Critically Endangered | On Having Hobbies and a Soul

Life is short, but it is wide. A Tumblr post about glassblowers spirals into a bigger conversation about threateningly endangered crafts, stuffy corporate lives and new creative ideas. Sometimes, “doing the hard thing” may be the prompt to reclaim our humanity.

Contact: hellomangomoe@gmail.com 

Intro/outro music credit:   

• Title: "feeling happy today [upbeat happy beat]
• Artist: snoozy beats
• Source: Free Music Archive 
• License type: CC BY

Transcript

Speaker 0:02

Hello everyone. Welcome to The Gossip Practice, a thoughtful take on talks as a tool for reading between life's lines. I'm your host, Moe. Every episode is another interesting story I've come across. Here, we merge a sort of amateur investigative journalism with fun thoughts and opinions. It's gossip as a lens for how we relate. Thanks in advance for listening. Today, I remember the year of our universe, 2011 and 2012, when a humble platform named Tumblr kissed upon my forehead everything I wanted and more with my mutuals and my long-distance friends. One, edgy fashion with Hello Kitty bow 3D glasses and Doc Martens. Two, underground music like The Arctic Monkeys plastered everywhere. And three, the humble beginnings of my crying for strangers on the internet. Sadly for KONY 2012, hashtag never forget, and kindly for promposals and LDR airport reunions. Tumblr, although I haven't used it since maybe 2019, I understand is maybe more or less the same, but also overshadowed by other platforms like Substack and Instagram. On Instagram, folks definitely do still love to post screenshots of reblogs of Tumblr posts. It's like, how far away from the original platform can you get? Let's see. I recently saw a post where the Tumblr thread originates to a user named papayajuan 2019. Speaking of the fact I haven't been on the platform since 2019, by the way, who says, "The world is running out of glassblowers and yet you want to become a fucking doctor." I followed the play-by-play of this conversation by different users dissecting the fact that we have endangered hobbies on this earth. Not just hobbies, but also threateningly endangered jobs that do indeed affect us today, especially as we operate on autopilot on our days, because anything that is inconvenient to our time or methods of paying bills are being farther and farther outsourced to the point where we don't even think about certain processes often, or ever, and where they come from. We don't even consider how everything is a link or chain back to why our comfort or current technology even exists. What's an example? A user says when they were in a university physics class, the professor allowed use of a device that measures gravity. This tool was said to have cost the university $16,000. Not only is it that expensive, but also the only, I repeat, only glassblower in the world who had the knowledge, skill set and ability to produce the glass springs inside of this device passed away, so the device is literally irreplaceable. So, go have fun! Do your assignment! La -di-da. I would be mortified in this seat. And I am mortified visualizing being in this seat by reading this online. Sidebar Honesty Hour: I don't claim to have 100,000% correct details on this podcast. I'm just a simple dude who picks up scents on stories and wants to talk about it. Perhaps if this project grows in the future and I can make a living off of this, would I then maybe do my due diligence of contacting people online for further details and thoughts? But again, I don't claim to be too responsible. For the sake of conversation, imagine me as your youngest sibling who is sharing at the dinner table after our meal and dessert are long gone. This is, after all, the gossip practice. Accurate or not, this single post did rock my shit, and now we're talking about it. Back on track. The UK has a website of noting their endangered crafts lists. Cool of them to record, yet sad of the fact of our worldly resources and timelines to prompt such a list. Still, heritagecrafts.org.uk defines the following. Critically endangered. These are crafts at serious risk of no longer being practiced in the UK. This may include a shrinking base of craftspeople, having limited crafts training opportunities, low financial viability to participate within, or no mechanism to pass on the skills or knowledge required. At this time of recording, there are 71 examples of critically endangered crafts in the UK: musical bow making, chain making, clay pipe making, diamond cutting, fabric pleating, fan making, concert flute making, and more. That last one surprises me and makes me at the very least want to dust off my flute that I last played in 2018 to feel something. Even if I can't create it at this moment, at least I can use what I have and appreciate it without further rusting in its case. Oh, seriously. I can't believe I let my then oboist friend leave her reed in my case. Because when I was curious about my flute in 2020, I unfortunately opened her up to see tarnish and rust everywhere after I took such great care of her since our meeting in 2010. C'est la vie, again, if I can't create a flute, which I especially can't, and flute making is apparently one of the 71 critically endangered crafts in the UK, at least, at least I can still take advantage of what remains of her and still keep good care of her and all that jazz. The fact that a product is so niche, so specific, and therefore should not die because it was valued and is being actively used, yet it will become extinct regardless simply because no one else followed suit to carry on its life or provide