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So, today
I want to talk about a book called
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
It's a pretty cool book
I was looking at, I had been listening to some stuff about Buddhism
and I thought it was kind of
some interesting stuff, so I went to look for a book and I came across this book
which is Zen, which refers to Zen Buddhism
And how it relates to motorcycle maintenance. So, obviously that caught my attention
So, I was looking at it and, it's pretty interesting
It's by this guy, he rode a motorcycle like across the
not across the entire country, but across a good section of it
and basically just talked about things
Uh, it's not really about motorcycle maintenance, but it's kind of
in a way because it relates about how when you do things,
like when you take care of your bike, a lot of it matters how you feel when you do it
it's a reflection of you.
Like, I've only read half of it so far, but
you know, it's a 400-page book so half of it has been 200 pages
and
it tells you about
things like um, that when you
go through a manual for the repairs that you want to make
and not just on a bike, on any vehicle, or a piece of technology
the most important thing is to
see what you're. To,
that as a good first step, which is missing from
from all the manuals on how to
on how to fix these things it's missing the fact that
first and foremost you have to be at peace
and you have to like what you're doing
you have to be, you have to enjoy it and you have to
emphasize putting quality into your work and, you know, it might sound kind of silly
you know, because obviously you want to
you want to do it right, but he says that
where a lot of people wrong when fixing their
their things is that they just want to fix it, do what the manual says
be like, you know, turn yourself into a machine that
does basically brings the manual, that does what's specified on the manual
and he says that that's not really the way you should approach it. You have to
add creativity to it, and that is how
you
you do a good job
because
believe it or not, there's a lot of creativity involved there's a different ways to do
each thing and
a lot of people are scared to diverge from what
what the instruction manual tells you.
but this guy has some experience in the field and he says the instruction manual really
is just written by
the one guy at the factory that has a lot of time on his hands
because he's not really very good, but he'll just basically, someone will just
write down things he says, he doesn't
I mean, he uses his judgment but it's not really
it doesn't, the process that some people think goes into
putting forth the instructions or the recommendations is not really
as the strict as some people
give it credit to be
and the thing is, it's not that strict
there's really other ways to go about it. you know,
and you have to look at the form and the function of all the
the parts that you're working on
and
and try to envision how they work and and find a way to make them work better
you should be able to determine these things
even without the manual
you could use it as a reference, but the manual's not,
the start and he end. It's, it's just the
a rough guide basically and
you really can put some creativity
into your work
so, like the reason people are, you know, will pass up
a job like to a mechanic
which, you know, mechanics often do bad jobs
I have never sent my bike to a mechanic because it's small and
I can work with it, I don't need a lift or anything
I mean, I can't pick it up, but actually maybe I can, you know, so
obviously, I don't, I have
basically all the tools I need, at least for
the majority of things which need to get done on it, and so I
often, like when I fix it like, I just
like I had an issue a year ago, it wouldn't turn on, I didn't know why
but I basically just went through the whole bike, piece by piece
and saw each thing, and I think that I did put a lot of that into it, Like I
I just, I really cared about what I do. and because, I really like my bike
and I want to take care of it, I want to make sure
everything is working properly everything is clean
and, I don't know like what was wrong with it, but in the end, I put it back together
and it was working fine.
In the end, I think it was just the battery that was dead
because I just charged it for longer, and then it did turn on
so that was probably, so I probably did the whole thing for nothing but it wasn't bad like
I felt like I learned
I, I got to know the bike, and whereas my car
like, I mean, I spent thousands of dollars to get things fixed
that just don't get fixed in the end
you know, and
it is because some mechanics, they really don't care for their work
They um,
you know, they, they're quick to like uh, they say oh, thing is broken
we're just going to replace it. Like, a lot of times, the things that
get replaced, they. Like, if you've got a
I, actually, the first time I went to a mechanic it was because my turn signal wasn't working
you know, on my car
and I remember I had gone to mechanics, and they were like oh,
you got to get a new turn signal and it was like, it was very expensive
for a turn signal
it was like, a couple of hundred dollars or something
Like, it was ridiculous, you know, and I was like, there's no way, I mean this turn signal
it doesn't work right, which reminds me, I have to turn
but it's definitely not, you know, I don't think it needs to be replaced
and eventually I did find one mechanic
and basically what he did was, he took it out, like the whole turn signal
he just cleaned it out, and he put it back in, and it worked!
and actually, I passed the car down to my mom, and it still works!
the turn signal. It's like, these things
that people don't care about and they just, they'll, you know, something's
not working, you'll just
take it out and put a new piece in. Really, it's
you can save a lot of money if you just, if you just
enjoy what you do. Like, if you think of it as work, a lot of times, people would rather
spend like two hundred dollars
with the mechanic to do like
the repair that needs to be done, and usually do it, a pretty *** job of it
rather than just spending like a couple of hours of their time
taking the thing apart, like
trying to figure out what could be the problem, and really enjoying it,
you know. Like, and that, that's the reason, if you enjoy it,
then it's not work. You know, when you
if you do it yourself, it's not like really labor, because you're
your approach is what has to be
the most important thing. You have to approach it
with uh, with care.
approach it like
you know, like when you go to a movie you don't think like oh, man I have to go to this movie
put in two hours here
to go watch the movie. No, the movie is, it's interesting, you're going to learn something
I mean maybe not learn something, but you're going to see some fun stuff, you know
and that's the same approach you have to have, but in order to have that approach
you to be at peace, you have to
think
to yourself
how, you know,
like, this is what I want to do, I want to do like high quality work here
I want to take care of my things and,
you know, have a sense of interest
about what's going to, about what you'll find once you
once you, you know, dive in to this work
this repair work that you're about to do.
So, that's
that's pretty much it. I'm going to read the other half of the book
I think the other half is mostly about Zen
and other topics um,
I guess if you guys like this video, I'll make a review on the other half
Maybe I'll
I'll review just the, because, you know, it's a really big book, it's a lot of theories
into it, but that's one part of it.
Alright, so see ya.