Statement of purpose / credo

I am both young and old for my age, 54. I was lucky enough to grow up in a household with older brothers and a Dad who liked to work with tools, took pride in their work, and thought things through. Mom was artistic, crafty and creative. While both parents and all siblings went to college, we never had any hesitations to 'do-it-ourselves,' and we actually enjoyed learning while doing, then having useful, durable things to show for our efforts. When we did call in the occasional plumber, mason or carpenter, they had to accept a two generation audience of 'apprentices.'

Besides specific useful skills for a host of this world's 'mechanical' challenges, I have developed an educated if unschooled perspective on the history of technology, and increasingly feel I have witnessed about half of it in my own lifetime!

I will offer short little essays and rants on skills and technologies that are going or gone, in a context. Some are to be mourned; for others, it is 'good riddance.' Philosophically, ten years ago I would have said that the modern era merely fails to reward the genralist, but today I am prepared to say it is far worse: You will be punished if you have not embraced a narrow specialty, and there are all too few 'extra points' for being able to competently navigate in fields other than your ordained single cubbyhole.

Will mine be the last generation, at least in the technologically advanced cultures, that has the feeling of self sufficiency, of viability in the rough, natural, elemental world? In my mind, I am certain, if stranded with a handful of like-mindeds on Gilligan's Island, we would have comfortable shelter by the first night, hot running water by the end of the first week, and all maner of 'appropriate technology' in short order. I fear that most younger folks would not survive without the support of the producers of a reality [sic] TV show behind it all, just off camera.

I suspect that the average intelligent citizen of a moderately developed country, for whatever other hardships and privations they endure—possibly even because of these—has in good measure a confidence which, in the US, will die with my generation.

I hope I am wrong. I can nearly as easily imagine settings where the day is saved by a 20-something who paid lots of attention to how computer networks were constructed and might be repairded in a national catastrophe. What I hope they will have, in same or greater measure as my 'can-do' generation, is the feeling that they have problem solving skills and analytic abilities that can usefully generalize to myriad situations, and that they are potent as individuals to make a positive difference, even IF the marketplace and 99% of their contemporaries 'don't get it.'

I know that the average 'consumer' is further removed, every year, from the processes of designing, making and maintaining the (increasingly complex) things around them on which they rely for comfort and much more.

As a society, we may be more secure and strong if the average citizen is both able to change a flat AND unistall crummy software that is slowing down an operating system. As individuals, we are enriched to embrace lifelong learning in diverse practical and esoteric areas, and celebrate same in others. Breadth AND depth, forever!