Mechanical Philosophy
THERE WAS NO sound. Actually, there were plenty of sounds from cars passing on the street, just not the one Lucia wanted to hear: that of her car starting. When she tried the ignition, there was not
even a click.
The day had started so well. A light rain fell, freshening the stale
air, and Lucia drove downtown to join a teaching colleague for coffee. Now this: after a long discussion of Hegel during which time got away from her, she came out mid-afternoon, and her car refused to do what she expected it to do. At least, she thought, I’m in a daylong parking space in the lot, and I won’t get a ticket on top of this.
She called Charlie the mechanic on her cell phone, and he said he would be right down to help. Waiting for him in the now sunny afternoon, Lucia thought, I often wonder how we survived all of those years without the cell phone. Now it is another organ as important as the liver or the kidneys or even the heart.
Charlie rolled up in his tow truck, said a quick hello, popped the hood on Lucia’s car, and hooked up a pair of cables to the battery. “Try it now,” he told her. The car started up immediately.
“Wonderful!” exclaimed Lucia. “What do I owe you?”
“It’s not over yet,” Charlie replied. “Turn your lights off, then follow me back to the shop. You ran your battery down. I have to put it on the charger.”
With Lucia’s battery hooked to the charger in the garage, Charlie came back into the waiting area. His mechanics, Manny, Juan, and Tojo, worked steadily on other cars in the sparkling clean facility. Lucia asked, “So, Charlie, tell me what is new with you.”
Charlie finished wiping his hands and replied, “Don’t even start.”
“For heaven’s sakes, Charlie, anyone would say that by your tone of voice you need to recharge your spiritual battery. What happened to your spark?”
“Well, Lucia, you nearly hit the nail on the head,” Charlie said. He picked up a small stack of work orders and sorted.
Lucia observed he seemed to work hard at focusing on the papers to avoid talking to her. She went to the coffeemaker in the corner Charlie provided for customers, poured a cup, and passed it under Charlie’s nose, teasing, “Coffee, Charlie . . . coffee.” He looked up, mildly irritated. “Come on, Charlie, speak up. What’s bugging you?”
“You seriously want to know, or do you want me to say I have a toothache or something?”
“I seriously want to know. Unless you really do have a toothache, and then I’ll say get to a dentist. But I suspect it has to do with your spiritual battery. Now, take this coffee and I’ll pour one for myself.”
He motioned her to his tiny office, and they sat down and sipped. “Lucia,” he said, “You and me, we’ve known each other a long time.”
“Decades.”
“Yeah. Decades. Well, as you know, I have a lot of relatives, and when they need me, they sure come to see me. I talk to them, give them advice, and I even lend them or give them money. Then they leave, and I feel as if, after all of that, we didn’t even connect.”
Lucia took his hand and softly advised, “Dear friend, my suggestion for you is that when you go out of your way to advise them and even given them money, don’t wait for them to show you any gratitude, but instead, focus on the intention of your giving. Your intention is to help keep them going, just as a charged battery keeps a car going. When the battery of the car gives energy to the starter motor and then the car starts, we don’t thank the battery. Instead, we are grateful the car runs. Your friends and relatives are deeply grateful. Trust me on this.”
“I guess,” Charlie sighed.
“Hey. You immediately knew my car battery needed charging. You told me that when the battery is low, the car begins to fail. I’m telling you that your own battery is awfully low. I sense that you are disillusioned and not necessarily happy, but if you don’t find the remedy and charge your spiritual battery, you may begin to experience a meaningless existence, apathy, and lethargy.”
“Apathy and lethargy, what are those? Sounds like a law firm.” Charlie attempted to deflect with some humor, but Lucia did not pause. “Allow me to explain those two terms the same way that Miguel de Unamuno, the great Spanish thinker of the turn of the century, did.”
“Who?”
“Here’s a little story about me. The first thesis I wrote for my masters in philosophy was about Miguel de Unamuno.”
“Wait,” Charlie interrupted. “What do you mean your first thesis? Do you need to write more than one?”
“Give me a second,” Lucia admonished. “There’s more to this story. My first thesis burned.”
“You were that unhappy with it?”
“Ha!” she laughed. “It was probably the most brilliant, most insightful piece of philosophical research ever written.”
“Really,” Charlie replied, uncertain if Lucia was teasing or delusional.
