dignity and dirt...

Our society is so fixated on appearances, and so much is missed if we allow ourselves to become judges of others based alone on what we see. I am in Nebraska for my sister's wedding and have been remembering my days working in my father's hardware store. One our our regular customers was a blacksmith. Another operated a salvage yard. The blacksmith, you can imagine, and the operator of the auto salvage yard? You can imagine that as well. Others in the small Nebraska town called him, dirty Louis, but a kinder man could not be found.

One of the great shames of society is that we judge others on appearances alone. There is a tragic divide between those who are willing to become soiled in service to humanity, and those who will not.

"The so-called banausic arts have a bad name, and quite reasonably they are in ill repute in the city-states. For they ruin the bodies of those who work at them and those who oversee them. They compel these men to remain seated (at their desks?) and to work in gloomy places (their cubicles?), and even to spend entire days before a fire (computer screen?). While their bodies are being enervated, their souls, too are becoming much enfeebled. More especially, also, the banausic arts offer men no leisure to devote to their friends or to the state, so that such men become base in relation to their friends and poor defenders of their fatherland. And so in some of the cities, especially in those which are considered to be strong in war, no citizen is permitted to work at any banausic craft." --Socrates (words in parentheses mine)

So be damned what they think of how things may appear. Is there sawdust on your lapel? Wear it with a sense of honor. It is emblematic of courage in the face of falsely presumed ingnominy.

Make, fix and create...