The Tale of Two Carpenters

One day in 1939, two carpenters were building a house in the middle of a wide-open field. Each carpenter carried his tools in a big wooden toolbox. While they were eating lunch, the field caught on fire and burned one of the toolboxes, partially damaging the wood handled tools inside. One carpenter said to the other, “This Julys been awfully hot. Fires have been popping up all over the state. I bet we can do most of the work with just my tools.” So they cut their losses and finished the house with the tools they had.

One day in 2009, two carpenters were building a house in the middle of a wide-open field. One carpenter, in the spirit of the past, decided to use his grandfather’s old toolbox. Yes, it was rusty and worn and the tools were well beyond dilapidated, but he knew the toolbox and the tools inside were true. They had built his home, they and his grandfathers’ hands. It was the home that withstood his childhood, standing strong to this day. The other carpenter wasn’t into sentiment, and used a modern toolbox mostly made of plastic and metal. While they were eating lunch, the field caught on fire and burned the wooden toolbox, destroying the already weathered tools inside. The carpenter laughed at the antique remains, “I told you that old wooden toolbox was a waste of time. Now we’re only going to get half the work done, and in double the time. That’s what you get for your sentimental malarkey.” Eventually the smart mouthed carpenter quit the job, leaving the other carpenter to finish the house on his own.

The moral of the story is two-fold. First, with fewer commodities and harder work required, we learn more and are sharpened as people. Convenience is too shady a trap, yielding quicker results, lazier work ethics, and sub par quality. Where convenience was intended to compliment time, it had no intention of enriching the substance of people. Lastly, we may advance as a culture, in intellect, technology, and knowledge, but that does not mean we are allowed to lose our compassion along the way. Furthermore, though the times do change, that does not concede the right to forget what morals and care have taught us since the beginning of the world. People have grown accustomed to changing their values as humanity changes its costume. I am one to believe some things are worth holding onto, no matter what. Progression as a culture is a shady mix between voluntary and involuntary, some would even say vital, others would argue to tread forward only with extreme caution, but for either stance – regression as humans gets us nowhere, it even leads us down.