The truth?

Mike_H

Mike_H

autos are better - WRWD508
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Grand Rapids, MI, United States
šŸ“ø Look at this post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/share/gkQP9nWiSJg91DK7/?mibextid=K35XfP

Copied and pasted below for those without FB. Itā€™s about racing, but it applies to Jeeps too.


If I could go back in time.... I would never have modified my cars. I mostly did the engine for more straight line speed. Years of my life passed ā€œbuildingā€ objects when I only had pennies to spare. Nothing but a few photos of them remain now, they still make me smile but I wouldnā€™t do it the same way. Instead, I would just get a reliable daily, as mundane and miserly as possible.

I'd take all the money I saved, buy myself a small, light, used, manual sports car that's simple to work on. I'd strip it out for free, so I could hear every sound and every pebble hit the chassis. My mods would all be subtraction and the addition would end at a racing seat and harnessā€¦ so that I could glue my body to the chassis and feel the right rear tire losing grip before itā€™s even had a chance to complain about it.

Thenā€¦ Iā€™d wait. Iā€™d wait and wait with my helmet and keys in hand, praying like a farmer for rain. Every time it rained I would jump into my car, go to some secluded spot, and practice driving in the wet. Learn how the car transfers weightā€¦ how energy falls or snaps backā€¦ learn how to ride the thin edge of grip on wet braking. Mastering my car slowly like Tsuchiya did late at nights down a mountain pass. I would practice heel and toe downshifting, rev matching, left foot braking, double clutching, and keeping the car consistently steady at the edge.

I wouldn't pay any attention to people that tell me how to modify my car. After a few years, the car you have mastered becomes your perfect-fitting old shoe, and you can dance with it like no one else can.

While everyone else is online trying to be king on Instagram, finding followers, arguing and bench racing, youā€™d slowly become king of driving skill finding balance on a razorā€™s edge.

Seeā€¦ building an object or meaningless fame can never equal the value of building yourself. Objects come and go, and youā€™re a celebrity one day and a nobody the nextā€¦ but your skills remain for life. Even as an old man you will get into a race car, clock perfect laps, and teach all the young guys how itā€™s done.

When they are befuddled, and walk up and ask you how you are so good, you tell them ā€œI did it with a cheap carā€¦ with an old used seatā€¦ under the rain.ā€
 
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Building shit for other people is definitely pretty lame (and common nowadays), but you don't have to be a hermit and discard every opinion from everyone to do what you like. This is just one extreme end to another. We all already know seat time is the best investment in your capabilities
 
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Reminds me of Rick Antolovich. 75 years old, Rubicon with 2ā€ total lift and a tucked TCase skid on 32ā€™s. Went most places in Moab and drove circles around the guy in an LJ on 40ā€™s on the trail I tagged along. Heā€™d been driving Jeeps on trails for 50 years.
 
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JMT said:
Reminds me of Rick Antolovich. 75 years old, Rubicon with 2ā€ total lift and a tucked TCase skid on 32ā€™s. Went most places in Moab and drove circles around the guy in an LJ on 40ā€™s on the trail I tagged along. Heā€™d been driving Jeeps on trails for 50 years.
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Sounds like an older version of Basket.
 
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This is going to be another one of my little dissertations but if Iā€™m off topic and wrong, Iā€™m wrong-

People, especially Americans, Love to purchase speed, success, prestige,fashion whatever it is that they think impresses people.

You can walk into a Chevrolet dealership and purchase a Corvette that will contend with anything in the world if you have the money.

You can walk into a bike dealership and buy a Ktm motorcycle that is par with just about any factory equipment out there.

You can purchase carpentry tools from Festool that will allow you to make a cut that takes a master carpenter decades to learn.

To make it even worse people do that and actually believe that they have the talent. They buy nice clothes and they think they are somebody. And donā€™t get me wrong itā€™s good to dress nice and feel good about yourself, And nice clothing matters to an extent, But a $500 leather jacket does not make you more valuable person. If anything people become worse because then they think they have something that other people donā€™t have when they donā€™t even have it at all- They have the trappings of success.

When you see what people do to learn true mastery it will humble you-

Someone told Gary player they would give anything to play golf like him and he said no you would not you wouldnā€™t be up driving 1000 balls at 5oā€™clock in the morning til your hands bled.

Australian Enduro legend Shane Watts would go out in a muddy field and practice locking up the front brake and pushing the motorcycle with the back wheel at low speed so that he wouldnā€™t freak out and lose his front end at race pace. He would spend days just practicing how to get over logs at speed.

Guitarist Randy Rhoads stayed in his room and played scales for hours while everyone else partied.

Iā€™m not even going to get into the doors that were closed in peoples faces...from Elvis Presley to thousands of others. They just did not quit til they mastered their craft. Hall and Oates said their first recordings were absolutely terrible. Bryan Adams first record deal was $1 to record 4 songs with A & M records. Kevin Cronin left REO Speedwagon then came back before they hit it big. Tommy Shaw was playing in a bowling alley in Alabama before he joined Styx.

As a culture we are shallow people, spoiled and somewhat clueless as to what it really takes to be great.

And every time we see somebody like this pay the price and succeed we idolize that person- But sadly we donā€™t see the years and late nights and everything that lead to them being in the spotlight.

We want the fame, the spotlight, the big money....but we do not want the sweat. The work.

Iā€™m going to add one other thing about the people that really have it- You can take everything away and put them anywhere and theyā€™re going to come back out on top because theyā€™ve got what it takes inside to do the work.
 
