To find focus and calm, try working with your hands

By Dan Sheehan

February 23, 2022

Today we have an essay from novelist Dan Sheehan, discussing the power of craftwork and making things with your hands as a portal into meditation and calm. But first, if you aren't subscribed to The Distance, please sign up here. Now, here’s Dan:

I started woodcarving about six months into the pandemic. I bought a few blocks of red cedar wood, a small knife and gouge, and a packet of 100-grit sandpaper, and I began to carve a crude, Fudgie the Whale-esque leviathan.

It took several hours over the course of several days, and drew no small amount of blood, but the end result was, indeed, a whale. Or, more accurately, an impatient preschooler’s drawing of a whale, as it might look if it were run through a faltering 3D printer. The tail was uneven, the eyes and mouth oddly positioned, and the overall dimensions more than a little askew, but there was no mistaking the creature for anything but a whale.

Delighted with myself, marveling at my heretofore undiscovered artistic prowess, I gave the wobbly little guy pride of place on the bookshelf, where he still happily resides.

Up until that point, my lockdown recreation, such as it was, consisted of laboring through 5k runs in the park near my home every other evening, and submitting to the emotionally manipulative language-learning demands of the Duolingo owl before bed. It’s not that I disliked these activities, or that I was bored with them. Rather, it was that they fell into two distinctly functional categories — exercise and education — and there was something a little, well, soulless about the way I participated in them.

I was always frantically multi-tasking, trying to optimize my allocated hobby hour, clumsily smuggling work into play, and vice versa. While out running, I would listen to podcasts on 1.5x speed, glance incessantly at my social media feeds, and even fire off a few texts if the path ahead was clear. While practicing my verb tenses for that tyrannical owl, there’d always be a television on mute in the background, or an open laptop at my elbow, or an impatient dog straining his leash at my side. No activity offered me much space for contemplation or reflection — for calm — which was unfortunate because, at that particular point in my life, I could really have benefitted from some.

In those early Covid days, my wife and I were living in Wyoming, preparing to move to Texas, and trying to decide what the future would, or should, look like.

How did we feel about our careers? Would we have a child and, if so, when? (A year and a half later, as it would turn out; our first is due this March.) Would we stay in Texas when her job was finished or move back to New York (where we had met and lived for seven years) or Wyoming (where we’d been cocooning in relative solitude) or Ireland (where I’m from and which had, as the grim pandemic months rolled by, begun to feel very far away)?

“I was drifting through the days with my head inside a familiar cloud of low-key anxiety — the one that regularly accompanies a looming deadline — except that, in this case, the release valve of incremental progress was nowhere to be found.”

These were all large, somewhat daunting questions, and it felt like I was spending a lot of time recognizing their gravity, but very little time actually thinking them through. I was drifting through the days with my head inside a familiar cloud of low-key anxiety — the one that regularly accompanies a looming deadline — except that, in this case, the release valve of incremental progress was nowhere to be found.

“Crafting can help those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain,” suggests a 2015 CNN report detailing the myriad neurological benefits of picking up a pair of knitting needles or breaking out the potter’s wheel. “It may also ease stress, increase happiness and protect the brain from damage caused by aging.”

I must admit that the potential therapeutic aspects of my new hobby — improving cognitive function, increasing dopamine production, fostering a temporary state of Zen through repetitive action — didn’t really occur to me as I was embarking upon it. Between my computer-heavy day job, a new novel draft, and the general malaise of the lockdown, my screen time had risen to alarming, almost migraine-inducing levels, and I just wanted to give my eyes, and my brain, a break, if only for a few waking hours a week.

Beyond that, I had for some time been quietly incubating a fantasy of making my child’s first toys — having a small menagerie of simple block animals ready to present by the time this eventual baby turned one. (In the fantasy, once the kid ages out of toddler fare, we move on to anthropomorphic bowling pins, then a custom chess set, and after that, who knows? Maybe a working trebuchet. I’m told they grow up so fast.)

So, when I picked up carving as a new pastime, I had fully expected to enjoy the act of creating something tangible with my hands, to feel smugly satisfied by my furlough from the digital realm, and, at the end of that first session, when I rose from my makeshift workbench to stretch out my hunched-up body, I was. But there was something else there, too, something I hadn’t anticipated — a wonderful feeling of tranquility that hasn’t diminished in the year or more since. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it ataraxia — that yearned-for state of utter serenity — but it’s probably as close to the sensation as I’m ever likely to get.

