What's in Your Tool Box

For better or worse I studied to be a geographer, which means unemployable until you get a PHD. Geology was my thing at the time, but wound up with earth science, not quite the same. One thing about studying geography is that you get to nose into other branches of science. One of the most interesting courses was cultural geography. I am pretty sure the professor was an idiot, and as time has gone on I am even more sure, but one thing that came out of the book we used intrigued me and can tell a person a lot about a culture or an individual for that matter.

Everyone one has a tool box, or tool kit if you prefer. Early man had a fairly small one because his main function was to find food without becoming food. Sharp sticks, knapped flint tools, and fire were pretty much it for his bag of tricks. In fact his "if it ain’t broke don’t fix it attitude" persisted right up through the bronze age with little chance in the types of tools in his kit.

The tools in your kit are the things you need for survival and may include actual tools made out of materials bronze age boob-heads would have killed for, concepts, techniques, or methods that never entered the walnut sized minds of early thinkers. Our tool box has become increasing complex and increasingly specialized. We owe a lot of that to the development of agriculture where we could settle down and the odds of being eaten dropped significantly. Man (and woman) had time for other things. New occupations sprang up and with them new tools found their way into people's kits. It is awesome to think what my grandson will be able to reach in and pull out when he needs something. So what is in your tool box??