#1330 - bladesmiths and bricklayers
One of the weird ways I like to spend my free time is watching videos on youtube from a program called Forged in Fire. It's a competition where amateur bladesmiths do their best to recreate some of history's most iconic edged weapons.
It amazes me how hard it is for the participants to reach the same quality of ancient craft despite having more modern tools.
It is the same feeling I experience when I admire historic buildings from the Roman Empire era still standing beside modern constructions that show signs of decadence after a few decades. I mean, the Verona Arena was built in 30 AD and is still in use today. My high school was only a few decades old when I attended it, and it was already falling in pieces, and now it is gone. And I mean, the science of materials and the tools we have to build stuff is way more advanced than two thousand years ago.
Recently, scientists discovered that Roman concrete was able to self-repair cracks.
Isn't that amazing? And maybe also a bit unsettling?
I don't believe we are going backwards. The things we can do now were just unimaginable a century ago.
But maybe, and this is just a personal reflection, the attention we put on speed is getting in the way of the quality of our craft. As nature teaches us, some things take time. Maybe, our ancestors were less worried about getting things done quickly and more about creating things that could outlast them.
Just a thought.