Oh, that I were born handy.
Some people are, I want to think, even as I know they are not.
There may be innate tendencies toward handiness—but there’s no a priori knowledge. No one leaves the womb knowing how to hold a hammer.
So I can’t lay the blame for my lack of handiness on the doorstep of genetics.
It seems to be more a matter of experience, or lack thereof.
In other words, one becomes handy by becoming handy. You pick up a tool and you use it. You fix something. Or you hang a picture frame. You do a lot of these little things and, over time, they add up.
Over time—I hope—the litany of small fixes and improvements accumulates into something more than mere knowledge.
Into skill.
Into handiness.
Handiness is not, despite what I suggested above, about knowing how to hold a hammer or any other tool.
Handiness, at least as it seems to this not-handy person, is a matter of looking at a condition and understanding how to think about it. It’s about solving problems with your hands and the tools you have around.
Taylor Coe 