Last weekend, we had the pleasure of going to a house-raising. Our friend, who designs and builds traditional timber-framed homes, had taken several months to design and pre-cut the entire frame for their new house. They invited all their friends to come for one day to help "raise" the frame. Imagine 25 people working in tandem lifting, pulling on ropes, pounding sledgehammers and levering prybars to move huge wooden posts and beams - a job for which they usually hire cranes! And to top it off, the frame itself is held together with not a single nail. It all fits together like a highly-elaborate Tinkertoy, secured with wooded pegs that are pounded in with hammers.
I was enthralled to watch it all come together, step by step, every piece fitting into the next piece, sometimes with the persuasion of a sledge or a prybar. The only exception was one piece that had to be sawed down by a couple of inches to fit, which was discovered only after one of the heaviest beams had been lifted into place. And even then, what a wonder to see the problem-solving and teamwork happening on the spot! I learned that day, that a community can raise a house in a day - something that I never realised possible - and have a lot of fun doing it!
At one time in history, when human labour was more scarce than natural resources, we grew our economies based on an abundance of resources like wood and fossil fuels. However, now that our natural resources are becoming more scarce and there are plenty of people available to work, it makes sense to use fewer resources and more people to do the job. This is part of the idea of "natural capitalism" (from the book with the same name by Hawkens, Lovins and Lovins). With the help of 40 or 50 people over the course of a day, we replaced the use of a crane and the fossil fuel it would have taken to power it.
Imagine if we could build buildings while employing 5 or 10 times more people and creating a culture of mutual helping. Sound utopian? Some of you may have heard the term "barn-raising"; in the "old days", people got together as a community to help put up each other's barns and houses. This was the way it was done before. We'll help you and you'll help us, and off we'll go exchanging more goods and services.
The more I learn about simple and traditional ways of living, the more inspired I feel! It helps to know that I can begin to meet my needs for survival and physical comfort while connecting with friends, developing community, learning new skills and having fun :)
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