Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today is Monday,
February 2nd, 2026. And wow. I mean, if you've
been following the news cycles at all or just
looking at your own career trajectory lately,
you know exactly why that date matters. It really
matters. We are right in the thick of it. We
are. We're living through the timeline we have
been obsessing over on this show for months.
It's not. theory anymore. No, not at all. It
feels like we've been talking about this transition
forever, doesn't it? But we're really only a
few years into the specific timeline that Reed
Multiplex laid out. We are deep, deep in what
he calls the abundance interregnum. Exactly.
And that brings us to today. We're tackling part
nine of the You Have 5 ,000 Days series. The
title is The Artisan's Awakening. And I have
to admit, right off the bat, when I first saw
that title pop up in my feed, I felt a little...
I don't know, resistant. Resistant. That's interesting.
Why? What was the pushback for you? Well, just
think about the journey we've been on. Look at
the last few deep dives we've done on this series.
We went through the de -skilling. We sat with
the dark night of the soul. Those are heavy.
They were brutal. We established really painfully
that AI is essentially eating the white collar
world alive. It's dissolving the junior analyst,
the coder, the marketer. It's genuinely scary
stuff. Yeah. And now. Suddenly, part nine comes
along and claims there's a solution. It felt
a bit like a bait and switch. Ah, I see. Like
everything is burning down around you, but hey,
look over here. I've got a bucket of water. Yes,
exactly that. I was expecting a high -tech solution
to a high -tech problem. I thought the source
was going to say, okay, the robots are smart,
so you need to become a cyborg. You need to merge
with the machine. Get a Neuralink, yeah. That's
the standard advice you hear on every other tech
blog. Learn prompt engineering or become an AI
supervisor or pivot into synthetic biology. But
this source, this one says the complete opposite.
It says... Stop looking at the screen. Look at
your hands. Look at your hands. It's such a massive
pivot. It's a survival guide, but it's completely
counterintuitive in today's world. The source
is making this incredible argument that the safest
place to be financially, psychologically, existentially
isn't above the API. It's not in the cloud. It's
in the mud. It's in the crawl space. It's in
the workshop. We're talking about the trades.
Actual physical blue collar traits, plumbing,
welding, farming, electrical work. And before
anyone listening rolls their eyes and thinks,
wait, I didn't get a master's degree in economics
to go fix toilets. We have to be super clear.
Absolutely. The source isn't framing this as
a demotion. Not at all. They're framing it as
an ascension. Exactly. This isn't a consolation
prize for failing in the digital economy. It's
not, oh, you couldn't hack it as a coder, so
go carry some bricks. This is presented as the
elixir. This is the next critical stage of the
hero's journey that he's been mapping out. And
to understand why that's not just, you know,
poetic language, we have to respect the sheer
boldness of this 5 ,000 Days series. I mean,
the author is seeing things that almost no one
else is seeing. especially with this timeline.
Let's reestablish that context for a second,
because if someone's just joining us now, the
idea of 5 ,000 days might sound like a completely
random number he just pulled out of a hat. Right,
like some marketing gimmick. But it's anything
but random. The author has identified a very
specific 13 .7 -year transition period. That
is the abundance interregnum. We are living in
the gap. The gap between the old world, where
you work to survive, and the new world, where
AI and automation provide unprecedented plenitude
and the cost of living just collapses to near
zero. But the key phrase there is near zero.
We're not there yet. No. We are in the turbulence,
the messy, chaotic, often terrifying middle.
And the journey so far has been brutal. Part
one was the call to adventure, just waking up
to the fact that traditional work is dissolving
underneath our feet. And parts three and five
were the heavy hitters, the player piano and
discilling. That was the gut punch. The realization
that these AI feedback loops are moving on 19
-hour cycles. I still can't get my head around
that. 19 hours. It's impossible for a human to
compete. If you're trying to reskill in the digital
realm, you know, you go take a course in the
new hot coding language or some new software.
