When I was a kid, I would read Richard Scarry books, and one of the main characters was Mr. Fixit, a red fox that was often carrying his toolbox around, or had tools in his hand. At the time, this didn't really resonate with me, because my own parents were far from handy around the house, with only my grandad with skills, yet he was already very old by the time I would have been old enough myself to learn anything from him.
Suffice to say, I am not a natural handyman.
After coming to Finland though, that changed because at the time at least, people here were pretty handy and did a lot of the work themselves. But it wasn't until after about five years that I bought my first apartment here and had to start learning for myself, because there was no way I could afford to pay for the renovation work. It was only minor for that place, but I flattened and painted walls for the first time, laid a laminated wooden floor for the first time and worked under a sink with pipes for the first time. A few things went wrong, like when a waterlock broke in the bathroom and water shot out of the pipe at high pressure and hit the roof, and the water to the building had to be shut off (thankfully the cold water otherwise I'd be a burn victim), but all in all, things went okay. It went okay because my girlfriend's father would come occasionally and help me, and he was a handyman and had built a huge amount of stuff around their property, including their house.
The next apartment I bought with my now wife and like me, she comes from a home that isn't overly handy, but not as thumbless as my own parents. We gutted the place down to the concrete in all rooms and while a company took care of the wet areas, I learned to do a huge amount more work, including hanging cupboards and building some small walls and plenty of finishing work. Still on a budget, the place came out very well and when we sold it five years later, it still looked like it had just been done, despite having a four year old child.
Our next place is where we are now, an old 1960s house that hadn't seen a good year in the last three decades. The people who owned it were quite happy to let it fall apart and while they did things themselves, they didn't do anything well. But they hadn't done anything for twenty years and it showed. Much of the original work was still in operation, but falling apart and it was our goal to renovate the entire house. Which we have done. This was a large step up from anything I had done prior, but until I had a stroke a year later, we were steaming ahead, with professionals doing the technical work, while I did most of the grunt work and stuff that was relatively easy, but time consuming. I learned a lot more.
More than that though, it was enjoyable. I used to track my activity through steps at that point quite closely, because I was interested in just how much I was doing and most days I was pushing 20,000 steps and barely leaving the house, let alone the yard. But the enjoyment wasn't in the amount of work done, or the result of the work, because it would be far more polished if professionals had done it. It was in the doing of the work itself, because it made a house we bought, our home.* Our blood, sweat, tears and a little bit of my brain went into the house itself and while it wouldn't win any awards or possibly even meet standards in some ways, it is ours.
I am no Mr. Fixit
But there is something to being able to take care of at least some of the household maintenance needs and feel satisfied. I reckon humans are born to be problem solvers, but I also think that the problems we work on also should have personal meaning, rather than just doing it for the money. So much is done for the money, without considering the human value it brings, or takes away. A lot of the automation coming into the workplace is for the money too, and it is going to impact heavily on the majority of people who are unable to do anything other than think. Knowledge work for the majority will soon be out of reach, because an AI will be able to do it better, much faster, and with a lot less variance in outcome. It won't matter if your doctor is good or bad for diagnoses, because the AI will be better than all of them. In many cases, they already are.
I have little faith that governments and corporations will do what is necessary to ensure that humanity improves its wellbeing, because it will not sacrifice profits, but completely change the economy, because it will shift what is currently valued (money) to what needs to be valued (human wellbeing). Because even if they would make the shift to be wellbeing-based wealth generators, that would end up diluting wealth into more hands again, rather than the current direction of concentrating it in fewer. No corporation or government will support that.
But in the unlikely scenario where we needn't work for money and can choose more of what we do with our time, without having to worry about paying the bills through work, I think most people would still struggle. This is because the enjoyment they currently get is from their free-time entertainment away from work, but that loses its appeal if there is no work. Free time is value le because it is a scarce resource and is "earned" through work of some kind, but when free time is abundant, it loses its significance.
The people who are willingly not working now, aren't the happiest people on earth.