Whenever I'm methodically carving or gouging or sanding a block of wood, attempting to make it resemble a stoic camel or bashful elephant, I'm not doomscrolling Twitter, or catching up on work emails, or half-following a basketball game. I'm not filling the dishwasher or walking the dog or even people-watching. All I'm doing is removing small slivers from a bigger whole, and letting my mind roam or settle as it will. Sometimes it feels like I’ve wandered into a glade of clarity on a bedeviling issue I hadn’t even realized I’d been thinking about. More often an entire hour slips by without a single conscious thought entering my mind.

But always there’s that tremendous sense of calm.

It’s a small discovery, unlikely to clarify or quieten all of my worries about the future, but in this extended period of tumult, of seemingly endless uncertainty, it feels like a gift.

Dan Sheehan is the Book Marks editor-in-chief at Lit Hub and the author of the novel Restless Souls.

Oregano Sin

Alex writes:

Over the past decade or so, it’s become one of the Internet's favorite diversions to discuss the boundaries and margins of acceptable food-related beliefs and behavior. For instance, Twitter was briefly divided on the fiercely contended question, Is a hot dog a sandwich? (A debate that later spawned “The Cube Rule,” a supposedly definitive methodology for categorizing meals.)

Or maybe your food crime is much more personal: a private indulgence — blinds drawn! — wherein an exotic condiment encounters an unlikely host, a union unsanctioned by the rules and conventions of polite society…. Personally, I’ve heard tales of an aunt who dresses her ice cream with mustard. Or, as a more reasonable example, my wife will stir up some rice, canned tuna, avocado, and, yes, dijon, as a go-to meal.

Just a few months ago, The Distance’s own article about the marshmallow test resulted in a rather vicious(!) debate among our editorial staff about whether a simple, room-temperature marshmallow could be considered an appetizing snack.

Rarely are these discussions accompanied by hard data or any compelling sense of authority. However, a recent survey by data journalists at YouGov gives us exactly that, as they’ve polled respondents in 17 countries regarding their opinions on different behaviors with and around Italian food, and then ranked them based on the ones Italians themselves consider acceptable. (Of 19 “acts,” Italians only lend their blessing to four. Hongkongers, meanwhile, approve of them all.)

Among Americans, the biggest divergence from their Italian counterparts was on the question of whether garlic bread should be served with pasta (Americans say yes, but Italians balk), while the crimes that were most widely condemned were putting ketchup on pasta and, interestingly, strategies for boiling it (you should not forget to add salt and you should not use cold water). Everybody agrees pizza is good for lunch. (Naturally.)

But maybe we shouldn't be so quick to pass judgment. Experimentation (and, yes, the occasional “yuck”) are all part of the long-term process of evolving cuisine. David Chang’s documentary series Ugly Delicious is a fascinating look at how specific dishes are riffed upon and reimagined across the globe, while the restaurants of legendary chef Thomas Keller (the professional advisor for Pixar’s Ratatouille, whose resumé is spangled with Michelin stars) traditionally kick off meals with Keller’s signature salmon tartare “ice cream cones.” History has shown again and again that delicious treats are the reward for breaking a few rules.

Just don’t put Heinz on your ravioli, for the love of god.

Any favorite food crimes of your own? Any strongly held cuisine convictions?
Write to us at TheDistance@fundrise.com.

What you're saying:

Some readers wrote in with thoughtful feedback related to our secondary article about trends in dating and the entertainment that accompanies them:

Roger Weatherall: “Deciding who to date based on their conversational appeal is better than basing a decision on how they look, but it’s not going to guarantee a lasting relationship. In my experience, most of us are looking for a person who is like us, or can entertain us… and even that doesn’t guarantee a long-term, growing relationship. People change over time, and a commitment to grow and change together as a couple is the foundation of real love.”

Christopher Benedetto: “Dating apps and the almighty algorithm are the most toxic, counterintuitive thing to happen to dating. Take OKCupid for example: The questions it uses as prompts are skewed in such a way as to prey on people’s fear of being rejected by the tribe — it completely disincentivizes anything that resembles emotional authenticity or intellectual integrity.”

Thanks for reading! Take a moment to share this week’s edition of The Distance with your friends and family on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Keep the emails coming!

We love to hear from you: TheDistance@fundrise.com

See you in the future!

The Distance is supported by Fundrise, edited by Alex Slotnick, and produced by Katie Valavanis and Brett Wilson, with help from Caitlin Daitch and Motasem Halawani. Our design director is Erin Culliney.