By the time you finish the six week course, the
AI has already mastered it, integrated it and
made your new skill obsolete. You can't outrun
a 19 hour feedback loop with a human brain. It's
just not possible. Which led us directly to part
six, the dark night of the soul, that deep existential
dread, the if I don't type into a spreadsheet,
who even am I moment. Yeah, that one hit home
for a lot of people. Yeah. And then part eight,
saving your wisdom, was about trying to preserve
human knowledge in the face of all this. But
part nine, this artisan's awakening, it really
is the turning point. It is. We are finally moving
from lamenting the loss of the desk job to actively
celebrating a reskilling into the physical world.
So we're done mourning the spreadsheet? Is that
what you're saying? We are done mourning the
spreadsheet. We are picking up a wrench. Okay,
I'm ready. Let's get into section one. The blue
-collar renaissance and the hero's departure.
The source uses this fantastic metaphor of crossing
the threshold. It's classic Joseph Campbell,
the hero's journey. The hero has to leave the
ordinary world to find his power. And in our
case, the ordinary world is, well, it's the modern
office. Fluorescent lights. Endless Zoom calls,
Slack notifications pinging you at 10 o 'clock
at night. The algorithmic drudgery, which, let's
be honest, feels less like an ordinary world
and more like a trap these days. It absolutely
is a trap because of the villain we identified
back in part five. De -skilling. The source really
hammers this home again. AI is systematically
destroying the value of data entry, of coding,
of mid -level analysis. If your job involves
sitting at a screen and processing abstract information,
you are in the blast zone. There's no way around
it. The algorithms are eating the cognitive middle
class for lunch. So the special world, the place
the hero has to go to find safety, is the world
of tangible creation. The world of the trades.
The source calls them fortresses against the
machine onslaught. That is such a strong image,
a fortress. It is. And it's based on a very practical,
very grounded analysis of what robots can and
cannot do right now and for the foreseeable future.
This is the logic of robot resistance. OK, now
I need you to steel man this for me because I
open my phone, I go on social media and I see
these videos of robots from Boston Dynamics folding
laundry. I see them doing backflips. I saw the
Atlas robot doing parkour. Of course, the viral
videos. Right. And if a robot can do a perfect
backflip. Why is a plumber safe? A backflip seems
way, way harder to me than just tightening a
nut on a pipe. This is such a crucial point,
and it's a classic cognitive trap. We anthropomorphize
intelligence. We assume that because we find
calculus hard and walking across a room easy,
computers must feel the same way. But they don't.
They feel the exact opposite. It's a concept
in computer science called Moravec's paradox.
Moravec's paradox. Okay, break that down for
me. Hans Moravec, a brilliant roboticist, pointed
this out decades ago. It turns out that high
-level reasoning, things like playing chess,
writing poetry, diagnosing a rare disease from
a text description, calculating complex stock
market trends, that stuff is computationally
very cheap. So the smart stuff is actually easy
for them. Incredibly easy. An AI can become a
grandmaster at chess in a few hours. But low
-level sensorimotor skills, things our bodies
do without thinking. walking across a cluttered
room without tripping, feeling a bolt to know
if it's cross -threaded, perceiving the subtle
difference between a shadow and a damp spot on
a wall. That's the hard stuff. That requires
a staggering, almost unbelievable amount of computational
power. It's the easy stuff for us that's hard
for them. So that back -flipping robot. That
robot is almost always in a highly controlled
environment. It's a lab. The floor is perfectly
flat. The lighting is perfect. The variables
are limited. Now contrast that with the real
-world environment of, say, a plumber. Okay.
A damp, musty basement in a 1920s Victorian house.
Exactly. Let's really visualize that. You, a
human plumber, walk in. It's dark. There are
cobwebs everywhere. The pipes aren't standard
PVC you buy at Home Depot. They're cast iron
that has settled and warped over 80 years. They're
not where the blueprints say they should be.
The blueprints are a work of fiction at this
point. There's a leak, but you can't see it.
You have to smell the dampness or feel the humidity
change on your skin as you move around. You have
to move a precarious pile of old boxes your client
stored down there without knocking - them over
and the robot in that scenario what does it do
the robot is fighting entropy the real world
is pure unadulterated chaos to a robot that basement
is a data overload of noise it tries to grasp
a pipe but the pipe is slippery with slime and
condensation the robots sensors slip it doesn't
have that human touch so it applies too much
torque and cracks the brittle old iron game over
game over you've just flooded the basement the
messiness of reality is actually our armor it's
our protection That's the fortress the source
is talking about. The more chaotic, the more
dirty, the more non -standard the environment
is, the safer the job is from automation. Precisely.
