I’m done with the word for today. Time to grab the drinking horn—today filled with a Danish Bork Mjød, brewed with apple and bog myrtle, just like people used to make it back then. It’s a far cry from that overly sweet, industrial mass-produced stuff. I rarely drink alcohol, but when I do, I try to steer clear of the supermarket shelves.
Today, I raise my horn to all the craftsmen and craftswomen out there. Skål.
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about consumption. About how we act together in modern society, how we spend our money, and how we earn it. When I criticize the system, I am fully aware that I am a part of it, and that I took advantage of it long enough. But there are things I simply don’t want to support anymore.
The Consumption Cycle and Cheap Garbage
It doesn’t matter if you are knitting, sewing your own clothes, doing woodwork, or just cooking your own food from fresh vegetables every single day instead of running to a fast-food restaurant. The point is: build your own stuff. Just don’t go to a fucking fast-food place or order your gear at Amazon, Temu, or all these kinds of shops. In my opinion, it’s mostly cheap, soul-less garbage. It looks cool on a glossy picture, but when it arrives, it is not cool anymore. And those prices are only cheap because the people making it work like slaves, while a few select people at the top get filthy rich off it.
Whenever we start making our own goods—our own stuff, our own food—we crash that consumption cycle just a little bit.
I know I am incredibly blessed to live on a small farm now and have my own workshop. For most of my life, I hadn’t. But you don’t need a farm. Everyone can do their own things in even the smallest apartment, even if you just take a piece of paper and a pencil. We humans need to express ourselves. We are meant to build things and give meaning to our lives through our own ideas and symbols.
“I Don’t Have the Time” — A Matter of Priorities
Sometimes I put the things I made into my status. And almost every time, some co-worker goes: “Man, I don’t have the time for all that. Why do you have so much time?”
Guess what? My day is also just 24 hours. I have a full-time job, I am a father to a teenage daughter, we have the farm, the animals. And yeah, I’m still scrolling too much on this cursed device myself. I had times in my life where I was completely stuck to the television, binge-watching TV series or losing myself on internet boards and social media. I was on Instagram back then, and it just eats up your time. I left Instagram behind. YouTube needs its time too, but I spend it in a different way now: I spend it on the process. I like the process, and I like to show it. Learning by trial and error, and giving something back of what I learned from other guys making videos.
Even if YouTube gets shut down one day or I have to pay for it: I still have all these beautiful things I made with my own hands. They have a worth within themselves—at least for me.
The Mistake of Comparing Ourselves
I don’t build these things to impress people. I just want to impress my yesterday’s me. We compare ourselves to others way too often, and I think that is why so many people are depressed, down, and have no goals. You look at all this social media crap and think: “Well, the others are so much better than I am, they have a much more beautiful life.” But we all know that social media is just a hyper-realistic fake world. Nobody posts about their flaws, their bummers, or the meatgrinder of daily life.
That is why it’s so important to make things that last. It doesn’t matter what they are made of—stone, cloth, leather, horn, antler, steel, silver, or bronze. It’s about a tiny bit of peace that you can grab onto when you sit in a bad situation. Something that reminds you of your own strength. It reminds you: You can do something. You were able to build this. Nowadays, it is crucial to rely on your own strength, your own abilities, and your own creativity.
Grounding and the True Worth of a Human Being
Back when I lived in that small apartment, with no garden or backyard at all, I was really deep into depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a long story, but I could hardly get my ass up. But I realized that when I went out and found a beautiful spot—let’s say in a forest or at a lake—I felt so much better. Down to earth, grounded. The trouble in my head didn’t seem important anymore. That feeling did not last, and after the next disaster, I was right back in that hole. It took a lot of work and a lot of therapy, believe me.
And I am not talking about that whole modern “improve yourself” nonsense. We do not need to constantly improve ourselves. We are good as we are. Everybody is as good as he is. We need to learn to deal with our emotions and feelings, but we are not worthless just because we don’t have certain abilities.
We pay way too much attention to what the “bad people” in politics, churches, or society are doing. We care too much about them, and not enough about our own lives. What are we doing? How do we treat our neighbors? How do we treat our co-workers? It’s not a big thing to be polite to your boss. But being polite to the woman who cleans the toilets at your workplace—that is the important thing.
Actually, I just wanted to talk about jewelry… man, man, man. Anyway, I don’t want to bore you. Just a few thoughts on a Saturday afternoon.
I am not in charge of giving advice to anyone—often enough, my daughter is the one giving advice to me. But if I learned something, it’s this: Do as many things on your own as possible. Don’t be a dick. And care about the critters that count on you.
Skål.