Still Designing and Making

It's often hard to see the future with certainty. We have all lived with and through attacks and threats of attacks reaching back through centuries and some indeed have lasted centuries long. The important thing to see is that we, as individuals and nations, have lived through them and come out the other side. Yes, there's always the so-called 'collateral damage' hyperbole entertainment films have indoctrinated our empty heads with along the way. The lost lives of those we love and then too those we know nothing of matter greatly. Especially is this so for the ones who lost their lives unnecessarily. Far, far too many. Today, we know of many different influences we knew nothing of even ten years ago. The importance of life going on seems always critical and life indeed is and will continue going on.

My work has changed very little over the years. I make and I design. The work I put together with joints stands freely after a week or two and my little dot on the globe, the workshop where I work, the place I live, makes the tiniest little footprint. Pandemic or not, we make! It's important to me to feel I matter because of what I do and who I am. Fame is unimportant. Numbers don't count much. I put myself out there as a resource and mentor to pass on what I know and to ensure that my craft never dies. I am answerable to no corporate empire and choose to be answerable to you. Some times you say something to me that I don't like. I look, listen and change what I can if indeed I feel I need to. More important than that though, I want you to know that you matter much more than you might think. I can be abrupt. Texts and messages can seem ten times harder. Once it's out there they are hard to retrieve. Your little dot of seeming insignificance impacts the world in the same way a butterfly flapping its wings in my meadows fans a breeze that stretches to then blow in the Philippines and me writing a paperless sentence without ink and pen spawns an outcome in a family or an individual in Tasmania and Honolulu. Imagine! Imagine is a suggestion and then too a kindly instruction to consider deeply rather than just a request!

My self-imposed isolation began exactly 21 weeks ago, actually, it's over five months now. I have tanked up my car with 60 litres of petrol since January 1, 2020, as I had decided not to use my car for getting to work for a year unless there was a task I needed it for that was important. COVID helped, but my mind was already made up. 60 litres is 15.85 US gallons and 13.19 UK gallons. In the meantime, I have enjoyed many aspects of life since the new world began emerging. People just want something called "normal" even though everything in the old world seemed quite abnormal rather than normal to me.

COVID-19 has not gone away. We are learning to live with what we currently have. The news is difficult to believe now because we are unsure of what the media presents to us as a one-source-will-fit-all presentation. Institutionally, many institutions seem less fit for purpose these days as they indeed try to redefine who they are and what they actually do. The media is one such institution. Manufacturing news is different than presenting it. No one seems exempt from the feeling that there is less job security in what they do. I'm satisfied that change should take place and that the people should make the changes within their tiny dot plot on the planet. It's hard on those who are unwilling to see the need for self-restraint. It's easy to think that we need more than our neighbour but we don't need too much to survive if we just take care in all the decisions we make. I don't need anything much different than what I have now and nor do I need to do much different than I have always done and do now.