Learn how to tie a bowline knot. Practice in the dark. With one hand. For the rest of your life, you’ll use this knot more times than you would ever believe.” – from Excellent Advice for Living

I like this advice, not because I use this know a lot, but because there are things you should be able to do in the physical world, and some self-reliance and ability is handy.

For the record I do use bowlines regularly around the ranch, but we use some horseman’s slipknots (manger tie) and square knots more.

In my life, there are small skills like this that get used over and over. We still live in the physical world, and not only are physical skills useful, but there is a lot of satisfaction from being able to accomplish something yourself.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.