Walking the beach today I realised how little I know that my forefathers would have had installed in their minds as standard.
- I couldn’t name a bird.
- I couldn’t put up a shelf.
- I couldn’t win a fist fight.
- I couldn’t climb a tree.
So many things have changed. We’ve developed a refined taste, we’ve become adept at handling new-age tools that don’t absolutely contribute to our happiness or social development.
But the basics are lacking.
Do you ever wish there was a manual with tickboxes alongside acts and tasks that, on reaching 30, you should be reeling off as done, done, done?
I feel frustration in many ways. I’m a sociable kind of guy, and I know how to handle myself in a psychological context. But throw me into a housebuilding job, or give me the role of butcher for the day, and you’d have a lesser result from me at the end of the shift that when I begun.
Who’s first to write that Manual for Man?