Robots love order. They love the sterile, predictable
world of the factory floor. They love spreadsheets.
They hate rust. They hate mud. They hate what
the source calls gravity's whims. And there's
an economic argument here too, right? It's not
just, can they technically do it? It's, is it
even worth building a robot to do it? Exactly.
This is the scaling problem. Could we, with enough
money and time, build a bespoke robot to go in
and fix that one specific Victorian toilet? Maybe.
But it would cost millions of dollars in R &D.
And it wouldn't work on the toilet in the house
next door. Because that one has a completely
different problem in a slightly different, equally
chaotic environment. Scaling specialized robots
for every single nook and cranny of society is
just ridiculously prohibitively expensive. So
while the white collar world is crumbling because
software scales instantly and for free, the physical
world has this built in friction, this economic
and physical barrier that protects us. Correct.
And that's why the source argues that while these
white collar domains are crumbling right now
as we speak, these trade jobs are safe for an
Another 10, 20 or even 30 years. 30 years. That
is a massive bridge. We're talking about a 5000
day transition, which is roughly 14 years. A
30 year window is more than enough time to ride
out the entire storm. It is. It buys you safety
through the whole interregnum. You don't just
survive. You thrive because you are doing the
one thing the machines can't touch. You become
indispensable. OK, so this isn't just about survival.
It's a genuine strategic pivot. Let's talk about.
the specific roles the source curates this amazing
list of the top 22 vocations he calls them the
pillars of the renaissance and i love that he
gives them these incredible exalted titles it's
not just plumber it's well let's go through a
few and i want to really dig into what these
jobs feel like because i think so many of us
have lost touch with what it means to work with
our hands i agree what's so powerful is that
these aren't framed as dirty jobs they're framed
as heroic archetypes let's start with the plumber
the source describes the plumber as a master
of fluid dynamics. Commanding the lifeblood of
civilization. That sounds like a superhero, not
a guy fixing a clog. But it's true, though, isn't
it? We take it for granted, but clean water flowing
in and waste flowing out is the absolute bedrock
of public health. Civilization collapses without
it in about three days. It's that fundamental.
But let's get really specific. Why is this job
so hard for AI? We talked about the Victorian
basement, but what about the day -to -day thinking
involved? It's the diagnostic intuition. It's
a multisensory investigation. A good plumber
listens to the pipes. They hear a specific thunk
and know, ah, that's a water hammer issue in
the west wall. They look at the color of the
water coming out of a tap and know the water
heater is starting to rust out from the inside.
They're like a doctor for the house. Exactly.
It's Sherlock Holmes with a wrench. It's about
interpreting these tiny, subtle clues that a
robot's sensors would just register as noise.
I love that. Sherlock Holmes with a wrench. Okay,
let's move to the electrician. The weaver of
energy. Harnessing lightning to illuminate homes.
Now, this one feels different to me. Plumbing
is messy, but electrical work feels dangerous.
And that's the crucial differentiator, the stakes,
the consequence of failure. If you make a mistake
in a spreadsheet, maybe you lose a client or
some money. If you make a mistake wiring a high
-voltage panel, people die. Houses burn down.
So the barrier to entry isn't just skill. It's
about liability and trust. Precisely. Insurance
companies, regulators, building inspectors, they
are not going to sign off on an AI wiring a hospital's
ICU anytime soon. But let's look at the work
itself. You open a junction box in an old building.
What do you see? A rat's nest. A total rat's
nest. Wires from the 1950s mixed with wires from
the 90s. The color coding is wrong or it's faded.
Nothing matches the schematic. The robot looks
at the schematic, the model of the world it was
given, and the schematic doesn't match reality.
And the robot freezes. It's a fatal error. But
the human electrician uses what the source calls
kinesthetic intelligence. They trace the wire
with their fingers. They interpret the intent
of the previous electrician from 40 years ago.
