Breathing?
Yes, exactly!
His point is that problem-solving is something we do all the time. And yes, we can learn to do it better. But that doesn't automatically mean we will always do it better when we aren't thinking about it intentionally.
On the other hand, if we practice being intentional about our problem-solving (or our breathing!) then yes, over time it can pay dividends in our daily lives as well.
Here, listen to Jamie explain the point:
Robert Pirsig makes a similar point in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, after cataloguing a long list of "gumption traps" that prevent someone from doing good work. (He presents these in terms of doing mechanical work on your motorcycle, but in fact they apply to any kind of work you can think of.)
Some could ask, ‘Well, if I get around all those gumption traps, then will I have the thing licked?’
The answer, of course, is no, you still haven’t got anything licked. You’ve got to live right too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way all the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn’t separate from the rest of your existence. If you’re a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren’t working on your machine, what trap avoidances, what gimmicks, can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together.
But if you’re a sloppy thinker six days a week and you really try to be sharp on the seventh, then maybe the next six days aren’t going to be quite as sloppy as the preceding six. What I’m trying to come up with on these gumption traps I guess, is shortcuts to living right.
The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself.*
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* Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (New York: William Morrow, 1974, 1999), pp. 324-325.
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