Quote Originally Posted by Hsing-ee View Post
I think it is actually ATTACHMENT issues. You get attached to the object and then cannot let it go or detatch from it. If you do, you will have the nasty feeling of ALIENATION.

The phenomenon is actually quite deep. In re-building the machine, in this case air-pistols and rifles, you put your labour both mental and physical and sometimes artistic, into the object and transform it from one state to another. The object then contain or represents part of you, it can legitimately be seen as part of you. So of course it is difficult letting go of part of yourself.

Karl Marx had a whole theory based on this phenomenon, in that a person works for another person, say fixing old air-pistols and making them useable and good again. The boss, who owns the workshop and the capital to buy old pistols as raw materials, then takes the refurbished pistols and sell them, giving the worker only some of the money. The worker is therefore alienated from himself, as his labour disappears into the object and he does not receive full compensation for it.

If people have the skill, they love to make and fix things. Its much more satisfying as the objects - clothes, airguns, furniture, cars whatever - contain part of their owner. Its a strange process but much more interesting than just buying something made by people unknown in a distant factory.

I struggle to drag myself away from 'The Repair Shop' on the BBC. Seeing how they work with metal, wood etc is quite inspiring as to what I could do when tinkering with an airgun, perhaps putting that extra bit if finesse into shaping or polishing something to make it work just that little bit better.