“Since it’s gone, we’ll never know, will we? No, I didn’t burn my thesis, not with all the work I put into it. During that time in graduate school, I roomed with my sister and her family. You know children and matches, the worst combination ever and even worse if one is a pyromaniac. My little nephew’s friend was one of those. My room was his fourth fire.”
Charlie sighed. “I understand what you must have felt. All that work gone. I would have been depressed for months.”
“You know, Charlie. As a matter of fact, I actually remember my first thoughts after that fire. I remember thinking, well, this is a moment of truth because what I have truly learned is in my head, and what I thought I knew is now only ashes. But I did graduate by writing another thesis that actually changed my outlook in life. We can talk about that another time. My point is I took something that could have, as you say, depressed me for weeks and instead recharged my spiritual battery and accomplished something that had more effect on me. Enough of that. Let’s find out why your own battery is so low.”
Charlie had about enough of this. With everything else in his life, he didn’t need a preacher in his business, lording a how-to-live-your-life- right sermon over him. “Let’s see if your battery is ready to come off the charger,” he said, getting up.
“Hang on a minute,” she said, stopping him. Any time Lucia crossed the path of someone like Charlie, she would always keep in mind how Socrates was able to help a young illiterate man solve a trigonometry problem by drawing in the sand with a stick using the tools and understanding of the young man. She quickly adapted to explain using experiences Charlie already comprehended. “You like TV, don’t you?”
He sighed loudly. Playing along, he said, “Yeah, I like TV.”
“What are your favorite shows?”
“Football. American Idol. Orange County Choppers.”
“Besides reality, what do you like?
Charlie thought. “Breaking Bad. Law and Order.”
“All right. Drama,” Lucia agreed. “Let’s talk about drama and the philosopher Unamuno. Unamuno wrote more than ten thousand pages of drama and poetry and only one book of philosophy, titled The Tragic Sense of Life.
“That’s a gloomy title.”
“Gloomy indeed, Charlie, but that book explains the danger of walking into the life of idleness, lethargy, apathy, and nothingness. You would never read a book like that, would you?” Charlie shook his head. “I think Unamuno suspected that too, so he wrote a dramatic novel to explain the evil evolved in any of those choices. The title is The Fog, and the main character is named August.”
“Not Charlie, then?” Charlie smiled, knowing how Lucia liked to slant things.
“Not Charlie,” Lucia continued, oblivious. “Well, August is a single, healthy, rich, and spoiled man who, thanks to his rich parents, has everything he desires yet nothing to do, and not having anything to do, he begins to experience lethargy, laziness, and apathy. Because he has everything, there are never any challenges for miserable August.
“With all of that money,” Charlie said, “he could come to me and I would have given him a handful of good ideas — for a good payment, of course.”
Now Lucia sighed, took a breath, and continued. “So one morning he wakes up incredibly excited because he finally found a reason for his existence. He now has the project of his lifetime!” she exclaimed.
“And what in God’s name is his project?” Charlie mocked.
“And August said, ‘I know what I am going to do! I am going to kill myself!’”
“What?” Charlie stated, puzzled and suddenly let down. “Was he nuts? Did he have a screw loose?”
Satisfied she had his attention, Lucia said excitedly, “But wait. In the next moment, Unamuno, as the writer, jumps on the page of the novel and says, “Un momentito! One moment young man! You may not kill yourself because I am your father. I have given you birth. I have given you the life you have, and I do not allow you to kill yourself.”
Charlie frowned. A writer putting himself in his own novel and talking directly to a character he created. “I was with you for a minute, Lucia, but this? This is crazy time.”
“What Unamuno is trying to do for August is recharge the battery of his existence because he is on his way to a very bad depression. Just like Unamuno, I don’t want to see you catching that sick bug.”
“So now I’m one of your creations?” Charlie made a little whistle and rotated his index finger next to his head.
“Of course, you’re not one of my creations,” Lucia apologized, realizing she might have been a bit high handed. “What I’m saying is you still have plenty of spark, and your engine is running quite well. You take care of recharging my car battery while I take care of recharging your soul battery.”
“You’re not suggesting a trade, are you? Because I’m already traded for plumbing and landscaping. I can’t afford another trade, not if my employees expect to be paid.”
“I’ll pay you, Charlie. Don’t sweat that. You have enough people taking advantage of your good will. That’s what you’ve been telling me. You see, when you have expectations of people, that means that you anticipate that certain things will be done by the people who you have just helped. Perhaps while you advise your relatives, you think that they are going to do exactly what you suggest because why wouldn’t they? But then they don’t! And then you suffer emotional exertion that wipes out more energy from you than one week of doing car mechanics.”
