It Strikes Me Funny: I may have found the perfect job

Because of a June motorcycle trip to Halifax I’ve been trying to save money where I can.

Whenever my wife prepares to leave for an adventure at Costco she wishes me good luck with that.

I’ve also agreed to help build a fence with a home contractor and know it will be hard work.

Recently I came across an interesting paragraph in the book How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman.

It made me feel that, since retirement I’ve become part of a class of people that have roots going back to the beginning of the industrial revolution, and that I should give up hard labour.


["The conscientious observer - will bring my own chair": photo GAH]

In the book, Herman writes about the time when capitalism was blossoming, economic change was happening in startling ways, people were becoming buyers and sellers, customers and suppliers and outputs were growing to gratify people’s needs.

The division of labour produced people who spent more time thinking about improvements - he mentioned engineers like James Watt and scientists and, in the words of Adam Smith, “those whose trade it is not to do anything, but to observe everything.”

I love those words - not to do anything. That’s me.

Observe everything? Give me a small piece of that.

I’d much rather watch someone else build the fence and ply the trade of conscientious observer.

How much should I charge?

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Have Chair Will Travel

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