A person with skills to fix a machine is like Sherlock Holmes looking for clues as to what is wrong. The person with handyman skills for jobs around a house is more like a sculptor creating a solution for the problem they face with the clay they are given.
I have always been envious of people possessing these types of skills. They have great patience in getting something to work again. Their power of observation is strong. Their humility embraces their never thinking of themselves as bigger than the thing they are about to fix.
The challenge for the machine mechanic is in understanding how the different parts of a machine work together. What has to happen to get it to move in a way that gives us some type of “positive” work. They then have to go back and begin to guess at what is making the machine fail. Creating a guess and then testing to see if this part or that part is the defective one.
The challenge for the handyman is different. Most times there are less parts and requires a much less complicated understanding of how things work. For them, seeing what is around the problem area is their challenge. They know how to fix a broken wire but may find that it is hard to get to. Or that the crack in the foundation started somewhere far away from where the carpet is wet.
The mechanic works on a system that is already organized. The handyman works on a system whose terrain changes with each job they approach.
The handyman has to take the inconsistencies and obstacles they find with each job site and find a way to get back to something that works and is normal. The mechanic has to overcome their inconsistency of thought, to better understand the organization of a machine that someone else designed, before they can get the machine back into working condition.
Different approaches requiring much different talent. Great thanks is due to all of those who possess these different skills that keep the “stuff around us” working.