I read this article recently and it really struck a chord with me. Mostly because I definitely have noticed/seen how people get so scared to mess with things, even me. Here's a quote that sums up the whole article.
But when we stop working with our hands, we cease to understand how the world really works.
You see this on a personal level. If you can't get under the hood of the gadgets you buy, you're far more liable to believe the marketing hype of the corporations that sell them. When things break, you toss them and buy new ones; you accept your role as a mere consumer. "I think it makes you more passive as an individual," says Matthew Crawford, a former motorcycle repair-shop owner (and postdoctoral fellow in cultural studies) who's writing a book on the demise of mechanical aptitude in America.
I took this to heart, and today with a friend, I took apart an old laptop computer (it still runs when it's in pieces). I'm planning to reassemble it as a digital picture frame. It's gonna be cool--not because it looks cool, but because I got in there and took some shit apart and put it back together.
Doesn't a computer look cool in pieces on your coffee table?
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