Man & Shed
A project to connect to Other People
Substack kindly invites its users to make it easier to be found by indicating a category. In Settings is a Branding section with 28 categories, none of which feel like a good fit for me. ‘Technology’ and ‘U.S. Politics’ are not. ‘Culture’? Culture is not here. ‘Travel’ would be appropriate if one looks at it metaphorically: life is a journey. My category seems to be not a world but a sentence: I am trying to find a feeling of home and belonging in a rural community with which I do not seem to have much in common.
Now, generally, I think that having things in common is hugely overrated. It’s differences that I like. Sartre and I disagree: hell is not other people; hell would be the place where everybody is like me. Luckily, this isn’t a problem anywhere, least of all here.
One of my ex-girlfriends used to call me ‘Hannah the Plannah’ (Planna for short) because I always make plans, unlike more spontaneous persons like herself, who do what comes to them at that moment. But like those who faced a profound dilemma, ask themselves: ‘What would Jesus do?’ In distress, I ask myself: What would Planna do?
Planna, of course, comes up with a Plan. At first, I will resist it as it usually involves other people. It goes against my introverted character to interact too much with them. But I know that listening to Planna is a good thing for me. Especially now that I live not in the city anymore but in a house surrounded by bleak pale green meadows, an icy wind, and not a soul in sight.
My current project is called Man & Shed. The idea is that most people here live as families, man, woman, and often some children. The division of roles is generally straightforward. The children make noise, the woman runs the household, and the man’s domain is the Shed. Man & Shed is where a man can do as he pleases: repair cars, carve wooden birds out of planks, or fiddle with his fishing gear. Stare at the pin-ups on the wall or ignore them. Drink beer. Drill things. Without any nagging from anyone. This is a form of paradise.
So that’s my project for the coming months. I want to take 40 pictures of men in their sheds. And these are the rules - one has to make some rules to play by, I think, to stay somewhat consistent: I use the light there. This usually means little daylight and a few ugly fluorescent tubes. It means upping the ISO, which will mean drab colors, and I must deal with that. Is this a Branding category? Pictures are involved, so I will go for ‘Art & Illustrations.’ And Travel. Because there is a Man & Shed 500 meters from where I sit, and the rest is even further afield.