Balance and fixing broken stuff

There is a lesson here, some principle to be derived about the appropriate place that "fixing what is broken" should have in one's life, but I'm still not sure what the principle is.

By "fixing what is broken," I am not being metaphorical.

When something breaks -- a light bulb fizzles, a hinge comes off, the pipes burst, a gutter comes down in a snowstorm, your car starts emanating horrible screeching noises from the engine at random intervals -- there is (and by "there is," I mean, "I have") a real tendency to hope that it goes away on its own. Especially the car thing.

Why? Because, in our division-of-labor society where many things are fairly disposable and where schedules are terribly tight, you never know what is worth it to get fixed, or to let die when their impairment is getting in your way.

But then, there is the undeniable pleasure of fixing something that is broken. Especially when I fix, or get something fixed, right away, I take a real pride in feeling grown-up and capable. And, often, it is easy to do, and you feel like a dodo for not having investigated earlier.

Take yesterday. All week, the Subaru has been emitting the aforementioned horrible screeching sounds when the wheels have been moving, but never consistently; sometimes, when turning. Sometimes, when breaking (sorry, Freudian slip typo) braking. Sometimes, when accelerating. I was never convinced that I was in imminent danger, but boy was it getting on my nerves. So, I uncharacteristically decided to take action right away and get it fixed. Called the mechanic Tuesday, got in Wednesday morning.

One hour after I arrived, I was driving away in my happy car. The screeching problem had been the alternator belt; it just needed to be tightened.

But more to the point: Something else was fixed. In the summer, the phalange holding together the front and back parts of the exhaust system had rusted through and finally de-coupled during The Big Engine Blowout when we were downstate. As a consequence, we were sufficiently de-muffled that people on the street would turn and look at the car every time we accelerated. I learned that it would be $700 to get a new exhaust pipe system, and I was damned if I thought it worth $700 to fix a noise. So, I got used to feeling like the teenage guy who lived across the street when I was a kid, the guy who thought mufflers were uncool.

But then, yesterday, after the mechanic tightened the alternator belt, he turned his attention to that pipe. From the waiting room, I heard the unmistakable sound of metal being grindingly severed, and twenty minutes later, Rich came back in, smiling. "Patched it!" he said, triumphantly. He had welded a bit of spare pipe in, and voila.

My car is now whisper-quiet. Or, as whisper-quiet as a nine-year-old Subaru can be. No screeching, no vrooming. And all for $80. It had not been necessary to accept and endure the noise for the past five months. I feel a little silly for having done so.

There is a lesson here, a lesson that goes beyond the truistic, about why we should fix things that are broken even when it's slightly inconvenient and the benefits are not immediately obvious. I just have to figure out what it is. It has to do with the need to take a few simple additional steps, if possible, to figure out the full reality of the situation.

I'd love to hear feedback.