Shop craft, as soul craft…

This book was mentioned in Cal Newport’s “Deep Work.” So far I’ve only read the first bits, but it does offer a fresh view of the power and privelege of making actual material things.

I do know what it feels like to be deeply involved in making something, where I’m right on the edge of failing. It is both stressful and exciting. In fact, I would say it is a feeling like no other. That is why I will never let go of the struggle involved in making physical objects.

“The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, because he has no real effect in the world. But the tradesman must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where one’s failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away. His well-founded pride is far from the gratuitous “self-esteem” that educators would impart to students, as though by magic.”
― Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work