I have a 30-minute commute each way, and I spend the bulk of that time listening to books on tape. This morning I finished Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” where firemen are charged with setting fires (to books) instead of putting them out. It’s a portrait of a dystopian world where books are seen as a threat to society.

This post, apart from being an excuse for me to use the word dystopian, let’s me highlight a quote from the end of the book, where Bradbury talks about the difference between craftsmen and technicians.

The difference between the lawn cutter and the gardener is in the touching.

His point is that a gardener takes care of plants, enriches them and improves the environment he oversees. A lawn cutter, on the other hand, runs his mower roughshod over everything in his path.

Maybe I’m simplifying things a bit, but I think a gardener, by Bradbury’s definition, would bring more value to a landscape, and customers would pay more for it.