They think, oh, I see. This guy used the green
wire for the hotline because he must have run
out of black wire that day. You have to get inside
the head of the person who did the work before
you. Exactly. It's anthropology as much as it
is engineering. It's a human -to -human connection
across time. Let's talk about the HVAC technician.
The source calls them the alchemist of comfort.
I love that one. Balancing air and heat. Again,
it sounds poetic, but think about the technical
complexity. You are managing thermodynamics in
real time. You're up on a scorching hot roof
in the middle of July, or you're in a freezing
cold crawlspace in January. And you're dealing
with pressurized refrigerants, with airflow dynamics,
with pressure differentials. You're trying to
figure out why one room in the house is 10 degrees
colder than all the others. It's a puzzle with
invisible pieces. And then there's the welder,
the forge god. Fusing metals. Creating structures
that withstand time and enormous forces. There
is a permanence to welding that you just do not
get in the digital world. I feel like welding
is the ultimate example of this kinesthetic intelligence
you're talking about. Yeah. You have to control
the puddle of molten metal, the speed of your
hand, the angle of the torch, the distance of
the arc, all at the same time. It's a dance.
And you're doing it by feel. You feel the heat
through your gloves. You see the subtle color
changes in the metal. A robot can be programmed
to weld a perfect, straight line on a car chassis
in a factory, sure, over and over. But can it
weld a broken railing on a rusty fire escape?
hanging off the side of a five -story building
fighting the wind and awkward angles no absolutely
not that requires constant microsecond adjustments
based on a flood of sensory data that we're not
even conscious of processing now there's a key
addition to this list that i found really moving
and honestly it surprised me a little yeah the
source includes farming and ranching yes this
is a vital expansion of what we think of as a
trade Usually when we hear learn a trade, we
think of construction or mechanics. But the source
is arguing that the farmer and the rancher are
also a protected class in this age of AI. They're
the stewards of the soil and custodians of herds.
But my first thought was, isn't farming already
super automated? I see those giant combines driven
by GPS that can harvest a field with inch perfect
precision. That's industrial monoculture. Miles
and miles of corn or soybeans. Robots can do
that. That's a predictable factory like environment.
But the source is talking about the artisan farmer.
Regenerative agriculture. Permaculture. Exactly.
What's the difference? Technically, permaculture
is an ecosystem. It's a complex, integrated system.
You have apple trees next to berry bushes next
to nitrogen fixing ground cover. You have ducks
that are there to eat the slugs. It's a three
dimensional puzzle of biology. It's chaotic.
It is intensely, beautifully chaotic. You can't
program a rope. bought for it you have to observe
it you have to walk the land every day and see
oh the aphids are bad on the kale this year i
need to introduce more ladybugs into that patch
it's a constant complex strategic game played
with nature itself and the rancher the custodian
of herds Animals are not machines. They have
moods. They get sick. They have complex social
hierarchies. A good rancher can look at a cow
from 100 yards away and just sense that something
is wrong. How, though? It's the way it's standing,
or the look in its eye, or the way its tail is
twitching. It's a million tiny data points that
a human brain evolved over millennia to read
other living creatures can process instantly.
A sensor might pick up a fever 24 hours later,
but the rancher knew yesterday. It's empathy.
It is empathy as a technical skill. An algorithm
can simulate empathy, but it cannot feel the
herd. That connection to life, to life cycles,
is something purely biological. So we have this
incredible list of 22 vocations. We have the
alchemists, the guardians, the stewards, and
the common thread running through all of them
is this kinesthetic intelligence. It's about
being in the world, really truly in it. It's
about being corporeal. It's about having a body.
We have neglected the body in favor of the brain
for so long in our economy. The artisan's awakening
is really the body striking back. It's the body
saying, hey, remember me. I am useful. I can
do things the mind alone cannot. This leads us
perfectly into section three, the psychology
of craft. Because the source isn't just saying
do this for the money. It's saying do this for
your sanity. This is where we connect all the
way back to part six, the dark night of the soul.
The crisis so many people are feeling right now
that deep unease is alienation. Alienation. That's
a heavy word, but it feels right. It is, but
it's accurate. In digital work, your output just
vanishes into the ether. You spend all day crafting
the perfect email. You hit send and it's gone.
