Live Well, Work Well, and Find the Groove

Perhaps I missed the point earlier with Matthew Crawford's major thesis.  On one hand Crawford is definitely promoting the value of the practical arts, those careers for which a liberal arts college education is not a prerequisite.  On the other hand, Crawford seems to be promoting a higher ideal of living that draws on the philosophical teachings of Aristotle. Crawford's main idea is to lay out a kind of road map to live the enriched life - and this map is not the same for everybody who takes it.  Despite his warnings and cautionary tales of misery and misdirected goals, his sage advice in choosing a life for one's self will go largely unheeded.

The author has been fortunate enough to live in both "worlds" of the practical arts and liberal arts and gain the advantages of both.  Crawford indeed is the proprietor of a small motorcycle repair shop, Shockoe Moto, just outside of Richmond, Virginia, but he is also Senior Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.  I can't think of anyone in my circle of friends, acquaintances, or friends of friends, or acquaintances of acquaintances, who has this kind of unique background. Crawford is the poster child rara avis in the dictionary figurative sense.

My gut tells me that Crawford is authentic in his call for more fulfilling, thinking work for all. It seems the biggest mistake someone can make is to choose a path that is not fulfilling. Crawford quotes from Talbot Brewer to make a point about "finding a groove":

To take pleasure in an activity is to engage in that activity while being absorbed in it, where this absorption consists in single-minded and lively attention to whatever it is that seems to make the activity good or worth pursuing . . . If one were struck only by the instrumental value of the activity . . . one's evaluative attention would be directed not at the activity but at its expected results - that is, at something other than what one is doing.  This sort of attention . . . absents us from our activity and renders it burdensome. (194)

From this it is clear: you find yourself almost "losing time" engaged in the pursuits you are absorbed in.  "Work" can become a sort of leisure activity.  However, if you are only doing what you do for the "instrumental value" (money?) - distraction and longing for something else creep in.

The message: Yes, everyone needs to "find their own beach" - but the metaphorical beach can be your work as well if its the right thing for you.