Playing on the surface

In the past 3 months, I have been doing the rounds and asking various people around me the question of: “what looks like work to others but feels like play to you?”

It has been a reliable pointer towards the facets of life that the person being asked is naturally inclined towards, which often coincides with those domains where they are comparatively more effective at. There are interesting layers beneath this element of effectiveness, and how that ties into how even the messy and tedious forms of work can evolve into what feels like ‘play’, which I will be exploring further into today.

The first thing that stands out to me is the idea of having a ‘natural inclination’ towards some domain.

There is some implicit understanding that these are the skills, habits and innate talents that we were biologically gifted with, or have cultivated over a long period of time. By raw probability, there are likely to be a far wider pool of actions  that we are not naturally inclined towards than those that are, and the logical approach to this understanding would be to stick within the lanes which we were dropped into. To play to our perceived strengths, to stick within our circle of competence.

There is a risk to this very-reasonable strategy however, which is to assume that the domains that we have become adapted to and familiar with are the only ones where we could ever become proficient in.

As David Epstein proposes in his book ‘Range’, how can we be so sure that the earliest avenues we encounter in our lives are the ones that we should stick with? When our exposure to the spectrum of possibilities is so narrow at the earliest stages of our lives, how could we reasonably know when it is ‘right’ is to go all-in and commit to walking along the path towards mastery of some craft?

There are the few fortunate savants and child geniuses who, together with their raw natural abilities, find mentors who identify and transform that latent potential into exceptional performance. What if there was neither raw talent nor role models?

“What am I capable of being effective at?” may be a useful question to help guide us forward, but there is also another essential ingredient to this framework.

As the old adage goes, that actions speak louder than words, I have noticed that the most reliable way of figuring out whether certain things are suitable or not in my own life is through first-hand immersion into the thing itself. To transition from a mere passive observer and leaning in towards getting one’s hands dirty through active participation in the task.

All the thinking and strategising in the world never gets me as close to the truth when compared to taking action and being directly involved.

In 2018–2019, I was living in regional Tasmania for a 1-year stint as part of the role I was in at the time. In such an isolated environment, I had found it quite difficult to have any sort of reasonable social life, and so one of the projects that I had picked up along the way was car restoration — of the 1994 Mitsubishi FTO coupé that I had been driving at the time.

Of all the things in the world that I could have occupied myself with, why this? Even with the blessing of hindsight, I’m not really sure. I had never really been a mechanically-inclined person. As a child, I had found the mental stimulation of video games and reading much more engaging than tinkering with physical objects in the real world. What chance would I even have at taking apart a machine and making it better? “Probably near zero!” I would have thought to myself at the time. The instinctive fear of black boxes should have stopped such an idea dead in its tracks, to be archived forever in the list of it-would-be-nice-to.

But there were hints that kept appearing — which served to stoke and eventually ignite my curiosity. Some of these hints were a near-everyday occurrence, since the car was my primary form of commuting through the (amazing) backroads of Devonport, Tasmania. The tactile feedback from driving the machine — the sounds from the various moving parts of the engine, the responsiveness of the steering wheel and throttle pedal, the support from the seat as the car went around bends — had formed up an enjoyable driving experience as a baseline. This then served up the burning question of, “How could I make this better?”

The very earliest chapters of the journey started off as emergencies actually, not as these clean examples of executing a well-prepared plan. These must-fix experiences, though intense and immensely stressful at the time, taught me how to buy and fit starter motors and revive dying lead-acid batteries.

Then there were general maintenance tasks of learning how to safely use hydraulic jacks, remove wheels, replace engine fluids and flush brake lines.

Then the making-things-pretty projects of replacing 24 year old suspension with adjustable coilovers, making the interior cabin more sturdy, and exterior paint works.

When I reflect on the whole experience today, it feels surreal to document how remarkably things advanced. At the time, it was all about taking on one step at a time like overcoming a critical emergency, cleaning up an oil leak or installing better headlight bulbs. This helps me to realise how important these small reps were, the little markers of success and efficacy, as the foundational building blocks that eventually enabled the much scarier proposition of deconstructing the internals of the car’s engine.

This touches on the importance of self-esteem when it comes to tackling problems with uncertain means. And the one reliable way of building one’s self esteem is to partake in these small, tactical engagements with reality and to come out the other end successful and, most importantly, to be able to understand firsthand that one has the capacity to become the sort of person that is capable of affecting the reality that surrounds us. Without this foundation of self-esteem, much of the world would appear to be closed off to our influence, and every attempted interaction would only serve as a futile reminder of our own powerlessness.

Towards the end of my time in Tasmania, I had accomplished the task of refurbishing the internal tappets and timing belt of the engine — such that the sound of the engine was much improved, quieter and more stable. I had crossed the chasm of what I had previously perceived as impossible and well beyond my reach. And from this particular chapter of my life have come lasting and positive aftereffects. Getting below the surface of that particular 1994 Japanese made engine has enabled a far richer appreciation for the spectrum of combustion engines that have been developed by other manufacturers — let alone the practical ability of being able to diagnose, deconstruct and rehabilitate mechanical issues, or some unpredictable mishap.

If you can set out to achieve what was previously perceived as out of reach, what else could you do? Who else could you become?

“The minute you understand that you can poke life, and that if you push something in, something will pop out the other side. That you can change it and you can mould it…that’s maybe the most important thing… Embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. Once you learn that, you’ll want to change life and make it better. You’ll never be the same again.”

- Steven Jobs