Rant number 306
What the hell is wrong with modern man?
A purely rhetorical question I grant thee - but an important one.
When did we become so reliant on other people fixing stuff. What's happened to the 'Make do and mend' attitude of yesteryear?
It's dead and buried - that's what.
My father was a very practical man, as is my stepfather. Both of them were able to fix many things, understood tools and how things worked. I have a similarly technical gene of sorts. I can work out how things work for the most part. I can make things and fix things - without stabbing myself to death with a screwdriver.
I am however, beginning to worry that I am a dying breed in this respect.
My work place sells mechanical items - so I am surrounded by people who are - for the most part, also technically proficient folk. The people we sell to however, paint a worrying picture of the state of 'fettling' in the future.
As computers have become an ever bigger presence in our lives, they have replaced the machines and tools we would previously have made use of.
Ask a kid these days to change a ribbon in a type writer and they'll ask you what a typewriter is! Probably a ribbon too!
I think it's an education and nurture thing.
When I was a kid, I'd play around with my grandad in his shed 'helping' him to make stuff. A playstation is fun but it doesn't teach you how things work - just now to blow stuff up.
As for school, mine sucked all the fun out of it. For every practical skill learned there was 50 sheets of paper to fill out- which just doesn't appeal to me.
It scares me that millions of households out there must have no tools. I live in a flat - and I have 30 or 40 for various eventualities.
At this rate, people are going to be calling out a handyman to put up a shelf, and that really is sad!
Teach your kids to take stuff apart and saw and nail why you can. Don't let them turn into this hateful timid modem man. The mind boggles what will happen if war breaks out again!
Rant over.
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