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Mark's avatar

I do not work with wood, but some how I can relate, I enjoy your writing and how it applies to the things I do in my life. I consider your essays (written and audio) a form of art! Wonderful. I'll keep subscribing. You keep writing. Mark

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Walter Egon's avatar

"This is simply a big box, a solution to messiness." Very true. The essence of cabinetry is using wood to enclose a space, which can then be opened and closed (drawers; sliding, tambour or hinged doors; lids etc.) for keeping stuff in. The Japanese, with their tansu and austere interiors, have this refined to a neurosis :-)

As for hubris ... I'm not convinced it's the right word for describing your undertaking here. It has connotations of vanity, excessive pride ... of flying too close to the sun. In Norwegian we have a word 'pågangsmot' : 'go-on-courage'. Nothing gets made without it. A maker is one who says "Yes, I can do that" (and has a cunning plan for how to do it)

I remember one of the first paid jobs I did. I was still at trade-school and had undertaken to remodel (?) a dividing wall in someone's living room. It was a normal, non-loadbearing dividing wall and they wanted me to make it into an open, shelf-like structure. I was to do the deed while they were away on Easter holiday. So, I had a plan, had bought the materials I figured I would need, and had carefully dismantled the old wall. I find myself alone in this stranger's apartment, which is now a building site thanks to me and I realize: I better pull this off, or else I've just trashed someone's living room.

I did, it went fine. You gotta have heart (but sometimes it is a bit scary).

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