Ignorance or Arrogance

When I was a boy, a common saying was “A man’s word is his bond.”  I haven’t heard that spoken in decades.  Today we speak of fake news, deep fake AIs, identity theft, accusations of fraud, corruption and cover ups.  We liberally condemn each other with name calling like a grade school playground, but to speak of integrity seems increasingly uncommon.  Our culture, it seems, wants to fight to the bottom.  

Talk is cheap but we are accountable.  Actions have consequences.  This week’s homeschool lesson was a moral equivalent of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  Rather than give my son a lecture, I bought him a chain saw.  My goal was to teach personal responsibility not as an abstraction but as a tactile physical experience.

I was not qualified to teach this class.  My father was a wordsmith, who didn’t know a hammer from a nail; his tool was a typewriter and thesaurus, with which he was exceptionally skilled.  He and I never bonded over power tools.  I learned use of a chain saw through on-the-job-training: “this is the brake, here is the trigger, hold it like this.  Go.”  With a chain saw I am competent, but most certainly I have no command.  I would have been pushing my limit to teach this course.

Often a boy learns best from an unrelated teacher, so I hired a journeyman; a 240 pound, 6 foot 3 inch tall, tattooed, muscular, shaved head white male who grew up on a homestead in the woods of New Hampshire.  He has been using a chain saw since he was ten.  A carpenter by trade, his skills are many, including plumbing and electric, a licensed firearms instructor, with training as a field medic.  A published author, he is “The Everything Man.”

He required my son to buy and wear personal protective equipment: a helmet with face screen and ear protection plus chaps to protect his legs, steel toed boots and gloves.  The class began at the back of his pick-up truck where an array of tools were laid out: a camp axe and a felling axe, his handmade bow saw, a machette and two gas powered chain saws.  My son has an electric 16” chain saw and a pole saw. 

A chain saw spins between 12,000 and 14,500 RPMs at full throttle, which is more than 6 times the RPM of an airplane propeller.  You must respect that the blade will cut you down in an instant. During a brief opening lecture the Man explained that mistakes are caused “by ignorance or arrogance.”  On the one hand is the lack of information, knowledge or training, while on the other is an excess of pride, a lack of respect for the tool.  The class was designed to avoid the first problem, while the teacher’s humble honesty addressed the second. 

Dressed in his protective gear, my son and the Man walked to the backyard to cut down a rotting maple tree.  It is located outside our fence line, beside the sidewalk along a busy road.  I had asked the town to take it down, but the arborist replied that it was our responsibility, and, once brought to his attention, it was on his list of trees to watch.

The trunk is thoroughly rotted.  One large section fell years ago – before we owned this house – while the remaining branches reach over the fence, stretching almost thirty feet into our back yard.  One large limb, about 14” diameter, grows straight up and becomes enmeshed in branches of other trees.  This tree was a challenge, a lesson in strategy and gravity.  

My son could use the pole saw to reach the lower limbs, but he needed to be mindful of where the limb would fall and then stand behind that.  By cutting from above, the branch would fall down and his saw would not get pinched.  A saw can get pinched, though, and that can become a serious issue.  I was once cutting down an invasive maple, 8” diameter and 40 feet tall.  A friend was holding a rope to pull the tree, but the rope was not firm enough and as I cut deeply, the tree swayed back pinching the saw.  The saw could not cut, nor could I remove it; a frighteningly serious problem.  I knew you cannot leave a tree halfway cut through the trunk.  But I had no axe.  I had ignorance.  But thankfully, I had a neighbor who knew what to do, had a tree rope and chain saw, and saved the day.  The Everything Man ensured my son learned from my mistake.

Once the limbs were on the ground, my son was handed a razor sharp machette and taught how to swing that blade, to slash cut away the smaller limbs, removing the clutter before using the chain saw.  There is a logical process, moving from the smaller branches to the larger end, when cutting for firewood.  The 16” blade equals the length of logs usable in our wood stove, and my son was shown how to use the blade as his measuring stick, for cutting to length.  This work went quickly, but the tree was so rotted, we gained little useable firewood. 

An electric chain saw is surprisingly quiet, while gas powered saws are ferociously loud and aggressive, commanding immediate respect.  Its raw power leaves no room for carelessness. 

The final exam came when The Everything Man got out his gas powered Stihl chain saw.  He reviewed all the features, then handed it to my son.  In learning how to handle such a powerful tool, my son grew in confidence.  He experienced what it meant to command his tool, making each cut under his control.   This lesson of accountability was a direct physical experience, not theory, not logic, not gaming online.

That one limb, 14” diameter, growing straight up into the canopy above, we left in place.  That requires an arborist who can climb the tree, using tools beyond what we had.  It would have been ignorance or arrogance, or both, to attempt to fell that, so our prudence was its own lesson of setting boundaries. 

When the cutting was done, the class returned to the pickup truck, for a discussion about cleaning and maintenance.  The Everything Man showed both how to dismantle the saw to clean wood chips from the inner parts, and how to sharpen the blade.  It is a slow methodical process, three passes at 30 degrees, essential to maintaining the blade’s sharp edge, which is another form of integrity, of accountability.  The teacher gave examples of one chain lasting a lifetime, or needing to buy new chains frequently; the only difference is care.

“Chop wood, carry water” is a maxim of Chan Buddhism, that teaches life is lived through ordinary work, not abstractions.  Much about life is repetitive, dull, and unremarkable.  Integrity is forged in the care of our tools, the honoring of our words, and the acceptance of responsibility.  The chain saw was the lesson this week.  I said very little.  He repeatedly said “thank you.”