First of all, folks should understand that I view history in longer terms than your average American. I think that the development of the internet is “brand new”, the settlement of California was “pretty recent”, the industrial revolution was “not that long ago”. I think that a lack of historical perspective is one of the biggest problems in our culture today. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it...
For years I worked in software development where my particular focus was back-end management systems used in special effects work. In my late 20’s I started assessing what I was doing with my life. We put in 80-hour work weeks to make movies that were nominated for Academy Awards, not because they were quality cinema, but because the effects were cool. I started to realize that I would never watch those movies if I hadn’t worked on them. And then, what I did at the studio was minimally connected to the film anyhow. I wrote and maintained the software that made it possible for the people in creative departments to do their work more efficiently. I was a step removed from actually participating in a thing that was a step removed from reality and soon forgotten anyhow. I had developed enough dissatisfaction to send me looking for a different way of life.
Between films I decided to spend a few months at a spiritual retreat center in Oregon: The Wolf Creek Sanctuary. There, I happened to learn how to knit, and was amazed at how long it takes to make anything. You sit and do the same thing for hours at a time, seeing very little progress. Time seemed to speed up when I was knitting because I was slowing down, exactly why I went to the retreat center in the first place. And at the end of my crafting time I had something REAL that I could hold in my hands. I can wear it around my neck to keep me warm. I can loan it to a friend when the temperature suddenly drops while we’re hanging out. Over time I’ve come to realize that creative handwork represents a connection to the past and to the divine spirit of creation. It brings me back to a time when most people actually made stuff. Nowadays, in this country at least, there is barely a recognition that stuff is made, much less an understanding of who it is that makes it. There’s an absolute awe at the idea that each of us can make stuff.
Depression. There have been several periods in my life when I’ve struggled with depression. It manifests as a feeling of hopelessness and disconnection from the people and world around me. It’s a sense that the ways I spend my energy don’t really matter; that my life doesn’t really matter. After a week of writing software, is there anything to show for it? I’m not alone in this feeling. Depression is a major illness in many parts of the “developed” world. Most people in this country have no idea where the things they buy come from. They also have no idea what really happens to all the energy they expend every day. They go to work, do what they’re told, come home, engage in passive entertainment, and do it all again tomorrow. I think these things are all related. I used to take pills every day to try and stay satisfied with an unsatisfying life. When I stopped taking the drugs, I stopped being satisfied.
Last year I set out to create my life the way I want it to be, a life that I could be happy with. I wanted to have flexibility in terms of where I live so my new business needed to be fairly portable. I wanted to work with my hands, developing a skill that I could use to make a good living. I wanted to do some form of fibercraft. Twelve business plans later, I found it. Weaving was scalable and could truly support me in the long term.
Now, a year later, I spend my days at the loom. I cut pieces of weaving off the loom, tag them and add them to the growing stack of finished cloth. In the morning there are cones of thread. At the end of the day there is cloth, ready to be cut and sewn into garments for people to wear. I don’t wonder where my energy went. I can see and touch it: stacks and stacks of beautiful fabric that I made with my own two hands.
And the depression has lifted. Sure, I’m not the rambunctious kid that I was, but I’m not a kid anymore, either. Some days I just want to lay in bed, but I’m still working long hours and pushing myself to climb the steep learning curve of production handweaving. After all this hard work, it would be strange if I WASN’T tired.
For now, the actual customers are still one step away from me. I’m hired to weave by the woman who makes and sells the garments, but that won’t be the case forever. Soon, I will be out there myself, an evangelist for a different way of life. When people buy clothing from me, they will be buying a connection to a time that I think needs to come back. People need to make stuff again.
Our current economic mess shows that better than anything else. What happens when we, as a nation, ship our jobs overseas and make our money from highfalutin shell games? Well, there are fewer actual jobs left here. Unemployment is at the highest rate in decades. We’ve let banks mis-manage our money. People are concerned about the environment and global climate change. We could be creating American jobs, reducing our dependence on foreign labor and reducing our impact on the environment if we wore clothing that was locally made from local materials.
Sure, handmade stuff is more expensive than stuff made overseas, but it’s worth it. Cloth used to be precious. Household inventories used to list all of the cloth in the house because it was so valuable. Cloth was an irreplaceable part of the dowry in many cultures. Socks were darned. Clothes were made well and kept mended. When they had seen so much use that they could no longer be worn, they were made into rag rugs or sewn into quilts. Nowadays, clothing is treated as nearly disposable, subject to rapidly changing whims of fashion and replaced every few years. I think it’s a sign of everything that’s wrong with our culture and I’m going to use my energy to work against it. Oh, and I’ll have to wear beautiful handmade clothing in the process. See the sacrifices I make for my idealism?
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