Make Something of Yourself
Updated from a March 2011 post. Have you ever wanted to make something? To contribute a useful object to the existing stock of reality? My grandfather was a builder of bookcases, cabinets, tinkered with engines and machinery. I inherited his wooden workbench complete with a vice, and cubby holes. And with it was a collection of vintage tools. The picture above are three of his measuring tools: a Starrett and a 4" precision ruler with a Stanley boxwood and brass folding ruler in the middle. Building a treehouse for my daughter was among the most satisfying things I've ever done. Find a site, draw the design, and buy the materials. Every day I was building it, I went to sleep thinking about the next task: hammering nails, shingling a roof, and painting the siding. The treehouse still stands unlike a lot of things where I've expended effort only to end with something abstract or amorphous.
This is a short list of authors who express the satis...