I think the future happiest people won't be the ones with the most free time in their hands, but the ones with the tools of creation in their hands, and the materials to create with. And once money isn't the driving motivator, efficiency also loses out to process and outcome. Rather than using AI to get a better result and faster than can be achieved manually to maximise wealth, the wealth can be pushed back into the experience and the improvement in wellbeing that comes from it. A person can sit there all day on an image creator using prompts, but when there is no need or market for it, I believe that the person sitting all day with some paints and a canvas will be more content - because there is experience in the doing, it isn't about the outcome.
In a world where business doesn't need humans, the business of humans becomes developing humanity.
While the optimist in me can see the potential and possibility, the pessimist sees the likelihood and all the hurdles. We don't like change, even if it is leads to a better experience and higher wellbeing for us. We don't want to go through the disruption of changing a game that we know how to play, even though 99.9% of us are losing at it. We don't want to work harder to feel good, because we have been conditioned to believe that our goal should be to work less, to make things easier, more convenient. But there is a difference between making something more convenient, and using something because it is more convenient, isn't there?
We can all be creators.
Most of us choose to be users.
Taraz
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I just said this in another comment last week, but I remember when I stopped asking for toys for Christmas each year and I started asking for tools. I still have many of them and use them to this day. I think having a good set is great even if you don't use them to the fullest extent. I always think I like to do stuff myself, but then after the fact I am always very critical of the work I did.
I wonder when presents changed from learning tools to pure entertainment. Kids would get a doll, car or a bear or something, but then had to make up stories from there. Nowadays, the presents are rarely things that inspire imagination, nor are the the kinds of things the kid will keep or be interested in for long.
It's all flashing lights and loud noises!
I never got any of that as a kid.
No, I didn't so much either.
I agree with you on and I think it still boils down to the problem of being conditioned to want to make things easier for ourselves. Loving convenience, and choosing pursuing it at all cost, even to the detriment of moral standards and societal values.
History has a lot to say about humans trying to make life easier and convenient for itself. So maybe what we have now is just a significance of how much work has been done in the past towards making life more convenient for us as a specie.
The main evil is the complacency that what we now have is good enough for us and in no way harming us. It's possible that human race may no more advance positively, even though we may still make progress but it is only going to more and more destructive to us as a society.
It is a rigged game, because we are choosing it, but we are herded down the cattle run into one path to slaughter.
And the misunderstanding that using is creating. A lot of people call themselves "tech savvy" because they can use a smart phone and prompt AI. They are idiots.
Developing abilities and then finding happiness in the work itself is something that a lot of people overlook in our fast changing society.
I think in most roles, it isn't truly possible, though we try to justify what we go as if it is important.
Whenni shifted to my new room, i felt quite satisfied caarryingbout few electrical and plumbing job of my own....I learn it watching others...those few repairs would have costed me enough but by doing of my own reduces my expenses ..and overall gives immense happiness....now slowly I started to maintain my own toolbox too....being self sufficient is better option.
Self-sufficiency is a good feeling to have, isn't it?
I honestly feel that people are becoming disconnected from the simple satisfaction that comes from doing something with their own hands. Even in my own life, I’ve noticed that the moments I value most are not the easiest ones, but the ones where I had to push myself a bit. I think it's just human nature but we just have to push ourselves beyond.
We should know that work isn’t just about earning money; it’s about feeling alive and useful and offering a valuable service. However, many believe that money is the main reason why we are working in the first instance which is why a lot of people would want to change their choice of work.
As you said, most of the menial jobs will be taken over by AI especially the traditional ones. If this happens, many people might feel empty because they’ve never explored what meaningful creation feels like. I think we need to rediscover that sense of purpose now, not later.
In the end, life feels richer when we stop being only consumers and start being creators in our own small ways.
I think our human nature is to do something useful, but we have trained ourselves to consume something pointless instead.
I think many folks can't even imagine any other way to live. Slaving away all day to pay the bills seems normal, necessary.
