Ode to joy

Break for appreciation....

I complain a lot. Always criticise everything. Gratitude exercises annoy the hell out of me. I am a grumpy old bugger at least half of the time. The world sucks, in my not so humble opinion. So today I want to write about joy.

I have two identical Makita screwdrivers. Battery drills. Bought them secondhand for next to nothing. They are the tool I use the most. They power up my hands and earn me a living. The poor things are battered and worn and a total source of joy.

A well-made tool always is.

Functional stuff tends to get invisible. The better it works, the least it gets noticed.

Break for appreciation.

Summer breaks. Marriage does. Kids break, and parents. Heating breaks, and hearts.

Hearts do break.

If it can, it will. That's a law.

We will break. You and I.

Have you ever wondered about tools? I do a lot of thinking and reflecting on how I work. Because work and tools and joy are closely connected.

How to make the invisible appear.

One way is to wait for it to break. The You-don't-know-what-you-got-till-it's-gone method. Breaking happens in wondrous ways. Anything from getting lost to a full apocalyptic spectacle is possible. At some point, it just stops functioning. The flow of joy is interrupted.

Appreciation is recognising the flow of joy as it is happening. I am sure you will miss food when it is not there. But appreciation is only possible as long as it is. Otherwise, it's imagined.

An ode to joy.

I build staircases. Not just. But I have by now made several wooden stairs. Stepping from one floor to the next. I like helping people get up a level, or down, whatever they prefer. A good set of steps turn invisible, you don't notice them until something is off. Either with you or with the staircase. There is a narrow margin to get it right. The goal of building things is make it blend in as smooth as possible. The best work goes unnoticed.

Appreciation is about finding what goes unnoticed. Not just anything. The things that are part of your functioning. Your tools.

Maybe you consider tools to be slaves. As stuff there to serve you. Replaceable in an instant by a new bit of junk. Possibly, you like good quality, to keep safe and far from breaking. And perhaps you haven't thought this through deep enough.

What are your tools?

No, seriously. I trust you can name a few. They go without saying, but say them. Name them. Make a list. Yeah, yeah, an inner list is okay. A real one is better.

Not asking for the first five or ten. I want more. A hundred. So keep going.

Having trouble? Well, let me help you. If you depend on your car as a tool. Then list car. And car-keys, petrol, steering-wheel, inflated tires, window-shield, gas-station as a very shallow gathering and feel for a second if and how you'd do without. See where this is heading? Deep, that is where this ends up.

And confronting it is too. There probably is some unwillingness lurking, a reluctance to go there, to spend time with all the things that serve you.

Because a hundred is nothing. You and I depend on thousands upon thousands upon thousands of unappreciated tools.

Good job, humanity, you are the best at toolmaking. We are good at using tools too. We suck at appreciating them. And we suck at seeing tools for what they are.

A hammer is a hand made heavy and hard, an extended arm. The device you are reading this on is a light, a flat lantern, a projector of intricate marks. Coloured specks of ordered photons. A bit of glass that feels the touch of your fingertips. A container of usable energy. Not very different from a chocolate bar. A car is a horse. A rocket a solidified dream.

The stuff we make to get things done are extensions of the body. I don't get what people mean with trans-human as a future vision of how we deal with this place. We have always gone beyond our inner and outer boundaries to try to get somewhere. It's not like we had a choice.

Only in paradise, where all our needs are met, we wouldn't revert to tools.

Or would we? How to get that Harvey Wallbanger with the pink straw from the side-table to your mouth? It would be torture without limbs. Or an esophagus. Without sufficient fingernails, you cannot adjust your bikini strap.

My point is, both hammer and hand are tools. One is just easier to put in a box. A handy man (or girly bro) doesn't have more hands than you. They often have at least half a finger less. They just know better how to use the tool.

Can I compress the list, that long, by now unwieldy stretch of a million cogs and wires, and parts to a single word? Don't answer that, I will. The answer is yes. They are part of the same tool.

Matter. Whoever thought of that word did a good job. Matter matters. Dealing with matter matters a lot to how things are working out for you. For us. Knowing what matters to you. How it matters. How it is ‘mattering’ is directly connected to enjoying this strangest of all places.

Underneath all the stuff, all the parts, behind the screen, the unfathomable tech, behind every layer of dependency lies another level of appreciation.

Things have been broken for a while for me. Broken enough to get it. I don't depend on a fridge, but it sure is a great invention. I can survive on pasta and cheap sauce, without a car, or internet. I have learned to work around going to the shops, to stretch the use of those last few coins. I know how to live without a bank account, without knowing where you will sleep the next night…was it rock bottom? No, not even close. It was deep enough to learn how much more I can take than I thought.

I have expanded my range. With having less, I extended my reach. Tools now serve me without the need to own them. They seem to drop by at just the right moment. Not because I expect them to, but because I am willing to do without. To try to make it happen, or at least think about, not using what is not around.

Often I am genuinely surprised by there being a car that goes with the keys in my trouser pocket. I depend on that vehicle. And I can do without if I have to.

Why? Because I know about The Tool. And underneath my grumpy nature lies this deep layer of gratitude that I am here and allowed to use The Tool. In whatever shape or form it drops by this day.

And there's always my box with the two bleu-green Makita's to help me screw whatever needs screwing today.

What a joy.

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I spend the rest of the day in a haze of... I don't know any other word for it, in a haze. Some kind of enchantment. I walk from place to place. Listen to what flows into my ears. Make a note or a sketch every now and then, but I'm too flushed to get a handle on it. I meet people who are friendly and share food. Stand among singers who excite each other. Join the line in front of the circus tent without knowing what's coming. The performance is strange. Later I sit in the sun on the small village square watching a puppeteer. And gradually become wedged between the growing audience and the player dressed as a jester. I am incorporated into his performance. Finally, with stuffed black fabric birds on my hands and shoulders, I stand imitating a scarecrow on top of the cart that serves as a set piece and puppet stable….read more