Power

I decided that I am done using power tools.

I think that everything that has happened in this project has been leading to this point, but the moment was up on a ladder. I had decided that I wanted to do the bracing for my house timber frame style, so I was cutting out a notch in one of my posts. I was up on a ladder drilling holes that I would be able to chisel out, and the drill was going wild. I had to hold the thing over my head and every time i pulled the trigger the bit would catch and the drill would spin and wrench my arm around. It hurt. And it was not safe. And I was frustrated. I started to fantasize about having a hand powered drill that I could actually control, and that was went it struck me. It was time to give up power tools.

I embarked on this project to change my thinking. I noticed how often I felt reliant on technology in a way that was self defeating. I was so used to having a computer, and the internet and a calculator, and a gps, and a cell phone, that there was never a time when I really had to problem solve. When I encountered a problem my brain would shut down and I would look for an existing solution. I would also panic if I didn't have my technology. If I was driving a long distance and my cell phone died, I would freak out because I didn't know what I would do if something happened. But there was a time before cell phones, and people managed alright.

I started to think that all of the technology that was making my life easier was just making me scared. I was scared to try to figure things out on my own. I was scared I would be lost, or that I would do something the wrong way, or that I would get hurt. Mostly though I was scared of looking dumb. I was afraid that I would get lost and have to tell someone. I was afraid that I would try to figure out how to make something on my own and I would do it the wrong way. I guess at the root I was afraid of taking risks, I was terrified of failing.

Somewhere amidst the recognition of my own feelings of insecurity and fear I started thinking about colonial settlers. I thought about coming to a new place and looking around and thinking, OK I need shelter, what do we have here? Trees, some clay, that is enough. From there it was all problem solving. There was no landing in the new world manual. They had to figure it out. I wanted that kind of power. The freedom of knowing that I have the ability to take care of myself.

So I decided that I would build myself a house, and I would do it as sustainably as I could. I didn't want to just build a house with more things that i did't understand. I didn't just want to go to lowes and buy house materials and make a house. I wanted to really understand it, and I wanted to make myself think about where my materials came from and what it means to use them. That is why I had to try to be sustainable. I needed to be conscious of what i used and the best way to do that is with a goal or constraint. So my goal was to use materials where I knew the source and understood the life cycle and could truly envision the impact.

I have been moderately successful at that. It has certainly been building. When I started the project I was used to buying everything I needed at lowes, But am moving more and more toward living with objects and processes that I know.

Let me explain about knowing. I don't just want to know something like when I drill a hole with my battery powered drill it used x watts of power. I want to know what it feels like to drill a hole. I want my body to know the work of drilling a hole. Just like I wanted my body to know the work of digging a trench. I want to really understand my house, I don't want to be removed from it by way of a back hoe, or gas powered auger .Giving up the power tools was an obvious progression, in some ways I am surprised it took as long as it did. I had been thinking that the real experiment was not going to start until I moved into the house, but it started as soon as I committed to the idea. I have been changing. I know what it feels like to do things the dumbest way possible and have to tell people about it, I know what it feel like to fail, and I know what it feels like to know that i can figure out the next step. I have been slowly transferring power from the objects that made me feel robbed of my capability back into my hands.