About

Oval with Gear

This blog is about tools, tool making, observations, husbandry, philosophy, theories, stories, ideas and poetry. This ideal of this site is to explore the creative roots of man. My blog specific to writing is http://robertdavidstrawn.com/

The goal of this blog is to show examples of constructive living. As a child we all used to draw and sing and imagine things. We delighted in planting beans in a cup. We all dreamed of making neat stuff. As time went by dried flower arrangement, and t-shirt painting became what we called crafts. What most of us call gardening would not have been bragged about a generation before.

Painting a t-shirt can be fine art, but rarely is. Arranging bought plants each year in a bed can also be fine gardening, but also rarely is. No one whittles anymore. Fabric stores sell imported stuff to glue on wreaths. This too can be fine art, but would our grandparents honestly respect our accomplishments?

With all this lack of range in our expression, many of us also lack a driving desire to leave a better future for those that follow us.

We live in the future! We have more information, more access, more instructions and freedom to create than ever before. Let us not buy glue guns to hot glue sparkles made by uncaring businesses and call that creativity!

We are not just creatures who where born a few years ago and will die some time soon. We are part of a long chain of family, community, dreams, successes and failures. Unless we learn the basics of life, the things that our great grandmothers considered required knowledge for functional humans, how can we understand who we are? Unless we can manage to leave some value that we produced behind us, then we are no more than landfill. Let us not be living ghosts, who cannot touch or taste or feel. Let us not be undead that despite our labors, can only take and live like parasites on those around us.

Let us taste and dance. Let us carry on and create. Let us build upon the past, and not ignore the tools and dreams that carried us here. I hope that some of the ideas I midwife, tools I make, and seeds I plant, pass on to enrich someone else, years after my name is forgotten. My soul will depart some day and do what souls do. When that day comes, will some part of my spirit remain? If what I have done passes on and brings joy to another, years down the road, then and only then, am I truly immortal.

Bob

What Bob Looks Like