The Zen of Maintenance

Two weeks ago I caught a cold, and, partly having to do with my failure to execute a proper Operation: Shutdown, I ended up with acute bronchitis. Only within the last few days have I begun returning to my typical active lifestyle, though I do so by pretending that the infection has gone away when in truth it's still there. Based on previous experiences I expect that it will linger around for a few more weeks though in a more benign form.

Two days into being sick and detecting an increasingly raspy breath, I scheduled an appointment with the doctor and managed to see him that day. I told him about my sinus infection and bronchitis; he was patient with my questions and then prescribed antibiotics. Only after fulfilling the prescription and taking a pill or two did I bother to do some online research to figure out what exactly acute bronchitis is. The interesting bit I found out is this: according to WebMD, acute bronchitis is usually caused by a virus, and only in about 10% of cases is it caused by bacteria. Also, according to Wikipedia, the color of the sputum (coughed-up mucus) may indicate whether the infection is viral or bacterial; white indicates a virus; yellowish-green indicates bacteria. My sputum is white, so antibiotics, which treat only bacterial infections, are an unlikely cure, though useful as placebo (until I began learning about bronchitis).

But this is not a post about getting sick or about the medical industry or about anything of the like. Rather, this is a post about a recent realization of mine, which is this: it's important to know your stuff. I mean this in the literal sense, that one should garner, at least to a moderate degree, knowhow and tools for maintaining the things they own and often use. For everyone this entails gaining a basic understanding of the body and medicines and remedies because we all have bodies, and we all get sick and injured. More generally, it entails becoming handier with the things around us.

It might be that I value handiness because I lack it myself. For years I was happy to take my bicycle to the experts, the folks at the bike shop, to have it serviced for all but the simplest of maintenance and repairs. In the meantime, by riding bicycles and hanging around other cyclists, I couldn't help but pick up some basic bicycle maintenance knowhow, and I started doing more things myself at home. In doing so one thing I discovered is this: I can do a better job with the repairs that I know than a professional bike mechanic. It's not that I'm better at bicycle maintenance than them because I'm not; rather, it's that forces conspire to prevent the mechanic from spending too much time on any one bike whereas I will do a more thorough job. I care more about my bike than the bike shop mechanic. Even the most caring and sympathetic of bike mechanics is not going to adjust my rear derailleur quite as finely as I will when he has ten other repairs to make before his shift is over in two hours.

The bike shop mechanic has too many repairs to make and so must follow something like the 80/20 rule and end up doing each job less ably than he is capable of. The general practitioner has too many liabilities to tell a patient that he probably has a viral infection and that the only thing to do is to let the illness run its course and that antibiotics are a waste.

I realize that a common and powerful counterargument to the idea of individuals pursuing generalized knowledge and skills is that an economy increases in efficiency as individuals tend toward specialization, not generalization. A person is more effective at doing one type of activity ten times than he is doing ten types of activity one time each. I understand this argument and will accept its validity. The question I would like to raise is: to whose benefit is it that a specialization-based economy is more efficient?