Repair and Maintenance
“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
Over the years, there has been a change in the way we are expected to behave. Author and columnist, David Brooks, describes this changing trend very effectively in his book ‘The Road to Character’. Once while driving home in his car, he came across a repeat broadcast of an old radio programme. A host of celebrities were featured in that programme dated August 15, 1945. It was the day when Japan announced its surrender in the second world war. The war had virtually come to an end with Japan’s surrender and the programme marked that momentous occasion. Despite the victory, the mood throughout that programme, and even across the nation, was solemn rather than jubilant. Not one participant claimed to be superior to the defeated countries and there was no bragging. On reaching home, Brooks happened to catch a football game on television and noticed a disparity in behaviour. One of the players performed a victory dance after scoring a minor point. Brooks describes it thus:
“It occurred to me that I had just watched more self-celebration after a two-yard gain than I had heard after the United States won World War II”.
And this, sadly, is a sign of our times. We humans who were so dependent on each other for our survival as cave-dwellers have been culturally conditioned to ‘stand out’, ‘shine’, and ‘be the best’. Instead of getting together to contribute to our collective welfare, we are taught to loudly celebrate our individual victories over our fellow men. We are asked to stand out from the crowd. We are asked to win.
The problem with a focus on personal success
The trouble with these expectations is that an average, normal life is not a series of victories. Incredible success often comes with incredible luck or massive support from a team. The singular focus that is often required for ‘being exceptional’ so often leads to other commitments falling by the wayside. Personal lives suffer. And tragically often success comes from the adoption of dubious techniques like exploitation, cutting corners, and falsifying facts. The stories of successful people are often not what they seem to be. As Kurt Vonnegut had said,
“Never trust a survivor, until you find out what he did to stay alive.”
So, this kind of visible success is not something to aspire to, given its shallowness, doubtful veracity and its cost.
A series of maintenance activities
If life is not a series of victories, then what is it? In fact, most of life is just a series of maintenance activities.
You have a home. You try to keep it free of pests. You repair the broken window, the crumbling wall, and the leaking faucet.
You have a car. You keep it clean, you check its tyres for air pressure. You get it serviced from time to time.
You have a computer. You back up its data, you use antivirus software.
You meet people, you build relationships. You spend time with them. You talk and you listen. You learn from them. You change and you grow.
Our lives go more smoothly when we pay attention to the maintenance tasks. The trouble is that there is no glamour in them. Maintenance work and repair work is dull and dreary and frankly a lot of hard work. Maintenance work does not get us noticed. No wonder, in the current times, it is not popular.
The risk of inattention
When tasks that are important for the functioning of systems are given the lowest priority, systems fail. Marriages crumble. Children get estranged from their parents. Friends grow apart. The house gets mould. The car breaks down. Companies fail.
We cannot change the world, but we can change where we direct our attention. Repair and maintenance form the fabric of our lives. We need to pay attention to it. It will not make us the star of our family, our company or our neighbourhood. But it will enhance our lives.
And in our minds, we need to elevate the status of the people who keep the show running. They contribute far more than the ‘stars’ of the show.
