In fine fettle

“We’re here on earth to fart around” Kurt Vonnegut

I read this online as part of a longer article and it immediately struck home. It may seem glib but the more I think about it the more I feel that if we don’t fart around, don’t play, don’t explore, then nothing changes. Growth comes when you shake things up. Growth comes when you mess around and lose yourself. Growth is in the not knowing, and sometimes in the not caring, allowing self-discovery and flow to blush your soul.

There is a word that I recently learned from a Lancastrian* man with a beautiful accent who makes words sound like chocolates, sweet and melting. The verb is to ‘fettle’, to take part in the act of fettling. It means to make or repair something, but also by implication, the time taken to do so, to shape, prepare, fix or arrange.

The internet reminded me that to be in ‘fine fettle’ is an established expression of wellness and that it used to be a welcome to ask others ‘What fettle?’ instead of ‘How are you?’ I like the connection that fettle makes between the act of making, doing and fixing to wellbeing. When you make time to ‘fettle’, or to ‘fart around’ as Vonnegut put it, you make time for embracing a human need to create, fix, flow.

What will you fettle? What needs fixing, arranging and making? Give yourself permission to sort out your art materials, to get out some half-finished project. Organise your tools, fix your tools. Take the human time to use your hands in preparation, in maintenance and enjoy the wellbeing that comes from a sense of accomplishment, a rediscovery of lost things, old ideas and new sparks.

*Lancastrian - from Lancashire in the north of England