I believe almost everyone has what I would call a “Zen Activity.” Something that almost invariably puts them into their zone, or state of flow, or whatever you might want to call it. Where the mind clears, attention is fully focused and all other thoughts, worries, and concerns melt away beyond the background.
In the Bay Area, lots of folks’ Zen Activity is some form of yoga practice. I’ve got a number of friends who rely on this to help them find peace and clarity in an otherwise hectic, competitive lifestyle. Other friends of mine turn to more aggressive pursuits, such as surfing or martial arts, for their Zen Activity. For myself, however, my Zen Activities have always been centered around cars (surprise, surprise). More specifically, working on them and driving them. From a mind clearing and focusing perspective, these two different activities manifest themselves in unique ways.
Perhaps the most focused, “Zen” day of my life I can ever remember was when I rebuilt the front suspension on my 1970 Triumph Spitfire. While not necessarily a complicated job, it was time and labor intensive, with a number of sequential steps to be taken to ensure that everything turned out properly (and that I wouldn’t find myself hurtling off the side of the freeway, dependent on 1960s British safety engineering for my life) .
I arrived at my friend’s garage at 8AM with a trunk full of bushings, shocks, shims, trunnions and fasteners, and got to work. As I set about disassembling the suspension, cleaning and degreasing parts, measuring clearances, torquing bolts, and so on and so forth, becoming more engrossed in the project, all other thoughts about work, relationships, finances, etc gradually left my mind, leaving nothing but pure focus on the tasks at hand. So much so, that when I stopped to take my first break from working, and took a look at my watch, I was shocked. It was 2AM in the morning. I had been working for nearly 18 hours straight. Not even the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast broke my concentration and focus. That was nearly 7 years ago, and my front suspension has been tight and responsive ever since.
Driving as a Zen Activity is slightly different, and requires a unique scenario to be useful to me. Back when I was in college, I used to drive back and forth between Iowa and Connecticut during breaks. At the time, I had a rusty 1983 Volvo 242GLT Turbo with just under 200K miles on it. But it was a great car for just eating up the 1100 mile trip between home and college. I got to the point where I could effectively do the entire trip in a day – a very long day.
One of the great things about spending an entire day on the road alone is that – beyond music – there is very little to interrupt your thoughts (granted, this was back in the mid-90s, when cell phones weren’t a given). For the first six or so hours of that long drive, I’d be thinking through all the things that had been on my mind for the previous day, week, month or semester. And, what I’d find after hour seven is that a lot of those things would start to come to resolution, almost like checking an item off of a list. And, as I’d continue to rack up the miles and the hours, the space between the thoughts would start to stretch out more and more…until I’d find myself simply enjoying the final couple hours of the drive, with a sense of calm that had been rare for me to find in college. Just me, my Volvo, I-80 and the Iowa welcome sign. 1100 miles to Nirvana.
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