One of the things that people don’t realize in modern life is just how much physical labor it took to live back when things didn’t just appear at the flick of a switch.
Heat, for example. It’s all well to turn a knob or push a button, but out here we have wood heat. Firewood. And that takes up a rather large portion of my summer. Taking down trees. Cutting them into rounds. Stacking those rounds to season. Then splitting the seasoned rounds and stacking it for this winter. I’m not working on this year’s firewood, I’m working on next year’s firewood. This year’s firewood was worked on last year.
And this is how homes used to be heated all over the country. It forces you to plan. It forces you to WORK. It forces you to think ahead.
I don’t want to be one of those “Old man yells at clouds” type of people, but just looking at modern life, the kids today have to put out far less effort than the kids of my generation. Everything is automated. Everything is electric. Hell, there’s electric bikes and electric scooters.
Electric bikes. I pedaled my ass off when I was a teen. I still have the legs left over from decades of two-wheeled transportation. But now kids can just hop on a bike, give it a few pushes and then the electric motor takes off.
The problem with all of this is that the human body needs strain. The human brain needs to feel pushed. Humanity requires a struggle. Without some form of adversity in your life, you don’t grow. You will never know what you’re capable of if you’re not forced to deal with a challenge.
As I deal with a few challenges in my own life, I keep hearing that in my head. Challenges push growth.
And cutting firewood keeps me in shape.