more life within the products of siblings? That's just wild. Also, what's to say about the sole person within any given critically endangered hobby's health? I'm sure they know they're alone. Do they hold out hope for someone else to take interest so they can teach them fully? Do they even have the capacity to teach anyone new should they volunteer, or are they simply doomed to work and pass on solo? Are the storage and passage of their knowledge available at all? And if so, are these scenarios too burdensome? The medical TV show The Pitt showcases this dilemma. Our main character, Dr. Robby, obviously deteriorates under the weight of feeling like he holds that emergency room together, while also grappling with the idea that the emergency room holds him together, of course. To clearly state, this is not a conversation on needing less people taking on quote unquote popular jobs, like doctors, to pick up something niche per se. I think we do need more emergency responders or even emergency responders who can do great empathetic work. Blue-collar work, too. I'd love to see more skilled trades workers in general, but especially people who can meet whole communities of people where they are without being apprehensive to typically male-dominated work. I haven't been there yet, but this also reminds me of Mechanista, the nonprofit auto shop in Ravenswood, Chicago, designed to make car care more inclusive for non-cis men. More groups like this! More leaders with these focuses! This is definitely needed. Yes; the more doctors, nurses, EMTs, firefighters, mechanics, plumbers, etc. etc. et cetera. The more of them at all, and the more diverse they are, we would live in such a beautiful life. So, no, I'm not saying we need less of these. We need not to shy away from popularity or traditional expectations if anyone has a true interest and passion in said trades. However, comma, this is a conversation of steering away from the corporate life and what feels like made-up jobs to do capitalism's dirty work for itself. Why do so many people dream of starting yet another tech startup? What is there to start up? Only to sell to a corporation or other entrepreneurs and be set for life individually? Do the tech founders even know what to do with that money? Will they maybe pick up a disappearing craft to keep alive once they're sold out, or what's it called? Uh, bought out once they are the sell out? Probably not. I don't fault anyone who may interpret the idea of life being short as therefore needing to secure a standard of comfort to enjoy what they can in this time. But if you, my dear listener, think this way, may I also present to you life is short, but it is wide. A quote I would love to get tattooed on me with my brother sometime is a reminder to "do the hard thing." It is easy to see life is short, but it is hard to see it as wide. It is easy to get jobs that people are conditioned to want to get, jobs that have funding and opportunities readily available. It is hard to explore anything else. It is hard to navigate low funding, steep learning curves, and being different. I myself am not absolved of this line of thinking either. I am a product of our capitalistic society where I graduated high school, graduated with a degree from a flagship university that I worked really hard for, yes, and am now working in a stuffy office job that pays my bills too well, where it makes me question my daily fulfillment. Even though I feel I've already derived from defaults enough to engage in more life than what is bestowed upon me, my life is still quite taxing with mundane work, making it harder for me to choose to create, which further manifests itself in anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. That's why I'm starting this project for myself. That's why I'm encouraging not only you, but also me to walk the walk, instead of still talking the talk on social media until we die. That's also why philosophies of creative recovery journeys, such as The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, encourage us to write daily, because writing is as important as pooping when it comes to functioning on. My instructor for my usual hip-hop dance class once even said to us this sentiment. It's understandable if today felt harder than last week, even if last week felt easier for once. It may be an indicator that some of you may only dance once a week during this one-hour class. I get it. It makes sense. Why? Because you breathe more than you dance. If you really want to make dance a more present outlet for yourself, if you need it to really release your energy, if you really want to learn about yourself and grow through dance, you need to dance more. You need to move your body as often as you can get to breathing. That's how you'll really change the tides of your life. Whew! Chills on my body recapping this memory for you all here. Oh my goodness. You breathe more than you dance. You breathe more than you write. You breathe more than you can learn how to knit, how to blow glass, how to fire a kiln full of pottery pieces. No wonder you may be so-called bad at it. No wonder you may convince yourself out of the price tag of a limited series class. And no wonder you are discouraged from refining your skills as an actor, musician, producer, director, light technician and more. We were boxed into existing. We were made to enjoy the products of creative pursuits, to make more enjoyable what little free time we have. However, we were not honestly supported to do the hard thing, take the difficult path in life that is being the arts. We have been lied to in thinking that imagination is only