A Call to Hands

On getting back to something real

David Polivka - 2014

I’ve noticed in the past 6 months that my aversion to screens has hit a fever pitch.

I’ve worked in tech for about a decade or so.

Toss in standard social media usage on top of that.

Lotta hours online.

And each year, I’m being presented with more information, delivered faster and faster.

It’s like being on a carnival ride that has started to malfunction and is spinning out of control.

It’s hit warp speed now, jumping past just algorithms and into tech’s transition from assistant to agent.

From “done with me” to “done for me”.

Computers once used to be a place where you could create things, search for things, and store things.

Now they’ve become a done-for-you proposition, where the goal is to take everything off your plate, all the way to critical thinking and even your dopamine creation.

This is not good.

Friction is healthy.

Muscles don’t grow unless there is resistance.

Without exercise and proper nutrition, we become fat and sick.

Without mental exercise and proper information nutrition, the same thing happens to the mind. Joy is harder to find. Critical thinking is long gone - too much work.

We become mentally obese.

Things that take effort (friction) that could earn long-term benefits, such as physical hobbies, reading, any single-form focus, are being replaced with technology that is feeding us mental sugar, and a lot of it.

Many people’s information diet is the equivalent to drinking a 12-pack of Coke a day. And the done-for-you tools (AI, etc.) are the mental equivalent of not having to get out of your chair.

Instead of the healthy 10,000 mental steps a day, people are getting 100 mental steps a day, and they are mostly to and from the fridge.

Rapidly, people are turning angry, anxious, and depressed.

It’s a mind epidemic.

And when a 12-pack of Coke becomes the baseline diet, it’s hard to get back on a diet of healthy food.

Because healthy food takes time and effort.

It’s not easy.

It’s inconvenient.

Fresh meat that you hunted and processed

Fresh vegetables picked from your garden that you nurtured

Sourdough bread that you made from scratch

None of these will give you that quick super-high that Coke will give you, but they will give you something that Coke won’t - Satisfaction.

And I submit that a cheat code to satisfaction is tapping into the physical. Working with your hands. Focusing on creation rather than consumption. Building something and giving it away.

Becoming a craftsman is a satisfying and worthwhile endeavor.

You don’t have to make it pay; in fact, steer clear of that as long as you can, as that can often kill the love for it. Just focus on becoming good.

You never see people with hobbies revolving around art and craftsmanship saying, “what a waste of time.” In fact, you usually see them only going deeper into them as they grow older ← This is an important indicator.

So this is my call to hands (see what I did there?)

Make something.

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Questions for y’all

What are you guys working on this year?

What are you doing to get offline and be more present?

Love hearing from y’all.

p.s. My winter project this year is to make a great loaf of sourdough bread.

p.p.s. (Pop this in your headphones - it’s what I listened to on repeat as I wrote this)

-Dominic

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Let me play you out with some photos I’ve taken over the years of fellow craftsmen

I obviously didn’t take this photo of myself