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de47c8c
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On any mechanical repair job ego comes in for rough treatment. You're always being fooled, you're always making mistakes, and a mechanic who has a big ego to defend is at a terrific disadvantage. If you know enough mechanics to think of them as a group, and your observations coincide with mine, I think you'll agree that mechanics tend to be rather modest and quiet. There are exceptions, but generally if they're not quiet and modest at first, the works seems to make them that way. And skeptical. Attentive, but skeptical. But not egotistic. There's no way to bullshit your way into looking good on a mechanical repair job, except with someone who doesn't know what you're doing.
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technicians
motorcycle-maintenance
mechanics
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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291e758
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You can reduce your anxiety somewhat by facing the fact that there isn't a mechanic alive who doesn't louse up a job once in a while. The main difference between you and the commercial mechanics is that when they do it you don't hear about it--just pay for it, in additional costs prorated through all your bills. When you make the mistakes yourself, you at least get the benefit of some education.
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motorcycle-maintenance
maintenance
learning-from-mistakes
mechanics
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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118816a
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Motorcycle maintenance gets frustrating. Angering. Infuriating. That's what makes it interesting.
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motorcycle-maintenance
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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6e8f237
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"Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it's some kind of "knack" or some kind of "affinity for machines" in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a "short between the earphones," failures to use the head properly. A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself."
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reason
philosophy
motorcycle-maintenance
motorcycle
rationality
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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0d8a7a3
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There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under a power that would be called magic if it were not so completely rational in every way.
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perfection
philosophy
motorcycle-maintenance
motorcycles
rationality
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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985ab32
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"That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There's no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone's mind [...] I've noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this--that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with given shapes--pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts--all of them fixed and inviolable., and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forger work or welding sees "steel" as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. Shapes, like this tappet, are what you arrive at, what you give to the steel. Steel has no more shape than this old pile of dirt on the engine here. These shapes are all of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there."
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philosophy
foundry
machining
welding
motorcycle-maintenance
motorcycles
steel
mechanics
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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2d4a698
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It should be inserted here parenthetically that there's a school of mechanical thought which says I shouldn't getting into a complex assembly I don't know anything about. I should have training or leave the job to a specialist. Thats a self-serving school of mechanical eliteness I'd like to see wiped out. [...] You're at a disadvantage the first time around it may cost you a little more because of parts you accidentally damage, and it will almost undoubtedly take a lot more time, but the next time around you're way ahead of the specialist. You, with gumption, have learned the assembly the hard way and you've a whole set of good feelings about it that he's unlikely to have.
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sense-of-accomplishment
do-it-yourself
motorcycle-maintenance
motorcycles
mechanics
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Robert M. Pirsig |
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7fa5eeb
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Another one is cleaning up tool that have been used and not put away and are cluttering up the place. This is a good one because one of the first warning signs of impatience is frustration at not being able to lay your hand on the tool you need right away. If you just stop and put tools away neatly you will both find the tool and also scale down your impatience without wasting time or endangering the work.
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motorcycle-maintenance
frustration
impatience
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Robert M. Pirsig |