Person: "Why?"
Me: "You have a silly name. I want to be a baker because I love making food and there's something so fundamental yet complex about bread. It's simple yet difficult. Flour, water, yeast, salt. And yet there's a plethora of varieties and degrees of quality. In it's essence, like many things, bread is life. It's a learned process, that you may never entirely perfect but you strive to anyway. It sustains. There's room for creativity yet there's that way it's always been done. Less philosophically speaking, I want to do something that makes people happy, that is a product of my own labor, that allows me to create, that allows me to own my own business."
Person: Oh ok, that's cool. I'm gonna go change my name now, bye!
So I've been baking and reading up on it and trying my best at beginning the never-ending learning process. I love it. One of my new favorite joys in life is kneading a piece of dough. Che bella! I've been trying to get a job here with one of the bakeries and I've even offered to volunteer or apprentice if they don't have actual openings. So far no luck here, but there's a bakery in Bend called "baked." that I have a chance to apprentice at this coming winter break. If you haven't been there I highly recommend it. It's owned by a guy named Gordon who opened it about a year ago I believe. He's a super nice guy and is basically living my dream. I can't wait to get back home and start some hardcore learning.
Here's baked.'s facebook link http://es-la.fbjs.facebook.com/bakedinbend
If anyone has any requests of breads they'd like me to make for them, I'm willing to give it a shot. I don't claim to be an amazing baker yet, but I wanna try things as much as I can. Anyway, I'm super excited to start this adventure of many.
I also left off last entry talking about vocation. Coincidentally I've been reading a bit of Marx and some anarchist pieces in my Social and Political philosophy class so I wanted to follow up on that. It's rather interesting what the communist and anarchist movements actually claim themselves to be and how they are predominantly received or carried out in reality. They are strikingly similar philosophies and have very valuable intentions and core beliefs. I don't really wish to get into their major social doctrines but there were sections in each of the pieces I read that really spoke to me. Both stress a decentralization of state power, which I've always been a fan of, but in terms of labor they have what I feel are words of wisdom. Each stress the problem with the current form of labor. The form in which we are generally cogs in a means of production. The worker is rarely attached to his/her work, but simply does it for the monetary worth of it. Trading time for money essentially. Both Marx and Goldman (the anarchist writer I read) find this highly problematic. As do I. That's not to say that everyone is subjected to what they call "estrangement" of labor, but a majority accept this trade of time for money as inevitable. Rather than provide one's own means, society generally provides an abundance for all and accept what is given to them unwittingly. There is therefore no attachment to their own labor or income. The complete opposite of VOCATION. Particularly in anarchist society, the ideal is a culture in which you produce what you need and do what you want because you are connected to your labor. Now, I don't claim that this sort of society is realistically possible for everyone in our current state, but I feel that this goal of vocation and providing for oneself is goal to at least strive for. And this is also not to say I'm an anarchist or communist, but these concepts have at their core an entrepreneurial spirit of life and work that I find highly appealing. This concept of self-reliance (also explored by Emerson) is one I've always associated with but we often live in a culture of total societal-reliance. And I'll leave this topic for my next post. But in the end, I do see problems with current society. A culture that allows themselves to trade time for money with no care as to what, why, and how they produce and receive. I don't mean to say that any group or culture is "wrong" or "stupid" or anything negative, but that they are simply caught up in a snowball of...well I'm not sure what kind of snowball, but an evolved and seemingly misguided state of self comprehension. I apologize for this dense rant, and I promise lighter, less philosophical subjects to come.
Next entry will include: Self-reliance/gardening/travel/something light.
And to lighten this entry up I offer you the gift of amusing drawings.
Abbiate un buon giorno!
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