scale and proportion...

In the legal struggle against SWEPCO, it is amazing the depth that witnesses will go to make their points, even when it comes to deliberate deception. A SWEPCO engineer offered a photographic exhibit attempting to show that even the Buffalo National River has powerlines crossing it. From Google earth you can see the power lines as shown in the photo which he submitted as evidence. But you can also zoom in and see that the pole structures and size of the line are a completly different type and size than that proposed to cross our lands. Can it be that an engineer cannot understand the difference between a power pole that is made of wood and is 60 feet in height and one that is 150 feet tall with a concrete foundation bored 30-40 feet into karst terrane? I've heard that many engineers don't know how to operate a tape measure. But if you can't gauge the proper scale of small things, how can you put larger things into proper perspective?

Is there a point in one's learning that a sense of scale and proportion is no longer necessary to them?

This week we learned of the death of a young friend who took his own life with one of his father's handguns. The note he left said that no one was to blame. I will not point fingers in any one direction. We  do live in a society that is haunted by guns. The illness passes through generations. Fascination with guns is a disease that some of my readers would prefer I not talk about. The claim by some is that guns are just another tool. But not all tools have the same purpose. You don't cut wood with a hammer. And there is a difference between guns which are intended to take life, and the tools that are designed to affirm it. In a culture in which all children and adults found creative redemption in working with hand tools, we would have less depression, less despair, more purposeful lives, in which each found greater meaning and reward. And in that culture, bodies would not be discovered by little sisters, and mothers and fathers would not morn or wonder what they might have done differently to save the life of their child.

It seems like so much resides in the scale and proportion of things. When we work at the smallest possible scale of things, doing our best work, giving it our best shot, we have a greater understanding of large things as well. Salomon had said that if a person could understand the amount of work it took to make a parcel pin, he would have greater appreciation for the amount of work it took to make a table and for the person who made it.  If AEP-SWEPCO engineers had more time invested in making small things as simple as a wooden box, they might also have greater understanding of the implications involved in foisting larger things upon us. And a young man who became infected with his own creative spirit, might be led toward greater sense of self and away from taking his own life.

In the photo above you can see boxes being oiled. I've been sanding them, and applying Danish oil finish. One more coat tomorrow and the installation of linings and they'll be ready for sale.

Make fix and create...