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Most DIY knowledge comes from screwing up something yourself or hearing stories about how someone else screwed it up. I learned the importance of a torque wrench from my father who told the story about how he stripped the threads in an engine putting in a spark plug. I must have heard that story every time he lifted the hood on the car.

If you don't try to fix something you'll never learn how to fix it.

In my generation during High School all the boys got construction jobs because they paid the best. By doing so we all had a serious understanding on how things are put together. I think todays men coming up don't do that because of all the low wage immigrants in construction have killed the high school labor market.

Most DIY knowledge comes from screwing up something yourself or hearing stories about how someone else screwed it up.

Or watching it done. When we remodeled our house, we spent the whole summer being there, watching it done, doing most if the demolition ourselves, watching the carpenter work, discussing the job, running to get him the materials he needed to finish. I learned a lot about how houses are constructed, how wiring and plumbing works, and can now envision how things should be built if and when I have to build something.

Too many people now hire their remodels done and don't spend any time at the job site. I've even heard of contractors who won't allow the homeowner to be on site because we slow them down and get in the way... And I'd never hire one of those.

I always put plugs in just barely hand tight. Maybe an eigth of a turn beyond that. Plugs are threaded so flat that the chances of them coming lose, and then spontaneously rotating themselves out of the heads are probably as close to zero as you can get!

I love doing engine work and working around the house. Except plumbing, and I hate that only because you often have to work in very confined space in very contorted positions. But today I just finished staining my deck (I put new flooring on my deck two years ago and kept telling myself "I'll let it weather one winter and stain it next summer..."). Two years ago, I and a contractor also put a metal roof on my place.
A little while back, I had a pinhole leak on the input pipe to my water heater, so I fixed that and then a couple days later put a 90% shutoff into the pipe about four feet before the heater.

So I'm always doing stuff around the place and have quite a large collection of tools. It is very rewarding to have a job well done.