I have a million unread emails in my inbox and I’m doing this instead, I say to myself, as I try to not fall off the ladder—or at least remember to let go of the trigger of the circular saw before I do fall off the ladder.
I also should probably clean the bathroom, start writing that thing for next week, research that other thing, put the new wheel on Jay’s bike, call an arborist about that tree limb, make an appointment for a haircut, and do a bunch of other stuff that would require me to actually sit down at my desk.
Alas. Today, I have chosen to make wood shapes. Or, more precisely, I am creating a small building.
At some point last winter or spring, Hilary and I had a conversation in which I believed she said it would be fun if Jay had a “playhouse” in our backyard. So, I started planning to build one—at first, in my head, and then in April I think, I made a crude sketch in a notebook with some measurements. I then lost the notebook somewhere.
When I announced my intentions to begin building the playhouse, Hilary was surprised, saying that she thought we had talked about a “stick fort” somewhere in the backyard. Which is a much different project. You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to.
Here’s what I have so far:
In the course of owning our house and building lots of Unaesthetic But Functional Furniture™ in the past five years, I have hoarded accrued a rather large stash of leftover wood. Last winter, I realized that my collection of old wood has started to take up way too much room in our garage, and that I should do something about it. Inside me is a crusty old man who owns a box containing ten pounds of old mismatched screws he has saved JUST IN CASE, because you never know. Leftover screws are one thing, but leftover wood takes up a lot of space.
So I’m building this playhouse. Jay can play in it until he outgrows it, at which point we can use it to store shovels and garden implements. (I’m building it tall enough for an average adult to stand up inside)
The playhouse looks the way it does because as a hoarder of wood, I am not allowing myself to buy new wood. I am trying to use up wood from my collection, and if I need wood, I can buy it from one of our two local reused building materials stores, Home ReSource and Waste Less Works.
Am I just procrastinating my real work? Sure. Does this feel more like “real work” than what I do for a living? Physically, yes: My hands are tired, I get the occasional splinter, I get a little dirty. When I finish this project, a small building will exist, and that will be quite satisfying. The audience for the work is one person who is three feet tall. I will not be paid for this work, I will not keep track of “likes,” or any sort of “engagement” or ROI.
A while back, I was talking to a friend who’s also a dad and he said he wished his kids saw him doing something more concrete—he was working for a startup tech company, when his kids saw Dad work, they saw him sitting in front of a laptop, doing Zoom meetings or clicking and typing. I think about this conversation a lot.
Jay is turning three years old soon, and he rarely sees me work, since his curious/chaotic presence near a computer or iPad is generally, uh, obstructive—and I also hope he grows up thinking life is outside of electronic devices, not inside them, however naive that might be of me.
Another quote I think about often: My friend Forest saying to me, “No one likes to see someone they respect staring at a phone.”
I don’t know at what age my job (what I do for a living) will really make sense to Jay, because a lot of days, moving words and shapes around on glowing screens of various sizes doesn’t feel that “real” to me either. But holy shit is he interested in hammers, and nails, and climbing ladders, and using clamps, and handing me screws.
If you asked Jay right now what his dad does, he’d probably tell you that I run, ride a bike, cook, wash dishes, clean up potty training accidents, and drive a car every once in a while. And if we’re really partying, Dad operates power tools (including Jay’s favorite, the vacuum cleaner), hammers nails, drills holes, cuts wood, and builds a few things. Including this playhouse, which I imagine will be kind of ugly when I finish it.
But making it pretty isn’t the point. I’m not sure I know what the point is, but I heard this exchange between Austin Kleon and Ryan Holiday on Holiday’s podcast a few months back and I think it validates all the time I’m spending in the backyard with a miter saw, a bunch of old 2 x 4s, and a hammer and nails.
Austin Kleon: I am just such a proponent of everyone practicing some kind of art form no matter how badly, because I always think that time spent doing something creative, on your own, or as a hobby or something like that just means you’re not out there on the street bothering someone or wreaking havoc. …
I think you’re looking at a culture in which hobbies have disappeared. Like what do people do?
Ryan Holiday: They spend it on their phone.
Austin Kleon: They spend it on their phone, raging on Twitter, or like getting pilled on 4chan, or Reddit or whatever. … I’m just like really interested in this idea of hobbies disappearing.
Ryan Holiday: Like imagine a world where Elon Musk got really into triathlons instead of Twitter.
Austin Kleon: This clown needs something to do. My hope for that man is like, get him into woodworking. He’s a middle-aged guy—he didn’t figure out, dude, you’re supposed to go fishing now, or like get deeply into World War II books about history or something.
Ryan Holiday: Because you still have that manic energy, that obsession, but it will feast on itself. Like you get to a point where it can’t go into more work. And if it doesn’t go into something productive or at least socially adaptive, it will destroy you.
Obviously the fate of the world isn’t riding on whether I have a “real hobby” or if I spend most of my life online. But if Jay ever draws a picture of his dad, I would love it if he didn’t draw a stick figure staring at a phone.
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