Being a Craftsman
This is from Fiona MacCarthy's Guardian review of Richard Sennett
"[Sennett's] new book considers craftwork very broadly.... This is craftsmanship in action as "enduring, basic human impulse"; the deep inner satisfaction that comes from work perfected for its own sweet sake.... Sennett views the satisfactions of physical making as a necessary part of being human. We need craft work as a way to keep ourselves rooted in material reality, providing a steadying balance in a world which overrates mental facility.
"The best craftsmanship relies on a continuing involvement. It can take many years of practice for complex skills of making to become so deeply engrained that they are there, readily available, almost without the craftsmen being conscious of it.... The same total mastery of technique can apply to music making, ballet dancing, writing.
"Pleasure in making comes from innate necessary rhythms, often slow ones. As we know in our own lives there is much more satisfaction in cooking a meal or caring for small children if we are not in a hurry. Doing a job properly takes the time it takes. Sennett argues in a fascinating way that, while we are working, submerged processes of thought and feeling are in progress. Almost without being aware we set ourselves the highest standard which "requires us to care about the qualities of cloth or the right way to poach fish". Doing our own work well enables us to imagine larger categories of "good" in general."
(I find this final sentence startling, and reason in itself to read the book.)
--Julian
