I spent my time learning how to mend my computer and the pile of arcane technologies that make it up. Out in the real world, as opposed to here on HN, that is the mending that does not exist. It wasn't even forgotten; it's still simply magic. I can call a repair service and have any mechanical object in my apartment functional in hours. I can call my friends and one of them, or one of their parents, will have a suggestion. But if I walk into a random room, filled with fifty random people off the street, one in four of then will be able to repair a car engine or patch a hole in a shirt, but I will be literally the only person in the room that can get someone's phone back on WiFi after the password changes. That's its own kind of mending, and one that's much more difficult, much more useful, and much more valuable, both directly to an information worker like me and to civilization.
It sure has its own merit, but I think you can remove the last sentence and slow down on the "I'd be the only one in a room of 100 people able to connect a phone to a network".
We can boast all day long about how good our tech skills are but out in the real world it's far from "much more useful and valuable to civilization" than a lot of things. It seems like a very narcissistic and simple point of view.
