Reply #44: I'm not sure it's a matter of intelligence. I thing that in many cases [View All]

it's just a lack of concern about what goes into things. It often seems like people see only whole objects and do not look more deeply at them. It's a natural thing, I suppose, but it isn't how I approach things. For most everything I own and use, I'm interested in its origins and design, along with the process that it went through and the materials that make it up. I think that's an unusual approach to material objects. I've never really met anyone else who delves into things quite in the same way.

A friend of mine had a strong interest in oriental rugs and collected them. He made a wedding present to my ex-wife and me of one of his rugs. I ended up reading a few books about oriental rugs to learn about them, and finally built a loom and wove one using the same techniques used to make the one I had. It was a small one, and had a design of my own, but used the same techniques. When it was finished, I really understood what went into the rug he had given me. I gave him the small rug I had woven. I'm just weird that way.