I started my professional career designing high end furniture. While it was generally enjoyable, I had little taste for the corporate world in general. After several years in the industry, my position was eliminated. So much for the supposed rise of the ‘creative class.’ Presented with an opportunity to make a fresh start, I spent a great deal of 2009 searching for what that might be; little did I know it would lead me to a greater understanding of what it means to find meaning in one’s work.
I like to design and build boats more than I like to design furniture (even though I could make a lot more money designing furniture and other things). Both practices overwhelmingly engage my attention and bring great satisfaction, but to me boats are much more meaningful. Not only the building, but also the paddling of small boats, answers to certain ideals I have about human excellence. People who paddle have gotten something right, and I want to put myself in the service of it. (Although that is not to imply that those do no paddle have gotten something wrong.)
My job of building boats that paddle well is subservient to the higher good that is achieved when one of my customers carves a precise line through a rapid, to the point of deliberately heeling a kayak over beyond the gunwale in a perfectly controlled maneuver. This moment of faith, daring, and skill casts an honorable light over my work. I put tremendous effort into my boat designs because I want the paddler to feel their boat truly. Only then can they make the water fully their own. If I am paddling twenty yards behind them, I want to see the confidence they have in the boat I have built, expressed by the ease with which they purposefully paddle through fast water. They are likely to pull away from me; I may find them waiting for me at the next calm section with the recommendation that a bit more rocker is needed, to allow the boat to turn more quickly.
I try to be a good boat designer. This effort connects me to others, in particular to those who epitomize good paddling, because it is they who can best judge how well I have realized the design goals I am aiming for. I wouldn’t even know what those goals are if I didn’t spend time with people who paddle at a much higher level than I, and are therefore more discerning of what is good in a kayak or canoe. So my work situates me in a particular community. The narrow view things I concern myself with are inscribed within a larger circle of meaning; they are in the service of an activity that we recognize as part of a life well lived. This common recognition, which doesn’t need to be spoken, is the basis for a friendship that orients by concrete images of excellence.
