RE: Fw: [Futurework] The world of work

[Karen Watters Cole]

Selma, in response to your request for sharing, I have found working in the garden and cooking to be fulfilling and relaxing activities that help me clear the mind while at the same time learning a great deal about living in the work being done.  Cooking for family is often work, but is also a joy, giving of oneself to others.  As the daily burden of feeding growing children receded, I have enjoyed cooking more as a form of learning and discovery.  The garden is a wonderful lesson about life and especially parenting, as I've written before.  It requires discipline, commitment, long range planning and vision, humor and the ability to cope with failure, plus the essential concept of utility wedded with beauty.  Those of us who garden are considerably saner in this changing world, if not weary, in my opinion. Additionally, I found needlework very satisfying when I was younger.  The intensity of the task and the concentration were good mental health exercises, and medical science substantiates this as good to combat aging, or a lazy mind.  Perhaps I will someday return to my large basket of unfinished projects.   However, the larger point I would like to make about folk art and domestic crafts is that we have too often demeaned them in our pursuit of higher art _expression_, and we were foolish to have done so.   Arthur wrote: Sometimes one loses the constant inner chatter and is at one with the > project at hand.  Ironing, writing, downhill skiing, whatever.  It is the > fact of integration that is important. > > Most times in our lives we are doing one thing partially and thinking of > what else we should be doing, etc.  There is a constant inner chatter. When > it goes away there is "unself conscious behaviour"  ....Behaviour without > doubt. > > So I am with you Selma.  I too experience these moments of integration and > in the same sorts of activities. > > Yes, this male irons, cooks and also writes. > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework