There's a particular satisfaction that comes from fixing something with your hands. A leaky faucet, a broken chair, a car that won't start. The problem is concrete. The solution is concrete. When you're done, the thing works, and you made it work. No one has to validate your contribution. The faucet doesn't leak anymore. That's the validation.

Most modern work doesn't feel like this. Knowledge work is abstracted from physical reality. You move symbols around on screens. You attend meetings about meetings. You produce documents that produce other documents. At the end of the day, it's hard to point to anything and say, "I made that." The work is real, presumably, but it doesn't feel real in the way that a repaired faucet feels real.

Matthew Crawford, a philosopher who left a think tank to open a motorcycle repair shop, wrote about this in his book Shop Class as Soulcraft. His argument is that the trades offer something white-collar work often doesn't: a direct encounter with reality. The motorcycle either runs or it doesn't. The diagnosis is either right or wrong. There's no spin, no politics, no managing perceptions. Just the thing and your ability to fix it.

This isn't nostalgia for a simpler time. Crawford's point is psychological, not economic. Human beings need to feel competent. We need to see the results of our efforts. We need to encounter resistance and overcome it. The trades provide this in a way that much knowledge work doesn't. The electrician who wires a house can drive by it years later and say, "I did that." The consultant who produced a strategy deck cannot.

There's also something about working with your hands that engages the whole person. The body is involved, not just the mind. The senses are engaged: the smell of sawdust, the feel of metal, the sound of an engine turning over. This integration of mind and body is increasingly rare. Most of us spend our days in a kind of disembodied state, staring at screens, our bodies just vehicles for transporting our eyes to the next meeting.

The decline of shop class in American schools is part of this story. A generation ago, most students took some form of vocational education. They learned to use tools, to build things, to fix things. This wasn't just job training. It was a form of education that engaged different capacities than academic work. The student who struggled with algebra might excel at woodworking. The student who couldn't sit still might thrive when given something to do with their hands.

We decided, collectively, that this kind of education was less valuable than academic preparation. Everyone should go to college. The trades were for people who couldn't make it in the knowledge economy. The result is a generation that can analyze a spreadsheet but can't change a tire. That can write a memo but can't fix a leaky faucet. That has credentials but not competence, at least not the kind of competence you can point to and say, "I made that work."

This has economic consequences. There's a shortage of skilled tradespeople, and the ones who exist can charge accordingly. The plumber often makes more than the middle manager. But the consequences go beyond economics. There's a psychological cost to never making anything, never fixing anything, never encountering the resistance of physical reality and overcoming it.

The fix isn't for everyone to become a carpenter. The fix is to recognize that working with your hands is not a lesser form of work. It's a different form, and it provides something that abstract work often can't. If your job is entirely symbolic, entirely abstracted from physical reality, you might need to find that encounter elsewhere. A hobby that involves making things. A home repair you do yourself instead of hiring out. A garden, a workshop, a kitchen where you cook real food from raw ingredients.

The dignity of craft is not about the craft itself. It's about the relationship between the person and the work. When you make something, fix something, grow something, you participate in reality in a way that spreadsheets and slide decks don't allow. You encounter limits. You develop skill. You see the results of your effort, and the results are real.

That's not a small thing. In a world of abstraction, the concrete is a kind of anchor. It reminds you that you have a body, that the physical world exists, that competence is possible and visible and yours. The faucet doesn't leak anymore. You did that. No one can take it away.