Maintenance and the Throw-Away Culture

Once, many, many years ago, the telescopic antenna on my shortwave radio broke. A friend of mine, upon seeing it, asked me why I didn’t replace it. My response was that the radio still worked fine for my purposes. I believe his reaction, if my memory serves me correctly, was to just shake his head, grinning. And, for better or (probably) for worse, that’s pretty much been a pattern in my life: buy something, and after it gets partially broken or damaged, just keep using it until it’s completely useless! And then get it replaced!

Robert Pirsig, in his philosophical/autobiographical work Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, divided the world between people who took care of their possessions and those who just wore them out and replaced them. The case in point was how different owners took care of their motorcycles. He was one of the “maintainers” and promoted the value of treating one’s possessions with respect and care. This in turn would promote a nurturing nature that would carry over into one’s relationships with other people. And Pirsig demonstrated this in Zen and the Art with his devotion for his son in their cross-country quest.

And there really does seem to be a correlation of sorts between the materialistic throw-away culture we live in and the apparently more expedient and expendable relationships that people nowadays tend to form with one another. There seems to be an ever-shortening, ever-deafening beat pounding within people as time marches on, prodding and stressing them to the point where only one thing counts, the precious commodity known as NOW, with too many demands (or temptations) competing with each other for ascendancy in the all-important “present moment”. All too often, the needed maintenance of possessions (and relationships) dims in importance compared to flashier, more transitory distractions. As mature human beings, we need to decide what’s really important to pay attention to in our present moments and, just as importantly, what to reject as well. And one pathway to that, at least as far as my own personal experiences has shown, is for me to pay more attention to fostering better habits of taking care of my material possessions, like Robert Pirsig in his wonderful story. But it won’t be easy!