"Rob Stokes" wrote in message:

Don't discount the strength of a natural challenge; it's been the father of
the majority of the world we know today and continues to be thr driving
force behind the very payckecks many people spend in an attempt to re-find
their roots.

The strength of natural challenge is, of course, a viable force; most
evident in the proliferation of sports; what caused me climb to the
top of a redwood tree. For root cause, however, I perceive the force
of living trade, to work wood or metal or soil, to be an immanent
force of man's nature; an applied subconscious mental event with no
connection to historical fact.

The Craftsman's natural ability for improvement is spawned from many core
ideals however the prime mover for improvment, as it is in so many cases, is
the efficiencies needed to compete with those who are on a like quest. These
efficiencies are found in both time and materials resulting in lower cost,
larger profit or perhaps both.

Profit as a motivational force does more to negate the propagation of
living trade than to reinforce man's knowledge and understanding of
the basic material. Industrialization induces a narrow view of the
trade subject; while, the introduction of modern machines, which
require modern materials, separates man from the perception of his own
potential.

to realize these gains have themselves taken a life or pride where product
produced by those who excel above the basic need for feed is measured in the
fineness of the skills required to make the product efficient in the first
place.

I am not sure what you mean here, but let's emphasize skill.
Demonstrable skill is individual expertise with tool and technique,
where a man's common sense and manual dexterity will prevail; whereas,
production efficiency is a mental exercise, knowing what you want to
build and planning each step well in advance of your feet; this, too,
is cumulative skill, most evident in the finished product, but
undoubtedly the least appreciated.

The quest for happiness begins at the acceptance of wisdom.

Well, you're talking to the guy who has been accused of being a legend
in his own mind on this very thread; I suppose my accepted wisdom is
not to be overly wise in approaching living trade. No man is the
master; working wood is an infinite phenomenon, the more you know the
more you realize you know very little. But, I perceive the pursuit of
living trade to be a life's journey.

but is this not the very meaning of circuitous technology?
And man is the greatest threat to the very technology that sets him apart in
the way. Ironic isn't it?

Ironic, indeed, if you define circuitous as a neanderphobe with more
planes then brains. The problem with today's technology is that
innovation is the provenance of machine and tool manufacturers,
computer science, and the industrial complex...none, of whom, work
wood.
Two decades ago, I located shelf standard products that would have
provided retrofit to the standard tablesaw for numerical control of
fence and the height/angle adjustments of the blade...for less than a
thousand dollars. Yet, today, no standard tablesaw, at any price, is
fitted for these basic functions.
Still, the most intricate detail in wood can only be accomplished with
a single edge of steel...

In this there is peace.

A man in pursuit of living trade is at peace. You might peruse the
Four Ages in the Metamorphoses of Ovid for the effects of technology
on man's peace from the man who lived his trade two-thousand years
ago.
In defining living trade, and bringing to light the underlying
resource that is the driving force of living trade, perhaps, we may
witness a renaissance in man's inherent capability to work wood...
As always, Rob, you have provided opportunity...thank you.