I’ve come to see people who do not cook in the same way I suspect my father sees me with regard to my mechanical failures: as people who are missing out on something that makes them more fully human. Cooking – that is, making your own food (and even growing your own food; my wife has graduated to urban agrarianism) – is not easy, but it is rewarding beyond my ability to convey adequately. Yes, I have the money to buy pre-packaged and prepared food. But why would I? Yes, it’s easy. Yes, it’s convenient. But what do we miss by embracing comfort and ease uncritically?

I think you highlight an important insight very well. Practical engagement with the stuff of creation reminds us and confirms us in our humanity. That our particular engagements are different than the engagements and gifts of others finds resolution in shared life. Critiques of specialization, then, are not criticisms of deep learning per se, but of the neglect of the shared life that fulfills and moderates the specialists.