Be useful
Through-line. Explosives. Suturing.
I was recently driving our friend Bole home after a few of us took the boat out in the bay for a swim and a picnic. It was an extremely hot San Francisco day.
Crossing over Golden Gate Park he asked what the deal was with my wood shop in Oakland and making use of it.
What I said, more or less:
“I share it with a couple friends—primarily my buddy Joey. We hang there as a sort of clubhouse and do the odd project. I love it when friends have a project they need to work on and I welcome them to come to the shop so we can mess with it together and learn some new skills. Just hit me up anytime.”
He, correctly, clocked that this seemed to be a through-line in life. Projects at our property. Boating and fishing, exploration, workshops, and events. All social tools. Learning by doing and sharing novel experiences. I appreciated that he saw that. I’ve come to recognize those values as core to who I am. Or who I want to be, anyway. (It wasn’t all trial and error, btw. I’ve done some core values exercises in CBT.)
I could even distill it further and argue those values are just a nuanced spin on a more primal motivation… to be useful.
That’s at the root of it, isn’t it? The desire to be needed. Loved. To have function and purpose. To feel and be seen as a useful member of a family, a team, or a community. The dissatisfaction of useless and adrift is crushing. It’s a lack of identity. Why am I here? What am I doing? For me anyway. Your mileage may vary.
Bringing that reality to the forefront has been instrumental to my feeling more grounded in life. A sort of guiding light for how I want to spend my time, the assets I acquire and projects I collaborate on, and the relationships I invest in. It’s a through-line of what matters and a convenient sanity-check for decision making.
Will this make me feel good about making use of my talents and time in a way that is socially and personally enriching?
That’s the gist. The caveat, of course, is that this is all a lifelong work in progress and subject to revision.
If those musings feel a little weighty I can end on a lighter and weirder, but relevant, note.
Last weekend I invited Joey to join me on a two-day high explosives course and a few days later I had him over at our house for a suturing workshop, helmed by Dr. Rob. (We sewed pig’s feet, if you’re wondering.) I think he’d argue that learning both of these new skills was useful. But opinions, like mileage, may vary.
More on those another time. Maybe.