Learning to be a man.

I have soft hands. When I left school I saw one of those career adviser people and she said “well let’s rule out any manual work; your hands are too soft” I felt like Curley from Of Mice and Men, the son of the ranch owner who kept his hands in a glove lined with Vaseline. But it’s true, I’ve never done any manual labour, never spent time at work using my hands for anything other than clacking on a keyboard, clicking a mouse or pressing a button on a photocopier. Never had my hands toughened by pulling rope or cutting wood, my hands are not scarred by the scrapes and strains of doing the things hands seem so well designed to do. I do have one scar on my hand, actually. I got it from a broken glass while doing the washing up. If the claims of washing up liquid brands are to be believed my hands probably came out softer as a result.

But my soft hands are symptomatic of a greater concern: I belong to a large part of a generation of young men who can’t do and don’t know about a lot of the things ‘Men’ are traditionally supposed to. I suppose what I am thinking of is the knowledge and ability to build, grow and produce stuff from the materials around us. Carpentry, growing vegetables, fishing, butchery, making and knowing about beer and whiskey Carving the roast on a Sunday, Car maintenance, plumbing, beekeeping. It essentially boils down to the ability to be, in some way, self-sustaining and not being completely fucked if the power runs out or money becomes worthless. We are much more likely to buy stuff ready prepared and get some other guy in to fix it for us when it goes wrong and stay in total ignorance of the process that was involved. It’s a product of 21^st century city living, which of course is great in so many ways for so many things, but doesn’t readily provide an environment to cultivate these skills and pursuits that men traditionally have.

So in an attempt to reconcile our modern urban lifestyle with our desire to be more involved in the methods of production, we have decided to take up, learn and practice some manly pursuits. This blog is where we will document our growth as we roughen up our hands and begin learning to be a men.