shoptalk

I took some time off to catch up on my sleep but the apartment was cold and the weather was warm so after a brief old lady nap, I took a walk and went through what felt like an extremely pointless exercise in voting, when my request for a nonpartisan ballot was discouraged and I had to pick between Republican and Democrat and wanted to vote against enough people on each (despite dwelling in a red state, it's a blue town).

I don't vote for people when I don't know who they are, and repub on the local more as a protest of the party machine that endorses mean and incompetent people. The lady who did my provisional ballot spent more time talking about her makeup and I just kind of sat there and thought about other countries where it's even more weird. I feel agnostic about the whole process.

So I walked home, relishing the orange and pink of the sunset and drove out to the burbs where one of my friends is apprenticing at a guitar repair shop and while I didn't plan to stay, I ended up hanging out there for way longer than planned, conversating over beer, learning about the intricacies of sundry musical instruments, of the electronics of wiring, the resonance of wood, the tension of wires and strings.It's something I'd never dream of trying to do because I'd be afraid of screwing it up, but watching and observing, taking it all in.

I have crazy respect for people who know how to do things not just sit at a computer like I do. People who can fix cars, who understand what wires go where, who build buildings and bridges that don't fall down, who know how to take apart things and put them back together, who take scraps and make art or useful things or can make things look beautiful. I can do a little of this, but there's a lot I never learned or don't have the musculature or the aptitude for. 

I feel like these kinds of things are undervalued in an increasingly technocratic society that still slots people in pecking order and perception by occupation alone, when there are these entire bodies of knowledge that I couldn't even begin to understand that come so naturally to others. The amount of bread on a corner store shelf, the intuitive knowledge of trucking routes better than any GPS, knowing what's wrong with a car just by what noise it makes and when. I sometimes here people who consider themselves enlightened disparaging those who work with their hands or get them dirty and I just don't understand the derision, because if we disappeared tomorrow, no one would notice we were gone.