athousanderrors (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
athousanderrors) wrote2019-01-19 02:48 pm
athousanderrors) wrote2019-01-19 02:48 pm
cheskamouse: higgsboshark: The thing about knitting is
via http://bit.ly/2CyqZfl
cheskamouse:
higgsboshark:
The thing about knitting is it’s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while you’re doing it.
Like ok, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the world. But it’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your foot’s warm.
Checkmate, nihilism.
This is a powerful positive message..
My doctor talked to me about how important crafting is to mental health. So many of us work with data, on computers, so when it comes to the end of the day you have nothing tangible to show what you’ve done.
But if you’re whittling a bowl, cross-stitching a pattern, knitting a blanket, hell even colouring in….you can see your progress. You can see that you’ve done something.
She prefaced this with a long bit about how when people were shoemakers and coopers and weavers, they had that tangible sense of achievement, that boost to their mental health. In her opinion it’s one of the reasons mental health is so much poorer now than it was in the past - not because it’s better recognised, diagnosed, reported…but as a side-effect of our culture of work.
Then she made me show her all the things I knitted while I was signed off work and gushed over them. It was lovely.
(Your picture was not posted)
cheskamouse:
higgsboshark:
The thing about knitting is it’s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while you’re doing it.
Like ok, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the world. But it’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your foot’s warm.
Checkmate, nihilism.
This is a powerful positive message..
My doctor talked to me about how important crafting is to mental health. So many of us work with data, on computers, so when it comes to the end of the day you have nothing tangible to show what you’ve done.
But if you’re whittling a bowl, cross-stitching a pattern, knitting a blanket, hell even colouring in….you can see your progress. You can see that you’ve done something.
She prefaced this with a long bit about how when people were shoemakers and coopers and weavers, they had that tangible sense of achievement, that boost to their mental health. In her opinion it’s one of the reasons mental health is so much poorer now than it was in the past - not because it’s better recognised, diagnosed, reported…but as a side-effect of our culture of work.
Then she made me show her all the things I knitted while I was signed off work and gushed over them. It was lovely.
(Your picture was not posted)