Posts Tagged ‘substance over form’

July 6th, 2009 Who are Life’s Real Winners?

While we are all so preoccupied with the next purchase, our next sexual conquest, our next holiday, what is it that we are not doing?

Thinking!

We keep ourselves engaged. We keep ourselves busy. We write to-do lists for ourselves and then frantically go about completing them. Those terrifying gaps between one activity and another are eliminated, as we squeeze more and more doing into each day.

It reminds me of Lidio, an old cabinetmaker from Friuli. Lidio would arrive to work each day at exactly the same time; a quarter to seven and slowly and purposefully, he would unload his tools and machinery from his truck. Next, he would methodically set up in the house and start work.

Lidio would work steadily at an even pace; his movements perfectly synchronized in a slow ballet, until his morning break. After eating his apple, he would continue straight through to lunch, which was always a panini with some fruit afterwards. He repeated the process in the afternoon until it was time to quit, when he replaced his tools in his truck, in the same slow deliberate way in which he had unloaded them. He repeated this routine each day for several weeks until he finished all the cabinetry in the house.

I know it sounds dull, uneventful. However, out of this unremarkable process an amazing amount of the most exquisite cabinetry was produced. Lidio was in his fifties at the time and the intervening 20 years I have not seen any 30 year old that could hold a candle to him in precision or speed.

Was Lidio a happy man? Far from it! His wife suffered from a disabling illness, and his marriage was an unhappy one. He had a very shy and good-hearted daughter, Carina, whom he loved very much. He worried for Carina, fearing for how someone so soft hearted would be likely to make out in this world.

Lidio had had several business partners over the years all of whom had swindled him in one way or another.

So, in the end, is Lidio a winner, or a loser in the game? One can hardly call him a winner. His life reads more like a character out of a Dickens novel, rather than someone you are likely to see on ” Livestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Lidio has neither power, influence, nor happiness. So logic tells us, he must be a loser. Yet, would you consider a man who devoted his life to his work and his family, and produced an extraordinary amount of the most exquisite cabinetry, a loser?

I am not just asking this question rhetorically – I would really like to know!