Tusindkunstneren -- Jack of all Trades

     En af den moderne tids helt store løgne er, at man kun kan én ting godt. Det er måske sandt, hvis man vil vinde olympisk guld, spille i det kongelige kapel,eller tilsvarende bedrifter.
     Men følger deraf at vi alle sammen skal kunne én ting på eliteniveau?  Eller at hver enkelt af os kun kan mestre én ting? Nej vel.
     Uglemor vover den påstand, at de fleste mennesker ville være gladere og mindre plaget af problemer, hvis de i stedet for at forsøge på at blive den  ... I gamle dage kaldte man den slags mennesker monomane.

Et menneske var indtil for ca. 60 år siden en tusindkunstner.
En husmoder i landbosamfundet skulle kunne:
- lave mad og holde hus med råvarerne, så de strakte vinteren igennem.
- malke, lave tykmælk og ost og kærne smør.
- dyppe lys af tælle og bivoks (bierne var kvindens domæne)
- lave tøj, sengeklæder osv. fra får/hør/nælder via forbehandling over spinding, vævning, syning til tøj
- bage, brød til hverdag og fest. kager.
- brygge øl (måske også brænding)
- sygepleje med viden om de mest almindelige lægekunster og -urter, sårbehandling.
- være bedemand, der klædte og vaskede den afdøde.
- frøsamling og opbevaring.
- undervise børnene i ABC'en
- tage sig af og slagte små husdyr, fjerkræ (dyner)

Husfaderen tog sig af
- markarbejde, også såsæd
- store husdyr især hestene og deres sygdomme
- træ- og læderarbejde.
- redskaber og enkel smedekunst.
- hegn og gærder
- tømrer og tækkearbejder
- religiøs undervisning af husstanden.

Og selv folk med et erhverv, for eksempel smed, præst, møller og skrædder havde i det mindste en stor have og smådyr. 

     Naturligvis kan vi ikke - eller kun med stort besvær leve som bønder eller nybyggere, men Uglemor går meget ind for at følge årstidernes vekslen med de forskellige arbejder. Deraf følger næsten naturligt det spirale organisationsprincip. Og man bliver tvunget til at lære og kunne mere end en ting.

One of the great lies of our time is that you can do only one thing well. While this might be true if you want to win Olympic gold medals, play in the royal philharmonic orchestra or some such feat of strength, it does not automatically hold true for us normal human beings.
     If it did, it would mean, that all of us were meant to do one thing at the elite level. Or that each of us could master one thing only.
     MotherOwl argues that most people would be happier and less bothered by problems if they spread out their interests instead of trying to become a master of one subject - in older days they called such people monomaniacs.


Up until about 50 years ago man was a Jack of all trades. In a farming society, multi-skilled people were the norm, not the exception.

A good housewife should be able to:
- cook and make do with what she had, stretching the food to last through winter.
- milk the cows, make yoghurt and cheese and churn butter.
- make candles and lamps from lard and beeswax (the bees were the woman's domain)
- make clothing, bedclothes etc. from sheep's wool / flax /nettles from raw materials over spinning, weaving, dyeing and sewing.
- make, bread for daily consumption and cakes for holidays.
- brew beer (maybe also distilling spirits)
- care for the sick, using common medical and herbal knowledge.
- wash and dress the deceased for burial.
- harvest and store seeds, herbs and spices
- teach the children their ABC
- take care of and slaughter small livestock, e.g. poultry. 

The husband took care of:
- field work, including seed conservation
- large livestock especially the horses and their diseases
- woodwork and leatherworking
- tools and simple smithing.
- fences and hedges.
- carpenters and thatching, harvesting of reed and straw.
- Religious teaching of the household.

And even if you had a fixed function, smith, priest, miller, tailor etc. you still at least had a big garden and some small animals.
Of course you can not - or only partially - live like pioneers and farmers today but MotherOwl is very much in favour of following the seasons with their variation of things to be done.
Of course, my spiral approach principle follows naturally from doing this.