Good Life Project - Finding God in the Grain

Episode Date: December 15, 2016

There’s something about working with your hands that changes you. Over the last generation, we’ve shifted largely to a “knowledge economy.” We value and compensate cognitive intelligence on a much higher scale than artistic, mechanical and physical intelligence. We elevate the importance of thoughts and ideas and diminish the role of hands and body and […]The post Finding God in the Grain appeared first on Good LifeProject. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Jonathan. One of the things that I've learned over the years is that a pretty significant part of our community are what I call conscious entrepreneurs. And what I mean by that is, it's folks who are founders, and that could be of a business and organization, foundation, private practice, anything like that, that have three things in common. One is that you serve a genuine need. You really solve a problem and you deliver that and get paid for it. And so solving a problem and generating real profit is important to you. The second is that what you create actually serves as a true vehicle for the expression of your strengths, your values and beliefs, and your voice. So it lets you step into your fullest potential. And the third is that there's something bigger happening here. You're part of something bigger and you're serving some bigger need.

And that's what I call a conscious business. And we've created all sorts of experiences, programs, courses over the years designed to serve conscious business founders in a variety of ways. And amazing things have happened. We put pretty much everything on hiatus this year because we wanted to really deconstruct what we were doing and figure out how to bring more people together to serve them on a higher level. Because what we found is that not only do people need information and great advice and strategy and support, but there's a tremendous amount of isolation and loneliness for so many

people who are in the business of founding conscious businesses. And we want to create a true community. So we've been at work at this for the better part of the year. And I'm really excited to share that we are now live with this really powerful new experience. It's called the 108 and it is a conscious business collective. And if you want to know what that's all about, if you want to figure out whether it's in any way something that would be interesting for you, then you can either just click on the link in the show notes, or just head on over to goodlifeproject.com slash the 108. That's T-H-E and then the number 108. Check it out. See if it feels right to you.

If it does, then awesome. And if not, then thank you for listening. Hey, it's Jonathan. Today's Good Life Project riff is called Finding God in the Grain. So sometimes I wonder if the closest I get to the experience of God is when I'm making things. I was an artist and a maker as a kid, and I'd paint all the time. I'd draw, I'd doodle, I'd make what I call Franken-bikes out of spare parts from the junkyard. Yes, I grew up in a town where there was an actual junkyard and built pretty much anything I could imagine. And that process to this day just takes me somewhere. It always has.

It opens a door to something simultaneously internal and primal, yet also expansive and universal. And I'd find that place often as a kid. Then something happened. I grew up. And I'm not alone. The older we get, the more we leave making an art behind. We trade it for knowledge work, which absolutely has its own value. But it's different than the experience of making not just an idea or a story, but a thing. One that exists materially in the world. Born of body, sweat, hands, and tears, and maybe a bunch of wood, paint, metal, or whatever canvas calls you.

There's something about the smell of fresh cut wood, WD-40, and Danger. Increasingly, I've been missing being in maker mode. So not too long ago, I took a recent move to a new apartment as an opportunity to re-meet my maker side. And we gave away pretty much all of our furniture, so we needed a bunch of new tables. And I decided to make them. Not the easiest thing to do in New York City, where parking spaces sell for six figures and sightings of Bigfoot outnumber listings for workshop space. But we're, you know, a highly adaptable people, so why not? Little did I know that the table, which would come to be known as the concrete behemoth, would end up six feet long and tip in at 150 pounds. So we started for sort of hunting for parts online,

and my wife found these amazing handcrafted, powder-coated steel legs from an artisan in Turkey, and we bought a pair of them and actually had them sent over from Turkey. And without a makerspace or a workshop loaded up with power tools, you need to do a bit of delegating. So I headed to Home Depot and got some pre-cut sheets of wood and screwed them and glued them together and created a top for the powder-coated legs and so far so good. And now what would I do with that? And my wife and I had talked about different ideas, lacquer, oil, wax paint.

We wanted to do something really unique. And I thought about myself, what about concrete? Wouldn't it be cool to give the top an artisanal, troweled, concrete feel? Thing is, I've never worked with concrete before. But hey, I mean, how hard could it be? I figured. Famous last words. So I went online and

I searched. I literally just went online and searched how to make a concrete table. And it led me to this great DIY tutorial on literally making concrete countertops and tables. And it was still pretty much all out winging it. And that's also where I hit my first snag. Turns out when you use concrete, the thing you're covering, well, it needs to be what they call a stable substrate, meaning it can't have any give or flex or expand or contract because if it does, it cracks the concrete. And here's the thing about the kind of wood that I was trying to use. I was putting together a pine top

and it was a bit of a bummer because I couldn't do that because it's not a stable substrate. So one of the best things about making stuff is actually winging it, making mistakes and then having the chance to problem solve. That's much more fun than just following a set of rules where you're fairly certain of the outcome,

but you also end up learning less and really diminishing the possibility of genuine awe and surprise at the end of the process. When you step back and say to yourself, holy shit, it worked. It's a bit like creating your own recipes. You make awful, barely edible concoctions, and then something clicks, and you get the mixture right, and the angels sing. But the fact that you got so much wrong along the way, it's what makes the angels' song so transcendent. I think that's why master makers never stop experimenting.

Because it's the process, as much as what the process yields, that drops them into the playful pulse of the universe where everything is as it should be. Tinkering, I've discovered, is like a beeline to source and surrender. So back to the concrete behemoth, what to do? Well, much as I don't like using this stuff, I had to revert to particle board. It's heavy as hell. And some particle boards can what they call off gas, volatile compounds, as can some people, by the way. But these things aren't all that healthy for you. So I also knew that it had to be sealed with a half inch of concrete, and I just have to seal the bottom with something else. So I rolled with that.

