Living with Quality pt. 1

I've been pondering this blog for a while, not exactly sure how to capture all of what I've been thinking succinctly. Plus, I wanted to finish the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM) which has influenced so much of this train of thought. The topic for today relates to the very core of who we are and how we operate, it could be considered a personal religion, a belief.

I'm going to start with a brief summary of the philosophy behind it and you will have to forgive me because I can barely grasp it myself. Due to society and the early philosophers we subscribe to, we are raised to believe that everything can fall into two categories: subjective and objective. Objective being the physical attributes of any one thing, subjective being creations of the mind, the way that we witness things. The problem with this scientific approach, is that it doesn't make room for things like gravity. Its not objective right? There is nothing physically there. Point to it. Is it subjective then? Merely a creation of our minds, which did not exist before we thought of it? No, it clearly existed before it was named. So what is it? Another example is "quality" or this idea of "good."

The problem is the dualistic way in which we've been taught our entire lives to think, its either on or off, yes or no, object or subject. Where does that leave the spirit? Almost everyone can agree that we exist in some way other than our physical form. The author of ZAMM suggest that there is a overruling category which he's termed Quality and Quality supersedes these ideas of Object and Subject because it suggest that things have an "essence" (for lack of a better word) to them which is above their physical traits and exists before we "invent it" which thought. It is important to note that because Quality exist above subject/object we can't define it, because doing so would make it subjective.
In ZAMM he breaks Subject/Object down into other more touchable ideas, like the perceived difference between science and art, or the technical and the aesthetic. This is where this idea of living the philosophy ties in: We are all familiar with the idea of Left Brain, Right Brain people (dualistic again right?), he titles them as "Classic" and "Romantic" brain types that people have fallen into. Classic people tend to understand technology, while romantic people fair better in creative endeavors. The author suggest that these dualist mindsets are dangerous to our stability. Classical thinkers cannot live a purely technical life without removing humanity, Romantic thinkers cannot live in modern society because of their inability to use technology naturally. He notes that even something as technical as motorcycle maintenance has an art to it (the nature of problem solving is educated guesses which are not scientific seeing as they are guesses), and that to perform optimally both in motorcycle maintenance and life, we need to break down the walls that have been build between technology and art and realize that even science requires educated guesses - which are an art and not logical at all.

I fear I can truly not do these ideas justice nor am I connecting the dots very well at all so I will skip ahead...

The moral to the story (one of the many) is this way of living which does not require categorizing. Rather it asks that a sense of "oneness" be establish, an idea I'd like to rephrase as living with a subtle consciousness, the idea being that once we've establish that we are not so separate from the things around us and we therefore begin the consider the effect of every action in the greater picture we can live more wholly. Rather than fighting against your motorcycle to repair it, approach it with a sense of calm and control. Live with purpose and the more you can allow quality to show through your work the more holistic and satisfying the work will become for you as well. You've felt the difference between completely a project you honestly applied yourself to and done your best on, and turning in something "that will do" but doesn't have any of you in it. What happens if you take the idea and apply it globally to your life? What ramifications would it have for you, just in terms of the way that you felt if rather than riding your bike just to get somewhere, you were actually there on your bike rather than simply waiting to get where you are going? Think of all you would see! Also, I wonder how much anxiety we could lose if we lived this way? The difference doing what you are doing now and doing it well. From that would seem to exude a marvelous sense of calm because we are the masters of ourselves.

Sorry for the ramblings once again, I appreciate your reading and I would even more appreciate your thoughts as this is a thought process that I am trying to develop.

Love you all.

~Zac

What Should I Do With My Life?

Since the beginning of the year I feel like my mind has been constantly in motion, churning over potential options for my future. With the passing of graduation and most recently my nursing boards, there is a new urgency to figure out my next move. I have given thought to everything from returning to Alaska, to nursing positions in Michigan, to rafting in Colorado, to nursing positions on the west coast, to studying abroad. I declined an offer to work in Alaska again, which also came with a hefty pay raise, to leave the door open for other opportunities. From searching I have found these other opportunities are few and far in between and highly sought after. These tireless hours of application and cover letter productions leave me feeling frustrated and hopeless.

In nursing school I always pictured my dream job at the end of the road, then that transformed into at least having a job, which then transformed into me desperately looking and applying for any position. I do not want to settle.

Last night engaging in another session of Google job searches, I inquired of the mighty search engine: "What should I do with my life?"

Google rewarded my efforts with a NPR article from a few years ago; you can read the whole article here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=896041

The NPR reporter interviews Po Bronson, who spent two years asking 900 people the same question I had posed then authored a book of the same title. Bronson discussed how most people approach this question with one eye open and one eye closed because we are afraid, then without exploring those fears we allow them to limit us. Like a man at night searching for lost keys only under the street lamp-we narrow our chances of finding what we want.

Bronson discusses how we make decisions from the presumptions we have about the world but often those presumptions are untrue, here are four examples:

(1) That money is the shortest route to freedom.

(2) That we can think (or analyze) our way to an answer of where we belong.

(3) That we are autonomous from the environment that surrounds us.

(4) That our biggest obstacles are external, rather than internal.

After reading these I agree with Bronson that these are the way we want the world to work rather then how it actually does.

Now where to go from here? Sitting and thinking has certainly got me nowhere.

I am just 22 years old and have barely begun to climb the foothills of decisions I will make in this life time. It is imperative to focus on what you do know-where you want to go, what you want to do, what makes you happy. I want to be outside, be challenged, work abroad, be culturally immersed, work hard physically, get a masters degree, get by the mountains or ocean...

At some point you just have to stop the late night searching and pining and head in what direction looks best at the time knowing that at any point you can stop and change directions.