Do-It-Yourself really speaks for itself. This is really where art takes its course with the plethora of techniques that can be applied. The whip of a hand, the thought of not over-mixing cookie batter, to adding a head tilt to see the view sideways can make all the difference on the answer you get. Depending on your life circumstances and what is accessible to you, doing things yourself can look different but all in all it is an aspect of applying your own creativity and imagination to everyday essentials. This normally means more time goes into doing X,Y, & Z which implies eliminating “conveniences” that are also manmade to aid or rid the process of doing things yourself. And while having conveniences are actually resourceful and nice, they are exactly that, “nice to haves”. So the question is what happens when those things are taken away or not accessible? It all comes down to what can or are you willing to do on your own.
Self-Sufficiency in short is the ability to sufficiently live for yourself as need be. To not forget that everything started from the bottom to get…here. The convenience of putting your clothes in a machine to wash in the same time frame it would take to bend over a bucket and scrub each piece of clothing separately or having a car take you somewhere in 5 minutes that would take you 45 min to an hour to get to on foot or bike. To having the ability to send a message in seconds versus having to wait for an on-foot messenger to pass it down to wait 3 more days to get a reply when a phone and email gets you a reply in an instant. To having a library accessible in your pocket is worth having to walk to the library to get a library card and then only have a limit of books to check out just to get an answer to one or two questions that a search engine like Google can answer in seconds.
The list goes on and on. Learning day in and day out not just to make life simpler and not to be ignorant to the plethora of essentials that paved the way to make things seem like a breeze, but to appreciate life in itself, and what better way to do so than to experience and enjoy the work of art with your own hands. Breaking down how and why things work together, but also how and why they don’t. Being aware of where things comes from and their origin makes all the difference on what you choose to do with it and why only leaving you with a true appreciation for the art of self-sufficiency.