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AndyG said:
This is going to be another one of my little dissertations but if Iā€™m off topic and wrong, Iā€™m wrong-

People, especially Americans, Love to purchase speed, success, prestige,fashion whatever it is that they think impresses people.

You can walk into a Chevrolet dealership and purchase a Corvette that will contend with anything in the world if you have the money.

You can walk into a bike dealership and buy a Ktm motorcycle that is par with just about any factory equipment out there.

You can purchase carpentry tools from Festool that will allow you to make a cut that takes a master carpenter decades to learn.

To make it even worse people do that and actually believe that they have the talent. They buy nice clothes and they think they are somebody. And donā€™t get me wrong itā€™s good to dress nice and feel good about yourself, And nice clothing matters to an extent, But a $500 leather jacket does not make you more valuable person. If anything people become worse because then they think they have something that other people donā€™t have when they donā€™t even have it at all- They have the trappings of success.

When you see what people do to learn true mastery it will humble you-

Someone told Gary player they would give anything to play golf like him and he said no you would not you wouldnā€™t be up driving 1000 balls at 5oā€™clock in the morning til your hands bled.

Australian Enduro legend Shane Watts would go out in a muddy field and practice locking up the front brake and pushing the motorcycle with the back wheel at low speed so that he wouldnā€™t freak out and lose his front end at race pace. He would spend days just practicing how to get over logs at speed.

Guitarist Randy Rhoads stayed in his room and played scales for hours while everyone else partied.

Iā€™m not even going to get into the doors that were closed in peoples faces...from Elvis Presley to thousands of others. They just did not quit til they mastered their craft. Hall and Oates said their first recordings were absolutely terrible. Bryan Adams first record deal was $1 to record 4 songs with A & M records. Kevin Cronin left REO Speedwagon then came back before they hit it big. Tommy Shaw was playing in a bowling alley in Alabama before he joined Styx.

As a culture we are shallow people, spoiled and somewhat clueless as to what it really takes to be great.

And every time we see somebody like this pay the price and succeed we idolize that person- But sadly we donā€™t see the years and late nights and everything that lead to them being in the spotlight.

We want the fame, the spotlight, the big money....but we do not want the sweat. The work.

Iā€™m going to add one other thing about the people that really have it- You can take everything away and put them anywhere and theyā€™re going to come back out on top because theyā€™ve got what it takes inside to do the work.
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Just my tangentally related thoughts as a 40ish year old dude that has worked in a lot of different fields and seen a lot of things:

One of my favorite things in the world is watching someone who has mastered their craft at work. Doesn't matter the craft.

I've sat for hours watching a master blacksmith make ornamental ironwork, with no wasted movement and perfect hammer work. Seen a bulldozer operator perfectly lay a grade in an incredibly short amount of time. Watched a backhoe operator turn it around in its own footprint with the booms and stabilizers. Seen a mechanic spin a threaded hose off with a pry bar and a dead blow hammer so that he didn't have to pull the fenders to access the part. Watched an arborist fell a 100 foot pine tree and lay it in a gap in fencing that was 18 inches wider than the tree trunk.

It doesn't matter the skill, watching someone who has mastered their craft is a very cool thing to see.
 
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97TJNM said:
Just my tangentally related thoughts as a 40ish year old dude that has worked in a lot of different fields and seen a lot of things:

One of my favorite things in the world is watching someone who has mastered their craft at work. Doesn't matter the craft.

I've sat for hours watching a master blacksmith make ornamental ironwork, with no wasted movement and perfect hammer work. Seen a bulldozer operator perfectly lay a grade in an incredibly short amount of time. Watched a backhoe operator turn it around in its own footprint with the booms and stabilizers. Seen a mechanic spin a threaded hose off with a pry bar and a dead blow hammer so that he didn't have to pull the fenders to access the part. Watched an arborist fell a 100 foot pine tree and lay it in a gap in fencing that was 18 inches wider than the tree trunk.

It doesn't matter the skill, watching someone who has mastered their craft is a very cool thing to see.
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Exactly. This is about being accomplished. I crawled around on floors for 15 years, and can lay a 40 square foot floor in 11 minutes. Seen 3 guys put 996 tiles in a bath in one day.

Theres a story of a guy who wanted a famous painter to paint a painting.

He did it in 10 minutes and charged $5000.

They screamed ā€œ 5000.00 dollars for 10 minutes!!??ā€

He said ā€œ no, for the 30 years it took me to learn that. ā€œ

The path is to become aware, become accomplished, become articulate and then be deliberate.

Its really not talent...everyone has talent. It is about staying power.

It is beautiful to watch and a treasure to possess.

Love your post.
 
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AndyG said:
Exactly. This is about being accomplished. I crawled around on floors for 15 years, and can lay a 40 square foot floor in 11 minutes. Seen 3 guys put 996 tiles in a bath in one day.
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Where were you when I was redoing my townhouse with those skills... Probably out of budget I guess
 
GregBelleville said:
You wouldn't be paying him for the tile he laid in 11 minutes, but for the 15 years of experience it took him to build that skillset. šŸ˜„
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Instead it was me and my 11 minutes of experience taking 15 years! Okay, more like 15 weeks. Thank god I don't have a wife to bitch about that
 
lBasket said:
Instead it was me and my 11 minutes of experience taking 15 years! Okay, more like 15 weeks. Thank god I don't have a wife to bitch about that
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I'm at a point in my life where the worst part of any project is the nagging I hear about why I'm not getting it done in some completely unrealistic timeline.
 
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