granted to those who have "made it." And I'm doing air quotes here, "made it." Retiring at 65 or older to finally enjoy life is a lie. You can indeed imagine and live more than merely existing well before then. You do not need to be well rested first. You do not need certain assets first. It all instead starts with your commitment to yourself, your gentle reminder to yourself, to look around. To notice the faces of those around you, to notice what fabrics feel like on your body, to notice what and when the tree outside your space actually blooms throughout the year. I haven't first-hand consumed much personal development content like the Simon Sinek's and whatnot of the world, but my fiance has, and [he] has previously recapped Jim Collins' idea from the book Good to Great, that you must be ready to accept what you're truly good at and to do it. Don't do what you want to do, do what you're good at. In my fiancé's recap to me, he says other folks have shared similar sentiments, but it's the quote-unquote "hedgehog concept" that Jim Collins coined as the official phrase for this. Off to the side, should your preconceived notion of being a B2B sales professional should go. Enter stage right, the thing you've discovered you're actually naturally good at. Why? Seriously, I'm on my soapbox. Hello! Create! Create if only to convince yourself that you are experiencing being human for the first time. For the rest of time. I don't care if you have a routine. Your routine should not alienate you to the construct that is time. Your routine should liberate you within yourself. Today is a day you have not met yet, which already throws the idea of routine into the trash. If you are listening to this in the evening, well, hello. Also introducing the second half of your day. I believe in the power of taking the day in sections. As many tiny little sections as you need, separated by a deep breath and a commitment to being present. So long as the whole day is not thrown away in vain, in fear, in pain. By the way, this is coming from me, somebody who loves routine, loves planning out my weeks and days and all that jazz, and I'm not really too knowledgeable in astrology, but for my spiritual friends listening, I'm a Cancer, double Capricorn. So whatever that tells you, like routine is me. I am routine. But what I'm saying is you should not let your routine isolate you and have you exist and operate on this island that is so far away from everything and everyone that you know and love. I know someone, 44 years old, living life for the first time as a liberated woman away from a relationship that kept her too small. She's taken up dancing for the first time and has met new people through dance who fill her cup to make her feel she's younger and able to live life for her own again. Someone else in my life, 27, designs his own posters where he merges his favorite photo and song lyric from artists, then prints these personal files to large 24 by 32 inch posters, and rotates artists within his space every month. About three at a time. Having a creative outlet can look like this. It can also look like picking a flower off the road to add to your dining table, using those stickers you've been hoarding to send snail mail to loved ones, taking a different route than usual to work, remembering something nice about your usual bus driver and working it into conversation. Maybe also actually lighting the candles that you've kept in storage forever and a day. Anything. The point is our bodies are begging for us to engage in any creative outlet sooner than later. I've come across this idea lately across social media. Every old person remembers what it's like to be young, yet no young person knows what it's like to be old. I am relishing in my youth by visualizing what my older decades selves' points of pride may be, and therefore carrying them out now with what little resources and responsibility I have now may be compared to later. Sure, I'm already in my mid-20s. But also, I'm only in my mid-20s. That's beautiful. Aging will be a privilege, and in the meantime, I will not mourn what I may have missed out on when even younger than today, but instead living in the now. Sure, I never did take an official dance class until my early 20s in Chicago. But, one, I did learn choreographies in my friend's living room from slowed-down YouTube videos at 14 years old. And two, I somehow made it to world of dance in 2024 by simply showing up. I was not as objectively skilled as other older tenured dancers, but I consistently showed up, made friends around me, stayed honest about my desire to be there and how, and there I was, on stage in front of many, many people. Long story short, do the thing. Look around. Comment or email me your thoughts. What is your primary hobby these days? When was the last time you questioned an everyday routine of yours and who is involved in the creation of your routine's tools? For example, I'm thinking about the scientific crafts and tools that opened up this whole episode, you know, that whole Tumblr story. Can you ask to shadow someone over their job or hobby for a day, even a season? What can you commit to for a single hour this upcoming week to learn something new? Just 60 minutes, that's all. If you enjoyed today's chat, please do send it with a friend to extrapolate further and give me a follow or comment on your preferred listening platform. Not only am I available on my Buzzsprout website, but also that means I'm on major listening platforms like Spotify and Apple now. I really do think we're better when we talk, and I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, XO, Moe.