There is a measure of satisfaction and joy in practices that involve and challenge us physically, especially if they also bind us together socially. Like baking bread or tending a garden, they are precisely the sort of practices that many of us are now rediscovering.
Well said -- there are so many wonderful crossovers here! Physical embodiment (executing both the spiritual and physical aspects of the soul); means and ends (technology is means and demands of us only more and more means for the sake of even more means); encounter, gift, response, and death of self (traditional Catholic and probably Christian phrases).
Our family hasn't made any bread (though two other families supply us with WEEKLY loaves), but I have taken to additional gardening, cleaning, and family time. It's exactly what we should be doing more of.
"I would rather wonder than know": Yes it is somehow profane or shallow when a Person in a conversation solves a question by looking the answer up in their phone - instead of having an interesting conversation. But still, even Smartphone truths can be challenged. And the question what truth is nowadays (I here reflect on your article in the New Atlantis) is always worth a discussion. So, I'm not that pessimistic.
I've been drawn to baking bread ever since I started writing more professionally and, while I wouldn't have called it such then, I believe it was because of its focal qualities. Like writing, it's a challenging craft, but it's also more tangible, satisfying (=delicious), and sharing my work doesn't feel like I'm just begging for clicks.
Of course, I find writing very satisfying, just not nearly as good with butter and honey.
Thank you for this piece Michael! It helps organising my thoughts about why trail running became so popular recently...
Well said -- there are so many wonderful crossovers here! Physical embodiment (executing both the spiritual and physical aspects of the soul); means and ends (technology is means and demands of us only more and more means for the sake of even more means); encounter, gift, response, and death of self (traditional Catholic and probably Christian phrases).
Our family hasn't made any bread (though two other families supply us with WEEKLY loaves), but I have taken to additional gardening, cleaning, and family time. It's exactly what we should be doing more of.
"I would rather wonder than know": Yes it is somehow profane or shallow when a Person in a conversation solves a question by looking the answer up in their phone - instead of having an interesting conversation. But still, even Smartphone truths can be challenged. And the question what truth is nowadays (I here reflect on your article in the New Atlantis) is always worth a discussion. So, I'm not that pessimistic.
I've been drawn to baking bread ever since I started writing more professionally and, while I wouldn't have called it such then, I believe it was because of its focal qualities. Like writing, it's a challenging craft, but it's also more tangible, satisfying (=delicious), and sharing my work doesn't feel like I'm just begging for clicks.
Of course, I find writing very satisfying, just not nearly as good with butter and honey.