There are two kinds of people in this world: those who work on their car and those who pay someone else to work on their car.
A little back story
I’ve always enjoyed working on my car. I’ve always liked getting in there, tweaking things, replacing worn out parts and yes, I’ve even broken my car a couple times due to my tweaking. But whether I broke my car (and subsequently fixed it) or not I always gained a greater appreciation for the vehicle as a whole.
Today I replaced my thermostat to hopefully remedy an overheating issue. If this doesn’t fix it then I’ll replace the water pump too. For those interested, here’s where a thermostat is located on a 1995 Chevy Monte Carlo 3.1.
You’ve gotta take out the air filter housing, remove the throttle body, pull off a coolant hose or two, unbolt a metal pipe and then you can get to your thermostat. I’d love to get into the head of the engineers who designed this car. I also wonder what it’s like to engineer a car while on a crack-cocaine binge. But I digress.
Why people don’t work on their car
So yes, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who work on their car and those who pay someone else to. Now, the reason someone pays another person to work on their car can vary. Sometimes it’s because the part needing replaced requires extremely specialized tools. Such as when you replace an engine.
Other times people pay someone to work on their car because their time is worth more money working at making money than spending that same amount of time working on a car. By working on their car they wouldn’t be saving money, they’d actually be losing money.
Often the reason people don’t work on their car, I think, is because they are afraid of it. It’s magical and they don’t mess with magical crap. I’m not saying this is bad, I’m just explaining things.
Why people DO work on their car
Not everyone works on their own car for financial reasons. Some people work on their car because they enjoy taking things apart. They enjoy seeing how the parts work together to create a whole. They’re not afraid of the magic. They themselves want to wield the magic. And then, when other people say “I could never work on my own car” these people can relish in their magic-wielding.
I’m one of these people. I work on my car because I want to be a magic-wielder.
The parts vs. the whole
People view cars in different ways. I look at a car and I see all the components that make up the whole. I see the fuel delivery system, the ignition system, the exhaust, the steering, the braking, etc. A car, to me, is a collection of systems. Each of these systems could then be further broken down into smaller systems.
Sometimes these systems are directly related to each other. The fuel delivery system is directly related to the ignition system which is directly related to the exhaust system.
Other times systems are not related to each other directly but indirectly in that they’re both part of the car. The steering, for instance, is not related to the Air Conditioning system.
The most important part in working on your car is to understand how these systems work (at least in a general sense) and then how they relate to each other.
People who are afraid to work on their car often cannot or do not see the individual systems of the car. They look at a car and it’s just one thing. They conceptually understand that there are “systems” to this car but they do not understand the systems and furthermore do not understand how the systems relate to each other.
I’m convinced that anyone can work on a car. All they need to do is understand the systems.
How this relates to web design / development
You knew I was going to tie this in to web design, didn’t you? Like a car, a web site is made up of systems. And just like with cars there are two kinds of people: those who work on their web site and those who pay someone to work on it for them.
The similarities continue in the reasons why someone may or may not work on their own web site. But what’s important for the purposes of this article is that I work on my own web site because I enjoy it. I like understanding the systems, what they do and how they relate with each other. Not everyone enjoys this kind of thing and I can appreciate that.
My concluding thought is that anyone can work on their own web site. All it requires is a general knowledge of the different systems. I look at a web site and I see a collection of systems. Understanding those systems lets me change those systems and bend them to my will.
A person who doesn’t understand the systems sees this all as magic. They click a link, enter a URL and magically they’re presented with content.
I think that there will always be two kinds of people in this world. Those who can work on web sites and those pay someone to work on web sites. Magic-wielders and non-magic wielders.
I love being a magic-wielder.
5 Comments
It’s the same way for people who “don’t get” computers. Since I work with teachers, I see it all the time. It’s magical, and they don’t want to break it…and it’s darn hard to break one nowadays. But still, there are an awful lot of people who see a computer as a whole and not the sum of its parts, and wouldn’t or couldn’t fathom opening it up (popping the hood, if you will) even to install a little RAM to make it run faster, as I’ve done this evening on my Power Book.
I agree, the same definitely is true of computers. More than that, of computer programming. While I do not consider myself a computer guru at all, I do find that like working on cars I enjoy tinkering with my Linux computer as well.
I love being a magic-wielder too. More on design than cars though. Still not afraid to change the brakes and other maintenance jobs. It can save you a ton of money. Who doesn’t need more of that these days.
Scott, you’re exactly right. How I first began learning about computers was taking it apart and then having to put it all back together. Its usually less likely you will have spare parts left over from working with a computer than some people do after working on a car though.
I don’t know man, I approach car maintenance the same way as computers. If you’re very attentive to the where everything goes as you take it apart it makes putting it all back together that much easier.
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