Bonus points to anyone who can name the song lyric.

I was thinking earlier this week of a book I read a number of years ago that really stuck with me. It’s something you may have heard of; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Before I read it, I will admit that I had a hard time working up the desire, as most books that earn the labels “instant classic” or “critically acclaimed” are normally dry as day-old toast. I am an avid reader of books about philosophy, and everywhere I looked people were recommending this as the pre-eminent book on Intro level Philo, so eventually I let my guard down and gave it a read.

I was surprised to find a real wealth of thought in it, and none of it of the kind I was expecting. The “motorcycle maintenance” in the book was a metaphor, an analogy which was telling people that what was important in life was not just what you do, but how you go about doing it. Motorcycle maintenance is a necessary evil when you own a motorbike, and there is nothing fun nor glamourous about it. Still, it needs doing. So you might as well put your all into it, and do it to the best of your abilities.

Let’s leave that for a moment, and allow me to speak about another book I read just about 4 years ago. It was a health and wellness book that I will admit I don’t remember the name of. It’s sitting at home on a shelf, and I could wait to get home to check for sure, but that’s incidental to my point. While reading this book, I came across a section of stress reduction which contained about 30 assorted stress reduction methods. Only one really jumped out at me, and I will paraphrase it here for you:

     Take things slowly. Don’t rush through one thing just to get to the next, no matter how inconsequential you believe the first thing is. If you’re eating an orange, remember to let all 5 senses get involved. Don’t just peel the orange. Feel the texture of the rind with your fingers before you break it. Listen for the noise of the rind tearing, the sudden strong smell as the orange within the rind is revealed. Close your eyes, and breathe deeply of that smell. Continue feeling, smelling, listening and above all else, look at what you are doing. When you taste the orange, feel the texture on the tongue, roll it around to all your different taste buds. Above all, savour every sensation, every bite.

I know, I know, it sounds like a commercial put together for the Orange growers federation. But it does something to you when you force yourself to slow down. It teaches you to observe what you’re doing, and makes you aware of what you are doing well, and what you need improvement on. And, when you find yourself doing something at less than your best, when doing it slow, it causes a feeling inside you that inspires improvement. It makes you realize you want to do things at the absolute best of your abilities.

Zen and the Art calls this phenomenon “Quality”. Not the quality of the result of your work, but the quality of the effort you put into it. That’s what’s important, moreso than speeding through necessary actions to get to the fun stuff, moreso than doing a half-assed job to finish something you don’t like. If you slow down and observe the minutae of each action, you learn to appreciate the effort required to do things.

Trimming facial hair in my washroom. Getting dressed and buttoning a shirt. Eating a meal, or even preparing one. Painting a wall. Things that normally would annoy, but if you do it slow enough to do it correctly, there is no stress, and you appreciate why craftsman love what they do so much.

I’ve tried to explain this to people fairly regularly, but the reaction I normally get, with a confused face and a questioning, “What do you mean, do stuff slow?”

Anything to enjoy life a little more. We can’t all do the things we love, so it’s a matter of changing the things you love to the things you already are able to do.

I feel like I should be making money creating commercials to inspire kids.