You write a brilliant piece of code. It runs
in the background on a server in Virginia that
you will never see. You don't see the fruit of
your labor. I feel that so deeply. You close
your laptop at the end of the day and nothing
in your physical environment has changed at all.
The room looks exactly the same. You're just
tired. And empty. Exactly. That profound disconnect
between effort and tangible result creates a
gnawing existential anxiety. The source argues
that physical work cures this dread because it
offers tangible proof of existence. Tangible
proof of existence. I like that. When a welder
finishes a seam, that seam is there. It is solid
metal. It will hold weight for 50 years. You
can run your hand over it and feel the texture.
When a carpenter builds a table, that table exists
in space. It takes up room. It has weight. The
feedback loop is immediate and physical. It's
not a like on a post. It's a thing in the world
that says, I was here, I did this, I changed
the world, even in this one small way. Exactly.
It proves you have agency. It proves you matter.
And psychologically, that kind of visible achievement
bolsters mental health in a way that a performance
review never, ever can. And is the mindfulness
aspect, too. The source talks about getting into
flow states. Yes. Hands -on work forces you to
be in the present moment. If you are soldering
a copper pipe, you cannot be doom scrolling in
your head or worrying about your mortgage. You
have to be right there watching the heat, watching
the metal flow. Your entire focus is on that
single point in space and time. If your mind
wanders during a Zoom call, you miss a slide.
If your mind wanders while you're using a table
saw, you lose a thumb. Chuckles. Exactly. And
that danger, or at least that requirement for
total focus, actually quiets the noise in your
brain. It's an enforced mindfulness. It stops
the anxiety loops. It grounds the worker in physical
reality. It's an active meditation. So in a way,
the trade isn't just a job. It's a therapy. It's
a practice, like yoga or martial arts. It's a
way of being. There's also the social value.
We've talked so much about how lonely and isolating
remote work can be. The source describes the
artisan as a community hero. This is such a beautiful
and important point. Think about the HVAC technician
who shows up and restores the heat in a family's
home on the coldest night of the year. You are
literally saving the day for them. You are. You
walk into someone's home. They're in real distress.
Their kids are cold. And you use your skills,
your knowledge, to fix their immediate physical
problem. The gratitude you receive is real. The
connection is face -to -face. Or the local farmer
at the market who feeds the neighborhood. Right.
It creates a power. powerful sense of belonging.
You are woven into the physical fabric of your
community. You aren't some ghost living in the
cloud. You are a neighbor who helps other neighbors.
That's a deep human need that has been stripped
away. So we have the financial safety, we have
the psychological grounding, and we have the
community connection. It sounds perfect. I have
to play the skeptic again. Please do. The source
is honest. It doesn't say this fortress lasts
forever. We talked about the timeline. 30 years,
maybe? No, and that's the integrity of the 5
,000 Days series. It never sugarcoats. It acknowledges
the inevitable. This brings us to section four,
the long game, because eventually the robots
will catch up, won't they? The source admits,
eventually, yes. Sometime in the late 2030s,
we will likely have swarms of dexterous, adaptable
bots that can master chaos. Material science
will advance. Sensors will get cheaper and better.
The Victorian house problem will eventually be
solved. So wait a minute. If I spend the next
10 years becoming a master plumber, learning
all the nuances, building a business, and then
in 2038, a robot can do my job better and cheaper,
was it all a waste? Did I just delay my obsolescence
by a decade? That is the pivotal question, and
the source gives a resounding, emphatic no. Why
not? Because of the twist. This isn't a tragedy.
In the hero's journey, this is the return with
the elixir. Okay, you have to explain the elixir.
What is it? The elixir is the transformation
of work into exalted hobby. Exalted hobby. That
sounds nice. But what does that actually mean?
Remember, we are moving toward an age of true
abundance. The abundance interregnum ends. We
enter a period where we no longer work for survival
because the machines provide the basics for everyone.
