{"id":259,"date":"2008-12-30T22:22:26","date_gmt":"2008-12-31T02:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/?p=259"},"modified":"2008-12-31T19:40:04","modified_gmt":"2008-12-31T23:40:04","slug":"pause-for-thought-mouse-in-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/30\/pause-for-thought-mouse-in-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Pause for thought, mouse in hand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/img_1655_edited-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-260  aligncenter\" title=\"img_1655_edited-2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/img_1655_edited-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"288\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Come along with me, if you will, through these thoughts that occurred to me, ironically, while <strong>at the computer<\/strong>, mouse in hand.<\/p>\n<p>The senses sometimes form a substrate for our thinking. For example, vision might inform our logic. Drawing a diagram often makes sense of a disorganized idea. It can make relationships clearer. The senses also feed our aesthetic development and enrich our appreciation of good things around us. Listening to music is an obvious example.<\/p>\n<p>What about our hands? Does our uniquely human hand craft work somehow <strong>inform certain mental faculties<\/strong>? Is there a &#8220;logic of the hands&#8221; that is fed by creative work with the hands. Sometimes I\u2019m pondering a project and I\u2019m not sure how I\u2019ll do a particular building process, but then I get into the shop, pick up a paring chisel, a saw, or a rasp, and it becomes apparent, only <strong>through my hands<\/strong>, how the process can and should be done.<\/p>\n<p>Further, our hands also are capable of a unique aesthetic appreciation. Most people, having seen a fine craft object in a photograph, then later encountering the actual object are drawn to not only stand back and look at it, but to touch it, to experience it in a way that is <strong>unique to the hands<\/strong>. We know it\u2019s not laminate and we want to experience it. We can suppose that studied and appreciative hands are able to do this best.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to modern life where so many of us spend much of it with our hands in a state of sensory deprivation. <strong>Paws on the mouse<\/strong>, it seems. One wonders if this engenders a dormancy of specific human faculties fed via the hands, a quieting of the logic of the hands and a feebleness of that aesthetic sense. Maybe finely hand crafted work would be held in higher esteem and dollar value in our society if so many hands were not so sleepy. <strong>Hand to mind to heart<\/strong>, are some of us losing something?<\/p>\n<p>Craftspeople bring <strong>things of value<\/strong> to the world with our hands.<\/p>\n<p>(No disrespect, of course, to the evolutionary wonder pictured above.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Come along with me, if you will, through these thoughts that occurred to me, ironically, while at the computer, mouse in hand. The senses sometimes form a substrate for our thinking. For example, vision might inform our logic. Drawing a diagram often makes sense of a disorganized idea. It can make relationships clearer. The senses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}