Few care, if money doesn't also come in to help pay the rising utility, education etc costs. They are trapped and don't see it.
I love to do new, financially unprofitable things. I'm retired and have lots of time to do so. My latest is to have joined an orchestra as a violinist. haha I am lost most of the time during rehearsals, and have thirteen days to get it together. Should be interesting! I sure don't like to make things easier for myself...
Yeah, and they think it is the work that is the problem. Work isn't the issue, it is the "have to do it to pay bills" issue. Then we do all kinds of pointless and meaningless things, to keep the machine turning.
This is awesome! I am guessing you have played before ;)
My father-in-law recently joined a choir at the age of 77. He is loving it. Gives him purpose in his life he was missing before.
Your mountain climber could use music in his life. And yes, making music helps us old folks stay relevant.
I "played" the violin in elementary and high school, disinterestedly, but well-trained. I was a intermediate klezmer fiddle player in NYC, but stopped playing anything at all for 25 years. Now that I have moved back to my home town, I'm taking lessons with a person who learned from my teacher before me. She's 85! I wanted to just learn how to play some country fiddlin', but she's got me playing classical too. Both pose huge challenges for me.
I think in the future, those people who have their own piece of land, at least 15-20 acres, will be happy. All their creative desires will be realized on this land.
Maybe. If they can also defend its borders.
That shows how sophisticated our adaptation abilities is as a species. We can easily become accustomed to situations we hated or become capable in areas we were ineffective. This is driven by our desire to survive.
To survive the high costs of renovation in Finland youcadapted to become a handy person.
That's why most things people doubt that they can do, they can actually do them and very well for that matter, but the adaptation instinct has not kicked in them. If they had no other choice but to do that thing and be good in it, they would surely become experts at it.
I have had to adapt for everything here, because I can afford nothing! :D
You know, the thing I could always rely on was my work ethic and ability to find something, but it is failing me now since the stroke. It is a pity, because I used to be a workhorse that could add value.
What really stood out to me is how you described learning by necessity. Many of us grew up in homes where nobody was handy, so the idea of fixing things feels intimidating. But once you start doing small tasks yourself, you realize that the process teaches you more about who you are than the result itself. I love how you said the house became your home because your effort is in the walls. That’s something money can’t buy.
One of the things I wish more women would do, is learn how to do some of the odd jobs, rather than relying on others. It would give them far more confidence in other parts of life too. Paying for something is on thing, being able to do it yourself is ownership.
It always good to have some hands on skill. This can really be useful in situations where you don’t have enough money to finance some part of your project but they are things you could be able to do if you have the time.
Even with the introduction of AI, I still think that some things we do is not just about the task or about the effort but just like you said the experience we get in the process can go a long way to impact our lives and people around us positively.
Are you building any particular skill at the moment?
It seems to me that our lives are all about problems and solving those problems is our main job. But if there was money to solve the problems, things would be more meaningful.
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I can do a lot of things around the house myself, but I find myself outsourcing more and more work to professionals. Some times it is something like roof work on the three story home that I don't want the risk of working up there. Sometimes it is worth it to have others do it because they can get it done faster and it is worth more money to me to have it done fast... And some jobs I know I will get done only once but they require specialized tools like stretching carpets. By the time I pay for the tools it would be as much as to have a pro come out and just do it for us...
This is an eternal source of contention.
I think that this is the reason for learning that applies throughout the ages. I learned how to make do and mend as a kid because my parents couldn't afford to pay people to do everything. My dad learned from my Grandad who as a miner with 6 kids, certainly couldn't pay. Every stick of furniture in my grandparents house was made by him although to be fair, he was an apprentice trained carpenter who then went down the pit because the money was better.
Like you, I'm never going to be a polished pro, but that sense of achievement you get when you do a job, stand back and look at it and think, 'it looks alright', can't be beaten.
Hope business and health are remaining positive, and best wishes to you and your family.
Thanks.