Hands, work, talk

In Detectorists, a hobby seems to be a true calling. Lance and Andy destined to find remains of histories layered underground, but forced to work for a living—in Andy’s case also willing to compromise and build a life with his bolshy-saintly partner Becky. Given this choice of recent viewing, you won’t be surprised to find out I woke up this morning somehow already angry at myself over my lack of a hobby, or at least of one unrelated to language (my house guest this week wisely told me that writing is more embodied when done by hand, and we agreed that it is not so much about thinking as letting something out, so I’m writing the first draft of this with my Leuchtturm Drehgriffel.)

There is an opposition within humanities academic thought between the humble acknowledgement of the limits of evidence, of thought itself, and the fact that we nonetheless spend so much time and energy in our heads, or perhaps pretending to be in our heads (we are only in our bodies always, surely?) The diversion of my friend’s visit during an otherwise busy week of teaching led us to the sauna, where I was convinced of the importance of physical experience. Interestingly, the physical traces of having taught (a reduced desire to speak, noticing extended periods of standing in the soles of my feet) are more satisfyingly physical than the dull pressure behind the eyes and neck pain which follow time exclusively spent researching (or any kind of work sat at a computer).

Alongside my interest in thinking about the things I am going to teach, future/present academic and literary projects, as well as political and cultural current events, I am left longing for activity outside of these bounds. I want to and sometimes do practice ogya, go to the gym, swim, but these are maintenance activities. I also walk, cook and occasionally clean, buy groceries. But I still feel that with my hands I make nothing, my leisure does not produce anything.

An ethnographer visiting our university told me about indigenous women who make pottery in a coastal region close to a major Brazilian city. One of them told her something along the lines of, when I make something with my hands, I feel I can change things, change can happen. At least this is how I remember what she reported of that conversation to me, translated into English, not her native language. Yet these women rely on this work neither because it is traditional, nor perspective-altering—it is a source of income in an economically underdeveloped region.

In decadent and miserable contrast, I didn’t want to create anything with my hands, or commit to creativity of any kind, from as early as a pre-pre-teen phase over twenty years ago, but that desire is returning. The ache in my hand as I was writing the first draft of this was a lesson, but am I ready to engage with it yet? Whether I am or not, living in a nonphysical, abstracted way is beginning to feel untenable. Where me and my guest parted company (not literally, this was just before we got to the sauna) was in his longing for a strict opposition between meditative thinking/writing indoors, and an outdoor existence like Heidegger, who went skiing during the downtime of a conference while everyone else sat around the fire talking. Respecting and admiring this desire for physical action, I remain committed to chat, even as thinking regularly leaves me in a frustrated fog—I am hopeful of weaving a way of living that helps to balance (integrate?) the physical and the mental, and talk is a helpful tool along the way.