I ended up finding this big giant thing that weighed 125 pounds. I swapped that onto the steel legs and it weighed about 140 pounds at this point. And that's before I even poured any concrete. seeing something physical start to emerge, something I'd use every day, something my family and friends would gather around for years to come, something I could step back and think, I made that. Why just for the most part, by the way? Because making isn't my one thing these days. I was building in the middle of the total mayhem of a move, of the larger gorgeous yet complex mosaic of being a dad, a husband, a more than full-time entrepreneur, producer, and writer. And my mind just doesn't drop into that special place where the world falls away and it's just me and my craft. It takes time. And when making is your one thing, your profession, or at least something you do in a very substantial way every day, you build the physical and mental

space into your life that allows you to just drop into the process on a different level. When you're making in the margins though, you don't. So your ability to fully honor the ramping time and the preparatory rituals coupled with the likelihood that you'll get pulled out of the process prematurely, it can be kind of frustrating. Once you're ready to go, you just want to go and you want to stay there for a while. You want to get lost in the process. You want to be there long enough to find God in the grain. It's harder to get to this place once you're a bit further into life and you've made the call to make on the side. You can fight it, and I have, but reality pretty much always wins. A better approach I found is to own the choice and all that comes with it, including the gift of having people

around you who want so much for you to be a part of their experience that they keep asking for your presence and you for theirs. Love trumps stuff, even stuff you make. So you do the dance, knowing that some days you can drop deep into the maker zone and others you'll stay surface level and still others you'll bounce back and forth. If there's a way, bring the people you love into the process. And there is, of course, the nuclear maker option, the one that finds you so called by your inner maker that you decide to make making your life. You turn it into your one thing. There's actually a fantastic book about this called Shop Class as Soul Craft about a rising star in the knowledge work field finding salvation as a vintage motorcycle mechanic. And I'll be

honest with you, I've been tempted in this direction more than once. And if I'm really, really truthful, I can't rule out the possibility that someday I will make a similar call and I will go entirely down the path of making. And that's why I use the qualifier when I was talking a little bit earlier, for the most part. But there's also something else going on. I wanted to do right by the materials and those who'd enjoy what they turned into. You probably get that last part, but what about my materials? Why would I want to do right by the wood

and the concrete and the water? Because there's something inside of me that says, on some level, every resource is worthy of respect, even inanimate tubs of concrete. Sounds weird. I know that's just kind of the way I'm drawn. So back to the table, it's make or break time. My concrete mentor, AKA the interwebs tells me my ability to trowel the concrete in just the right way will make or break the whole project. And I learn the material will only be workable for about 20 minutes, so I have to move super quickly. So I mix up the first batch, and it's like a thick gray mud.

I pour a long, oozing swath down the middle of the table and begin to work it out towards the side with the trowels. And at a certain point, I get pretty frustrated with the trowels, so I reach down and just start using my fingers to spread the stuff around because I really don't know what I'm doing. And I don't realize that my paw marks will be so apparent. And you can actually see them in the first layers. And I'm pretty sure that they actually are probably apparent in the final layers as they

dry. So at first, I think it looks like a big fat mess. It looks terrible. But I know it's just the first coat. And more important, I also feel like a part of me, my imprint is being layered into the table with every stroke, every streak, and every roll. 24 hours later, I layer on the second coat.

And that's when the magic begins to happen. It starts to look like concrete. And for the first time, I start thinking I can pull it off, create something that people can gather around and make my girls proud. And still I notice my trowel work continues to leave all sorts of lines and patterns that will remain in the table. And I wonder how much I should leave in and how much I should sand out. And then I think more about what I like about things that are handmade. And it's not that they look store-bought. I like it when you can see and feel the mark of the maker. So on the third and final coat, I try to make the marks more evenly spread and multifaceted,

more visually interesting, rather than just a series of long streaks and lines. But I also decide to keep them all visible and tactile. You can run your hand over it and feel the areas of effort and ease. I sand a bit, and then I let it cure for about 72 hours. And then armed with a six-inch roller, I layer on three coats of this special food-safe concrete sealer and then seal the bottom of the slab as well. And I'm a bit bummed once the sealer goes on because I love the lighter color and greeny feel of unsealed concrete and the sealer darkens and smooths the top. But in the end, it still looks pretty cool, and if I hadn't sealed it, the porous nature would have left it marked and stained within days. So over what's now become the last few weeks, and then months, and then years, I find

myself working with my wife and daughter to modge podge a resin coated kitchen table and then another table and then making a four foot coffee table. And I'm always making new stuff. And this is actually started to open another vein for me. It's reconnected with the maker in me as a kid. And I started to really recommit. And more recently, I committed to studio time and reconnected to painting, which I did as a kid and making stuff and learning watercolors, which by the way, is not for the faint of heart. But in case you hadn't guessed it by now, this entire conversation, this entire riff, it's really not about building tables. It's not about painting. It's about reconnecting to self and source through

the process of making. When we honor that primal desire to turn raw materials into something beautiful, when we strive not for perfection, but connection, engagement, absorption, and elevation, that deeply experiential and irreverent full mind-body massage that comes from breathing and thinking and sweating and toiling and working something into existence, not just with your mind, with your hands. I need more of that. And if you've listened this far, it's a pretty safe bet. So do you. So my invitation is, will you reconnect with your maker self? And if so, what's the first step that you can take?

Something to think about as we move into a new year, as we reimagine the things that we create and bring into our lives that are the difference makers. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project.