the Trash vitae

Trash is the editor-in-chief of an independent Colorado micro-publisher/ design studio. I dabble in digital photography, the lost art of film image making, and guerilla digital video. DrMAC Studios specializes in books and videos on self-reliance, gardening, dumpster diving, urban foraging and living off the excesses of others.
This blog documents my daily experiences with the rest of the world

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Jack of all trades..Master of none

I was doing some minor, minor plumbing yesterday and I recall that just a few years ago I had never plumbed.. I knew nothing about plumbing. I learned by DOING. Sure I made mistakes and errors but I was able to correct them at minor fiscal expense.
I began thinking about my entire generation and the next one coming and how little we know about living in a way that doesn’t need specialists/ consultants to take care of all of the things we don’t know how to do. I have spent years teaching my children that "can't" is not a legitimate term to use in any instance. You can do almost anything you want to. If you choose not to do something then that is your choice. You can do it but you choose not to.
Now, perhaps specialists are needed and I’ll survive just fine, but I suspect that I will be better served by having a general knowledge about a lot of things and being able to do more things for myself this being able to pass that general working knowledge down to the next generation.
I then wondered if I would be able to learn all of these things. On top of that, I thought of what I do know above and beyond the “average” person my age and I began to wonder if they’d be able to catch up if the time came that it was needed. Is the learning curve too great? Have we gotten too far away from the lifestyle where you could do things for yourself? I hope not.
We should all make it a goal and a responsibility to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the survival knowedge and skills necessary to exist in this ever declining world. That too me is one of the most important things to pass down besides the learning to learn is the learning to be self-reliant when necessary.

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