Energy is nearly free. Food is cheap. Housing
is 3D printed. Exactly. So in that world, we
will work for joy, for self -expression, for
meaning. So I'm not plumbing because I need to
pay my mortgage. I'm plumbing because I just
love pipes. That feels like a stretch. You are
plumbing because it has become an art form. The
source paints these absolutely beautiful visions
of the future hobbyist. Give me the examples,
because recreational plumbing sounds like a really
hard sell. It does, doesn't it? Yeah. But listen
to how they describe it. Plumbing becomes aquatic
artistry. You aren't fixing clogs anymore. The
nanobots do the sewage. You are designing beautiful,
sustainable eco -fountains for public parks.
You are creating interactive water features for
private homes. You are mastering the flow of
water for beauty and tranquility. Okay, I have
to admit, that's actually really cool. And electricians
become inventors of custom light installations.
They aren't just wiring outlets. They are using
their deep knowledge of energy to create art.
They are lighting up cities in new ways we can't
even imagine. And welders become sculptors. Making
massive kinetic art. The forge god becomes a
true artist. In 2040, a human welder isn't welding
a structural I -beam for a warehouse. A robot
does that perfectly every time. The human welder
is creating a gate. for a garden that is a masterpiece
of intricate design. And the farmers and ranchers,
what happens to them? This is perhaps the most
profound transformation of all. They become regenerative
homesteaders. They aren't worried about yield
efficiency for the global market. The giant robot
farms handle that. The human farmers are biohackers
and artists. They are experimenting with heirloom
crops purely for flavor, not for durability or
transportability. They're growing the tomato
that actually tastes like a tomato. Exactly.
The one that bruises if you look at it wrong,
but tastes like heaven. That's a human luxury
in a world of perfect, tasteless, machine -grown
food. And ranchers focus on conservation breeding
of rare animals and on animal companionship.
So the idea is you learn the trade now to survive
the chaotic transition. But in doing so, you
are also saving the human touch for the coming
era of machine perfection. You become the master
of two worlds. That's the final stage of the
hero's journey. You have bridged the gap. You
survived the chaos of the interregnum and you
arrived in the age of abundance with a rare,
valuable skill that allows you to express your
humanity. That is a deeply, deeply hopeful vision.
It completely reframes the whole robots are taking
our jobs narrative. It's not that they take our
jobs and we all sit around doing nothing. It's
that they take the drudgery and we get to keep
the craft. We get to keep the joy of making.
Exactly. We keep the connection to the physical
world. I want to pause here for a second because
I feel like we breezed past a few of the other
vocations on that list of 22 that I really want
to highlight. We hit the big ones, but there
are some deep cuts in there that I think are
fascinating and really illustrate the point.
Oh, absolutely. The list is incredibly well thought
out. Let's do it. Okay. For example, the locksmith.
Ah, the secret keeper. Yes. The source calls
them secret keepers. Unlocking mysteries while
fortifying security. Now, why is that resilient
to AI? It seems like it's all about precision,
which robots are good at. Think about the integration.
A locksmith today isn't just filing metal keys
anymore. They are installing complex smart locks
that have to integrate with home automation systems.
But the purely physical act of retrofitting a
50 -year -old warped wooden door to accept a
brand new digital lock. Right. It's never a clean
fit. It never is. That requires drilling, chiseling,
aligning strike plates on frames that have settled.
It's custom work every single time. A robot might
be able to hack the software of the lock, but
can it physically install the hardware without
completely ruining the mahogany door? Not easily.
And there's a massive element of trust there
too. You're letting someone into your most secure
spaces. A huge element. That human factor of
trust is very hard to automate. What about the
glazier? That's one you don't hear about every
day. The source calls them the glass visionary.
Framing views that connect inside to out. This
is a great example of the intersection of energy
efficiency and aesthetics. As we move toward
a greener world, which is a huge part of the
background of the 5 ,000 Days series, retrofitting
old buildings with new energy -efficient glass
is a massive, massive job. And glass is heavy,
awkward. and incredibly fragile extremely imagine
handling a 10 foot by 6 foot pane of triple glazed
glass on a windy construction site 30 stories
up in a city that requires a level of tactile
feedback and minute team coordination literally
sensing the wind and the weight shift with your
partner that is so far beyond what a machine
can do right now it's that kinesthetic intelligence
again it just keeps coming back to the body it
always does okay what about the auto mechanic
the vehicle healer Reviving mobility with mechanical
empathy. This one is really interesting because
of the massive shift to electric vehicles. You
might think, well, EVs have fewer moving parts,
so mechanics are doomed. That's the common wisdom,
right? No engine, no transmission, no job. But
the source points out the importance of adaptability.
