remember that "education" is not the only way to achieve, some people are just wired up well and education comes from many more places than school! (I also believe in schools btw)
Reminds me of a story when a friend was moving places in China. Now this is a second order account so the details are hazy.
He had arranged for the movers to come in and take his stuff. When the time came the bell rang and the person on the other side said "I'm here". My friend was puzzled as he had quite a bit of stuff, weren't there supposed to be more of them? Turns out it was indeed just one mover on a scooter. But he was still able to move everything in a couple of trips by tricks like carrying the fridge on his back with aid of some straps and bundling and hanging everything.
When I was in China I saw people transporting all kinds of stuff on scooters and some were really impressive. One time I thought a lorry was coming and it was just somebody carrying really _a lot_ of empty plastic bottles strapped onto them.
We really are constrained by having so much. The Einstein quote in the article 'The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.' is a good one - but it's resources too, having so much interferes with us putting things together.
Related I suppose is 'analysis paralysis' - becoming so bogged down in working out the ideal way to do something, which parts shall I buy (I have access to all of them and the means for many of them after all!), how shall I do it, should I use my computer and education to model and parameterise it first, determine the properties I need from my materials to operate under the conditions I want, etc.
I think of William Kamkwamba creating windmills from car parts.
We need to remember that "education" is not the only way to achieve, some people are just wired up well and education comes from many more places than school! (I also believe in schools btw)