The philosophy of sheds and other lightweight prefabricated buildings.

Portal to shed paradise

I have expended considerable effort in letting the whole world know what I get up to in my shed. Now I'm looking to my readers across the world to inform me of their own use and abuse of the domestic shed.

Please leave me your comments. No filthy language or racey photographs of tongued and grooved boarding.  I'm happily married and not that kind of blogger!

I have many unanswered questions:

• Is the shed a predominantly male institution?
• Is ownership of at least one shed an essential requirement for the maintenance of well-being?
• Is shed usage addictive?
• Can sheds only exist within democratic states?
• Is there a spiritual aspect to a shed?
• Could my blog be described as a virtual shed in cyberspace?
• Can two sheds occupy the same ground state?
• Would playing the banjo in a shed constitute a Statutory Nusiance under the Environment Act 1995?

I am particularly keen to hear from my readers in the United States of America: for example, does the 'man-cave' provide the same recreational opportunites as the 'shed'?  If so, does the female American have access to a 'woman cave'? 

The great philosophers were no strangers to the meaning of life and the humble shed:

“The unexamined shed is not worth living in” – Socrates

"The greatest wealth is to live content with a little shed." - Plato

"What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing in a shed." - Aristotle

 "Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from his shed, he is the worst of all." - Aristotle

"I think, therefore I am in my shed." - Descartes

“If a shed falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” - George Berkeley

“We live in the best of all possible sheds.” - Leibniz

 "Sheds without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through the union between man and shed can knowledge arise." - Kant

"We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the shed from participating in any of our functions." - William James

"Test every shed by the question, 'What sensible difference to anybody will this shed make?'" - William James

"The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved in sheds."  - Bertrand Russell

" Look at me. Judge my shed by its size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the shed". - Yoda