First, there's a huge body of work in adapting
to electric and autonomous vehicles. But even
more interesting is maintaining the classic models
for enthusiasts. The classic cars. Of course,
in the age of abundance, collecting and driving
vintage internal combustion engine cars will
be a huge hobby. Keeping those beautiful, complex
machines running requires a very specific, almost
lost art of mechanics that robots won't be programmed
for because it's a niche, passion driven market.
So you become the specialist who keeps the 67
Mustang rumbling down the road when everything
else is a silent, self -driving pod. Exactly.
You are a historian as much as a mechanic. You
are preserving the rumble. You're preserving
a piece of culture. It's funny. As we go through
these, I realize how much creativity and design
is actually embedded in these so -called blue
-collar jobs. Yeah. Our culture has stripped
them of that dignity. We think of them as rote
labor. that was the fundamental mistake of the
industrial age we treated humans like machines
we told the plumber to just fix the pipe we told
the welder to just join the metal now that we
have actual machines to do the machine work humans
are finally free to be artisans again that is
the headline right there Waking up from the nightmare
of being biological robots. And returning to
being creators. I want to touch on the economic
reality one more time to ground all of this.
Because while the exalted hobby future is beautiful,
our listeners have bills to pay today in February
2026. The source talks about salaries. It does.
It notes that median salaries often eclipse $50
,000 to $80 ,000 annually. And that's for journeymen.
Master tradespeople can earn significantly more.
Which, in 2026 dollars, is a very solid living.
But the entrepreneurship angle is key. Boundless
horizons, as the source says. Starting your own
contracting firm. Specializing in high -demand
areas like eco -friendly installations or smart
home integration. Because when you have a trade,
you own your own means of production. You are
your own asset. You have power. You do. Think
about it. If you get laid off from a corporate
job, you lose your access to the company's data,
their proprietary software, their client lists.
You're left with nothing. If you're a plumber
and you get fired, you pick up your tool bag
and you walk down the street to the next house
that needs help. You still have your power. That
is true. Anti -fragility. It is. You are robust
to shocks. You're not fragile. And in the abundance
in a regnum, shocks are the only guarantee. Turbulence
is the new normal. You want to be a sturdy boat
in that storm, not a delicate house of cards.
So the message of part nine is crystal clear.
Don't be a house of cards. Be a fortress. Be
a forge. Be a garden. Be an artisan. Okay, let's
pull it all together. What does this mean for
you, the listener, right now, today? Yeah. In
2026? It means you have a fundamental choice
to make. You can cling to the old world of the
desk job, which is actively crumbling. You can
keep refreshing your email, hoping the layoffs
don't hit your department next. Or you can accept
the call to adventure and get your hands dirty.
The source is telling us, in no uncertain terms,
that craftwork is the elixir. It's the thing
that stalls the loss of a job right now. But
ultimately, it's the thing that lets your job
become your art. And you have to remember the
timeline. We are living through this specific
13 .7 year transition right now. The clock is
ticking on those 5 ,000 days. This isn't a problem
for the next generation. It's for us. I want
to leave everyone with a final provocative thought,
something to really chew on from all this. We
talked about abundance, about a future where
money is no object. Right. The post -scarcity
world. So. Ask yourself this question and be
really honest. If money were truly no object,
if your housing, your food, your health care
were all guaranteed, which of these trades would
you choose to do purely for the satisfaction
of the act itself? Would you want to work with
wood? With metal? With soil? With water? With
energy? That answer. Whatever pops into your
head right now, that might just be your lifeboat
today. And your joy tomorrow. We really want
to hear from you on this one. Are you making
this shift? Have you already traded the keyboard
for a hammer? Go to the forum at readmultiplex
.com. Share your own hero's journey into the
trades. We'll be there reading every one of them.
This has been The Deep Dive. Thanks for listening.
Keep building. See you in the future.