The pots I make are useful pots: dishes, things to serve and hold food. But holding food is not what makes them useful. The most important task of a useful pot is to generate caring. Most of modern life does not generate this emotion. Things many of us think of as useful or even essential – cell phones, automobiles, computers, fast food, microwaves – don’t generate real caring at all. We could live very well without many of these things. But we can’t live good lives at all if we are callous and uncaring. Being indifferent, unconscious, unawake is not something that you can turn on and off at will. We must either find ways of living that encourage awareness or face a loss of sensibility that is likely to seep into all areas of our lives.