“You got that right, Lucia,” Charlie agreed.
“I understand. This is where I can hopefully give you some practical advice. Let me show you how to apply the best of the emotional mechanics in philosophy named phenomenology.”
“Fee-name . . . Let’s go see about that battery.”
“Phe-no-me-no-lo-gy, the branch of philosophy that teaches you to suspend all your experiences, just as you can stop a DVD then go back in order to learn when, where, and how your problem began. You may be complaining about your uncaring relatives today, but that problem has built momentum with time, and now you can’t stand it.
“Phenomenology also analyzes our presuppositions that is to say, when we have a sense that an idea has a preexisting implication or motive. Like, when you help one of your relatives, you think that you are doing it all for them, but in reality, you are also doing it for yourself.
This is where expectation plays a big role. Every time you advise or help, you are already anticipating certain outcomes because you are focusing your intentions on those certain outcomes, and when this outcome does not appear before your eyes, it is then that you feel betrayed.”
“I think I get it,” Charlie said thoughtfully.
“You see, it’s like when you have a customer going to take a cross-country trip — a customer who you know is comfortably well off — and while his car is several years old, you see that he keeps it well maintained. But since this is an extended road trip, you tell him it would be wise to change the battery, the brakes, the shock absorbers, the timing belt before it snaps and even the crankshaft. You know that the car still has a lot of healthy miles before the belt would snap, and the brakes and shocks have lots of wear left, and nobody ever preventively replaces a crankshaft, but if you intimidate the ignorant client enough, you would get a big sale.”
Affronted, Charlie bridled, “If I were that unethical, I’d lose my business in a New York minute?”
“Charlie, calm down,” she soothed. “You and I both know in our hearts you could not and would not do such a thing. But, speaking completely theoretically, if a mechanic did this, you could expect a big pay day that you would not have otherwise. Am I right?”
Charlie quickly calculated the parts and labor in his head. “A big pay day,” he said. “So, what?”
“Well, if we go back to the real reason for our conversation, we are talking about intention, and in the case of our last example, there was more reason to make money than to improve the life of the car. And those intentions are the idea before the idea that became the question for your client. In other words, when you suggest all the potential changes for the car before the trip, you know that some of those changes are not necessarily urgent, and if you do get to make all of those ‘important but not necessarily urgent changes,’ you will have an easy job, a happy client, and also extra money. Right?”
“Yes, but it’s not right,” Charlie nodded.
“It is the same when you help your relatives. You already have certain expectations, and because those expectations are not fulfilled, you find yourself gloomier than ever.”
Finally, Charlie clicked in to Lucia’s ideas. “Lucia, you know I hate it when you are right, but you are right.”
“Bravo, Charlie, I also love your honesty. So now, tell me, my dear friend. What is the real reason you help your relatives? Do you want them to thank you? Do you want them to owe you something? Do you want them to praise you?” She raised her eyebrows. “What then is the real reason for your generous help?”
She saw Charlie mulling this question and continued, “Furthermore, if you are suffering depression, is it because you think that you will never know what exactly it is that you do for them? Ask yourself this question, ‘How much am I willing to invest in my relatives?’ I don’t mean money. I mean, how much are you willing to invest of your own ‘good will?’ If you really would like your life to have any meaning, make sure you invest in your own good will.”
Charlie sat pensively. Then, he slapped the top of his desk. “You know what, Lucia? I . . . I am going to think about all of this phenol-menolo . . . something. More than that, I think that I now understand the fact that when I help any one of my friends and relatives, I am not only helping them. I am also wanting something. This something is what I need to figure out before we have another philo-mechanic talk.”
Manny tapped on the door. “Hey, boss, the battery on the charger is done. What do you want me to do with it?”
“Put it back in Lucia’s car,” Charlie said. Manny left without comment.
“What do I owe you?” Lucia asked, getting her credit card out.
“Consider it a straight trade,” Charlie responded, “even if I did get the better side.”
Sliding the card back in her wallet, Lucia said, “Charlie, you have been very kind, giving me an opportunity to throw my own philo-mechanics on your lap. By all means, let me know whenever you may be ready for another chat, and as you know, I will be here in a minute.”
“One thing you can do for me right now,” Charlie told her, “is let me have a great big hug.” The two old friends embraced each other. “Thanks again, Lucia.”
