So the guy I am working for is named John.  He and I were talking about how I am (and always have been) in the business of making stuff.  The stuff changes, but, you know, it is always stuff.  He is in a similar business (good thing, too, or I wouldn't have a job).  But we were talking about how very much stuff there is, these days, kind of everywhere you go, and how a lot of the stuff is stuff that is, for one of several reasons, maybe not so good.  Plastic bags.  Internal combustion engines.  Christina Aguilera cds.  Things that maybe do more harm than good.  And I said as how it is sometimes hard for me to reconcile the fact that my job is to make stuff with the fact that I think there is too damn much stuff already.

And he says, well, you know, it's about making.  Not about stuff.

Ain't it annoying when someone can just crystallise things like that?

Because of course that is what it is about.  All of this emphasis that I am putting on making every part of everything that I make, hardware, nails, tools, it all is about the making.  And maybe if others notice the mark of my hand, it will make them think about their own posessions, their stuff, and will maybe make some of 'em pause and think about how, the next time they need something, how maybe they could make it from what is on hand, rather than going out and buying it.

Maybe this is a little too high-falootin'.  I don't know.

But it is, for right now, about making, not about stuff.  Who needs more stuff, for chrissakes?

Also made me think about boats, of course.  No-one, I think, is more aware of the negative qualities of stuff-mongering like the sailor whose entire personal space is a thirty by eighty inch rack.  Can't fit much stuff in there and sleep on it to boot.  Tends (for most people) to cut down on the number of personal items you bring along.  Tends to make you think long and hard about whether you need to get rid of that My Little Pony collection (Mike did, but it was a hard decision for him).

Anyway, the thing is, at one time, everyone had a similar amount of stuff, you know?  You ever read "Little House on the Prairie?" When whats-er-name got married, John pointed out to me, she took everything she owned to her new home in one trunk. 

Not that I am pinig for the good old days, here.  Well, I mean I am, because that is what I do best, as you know.  But I have just been reconciling what I do with what I think, and finding, of course, that there is no simple answer.  Yet again.

Happy Trails.