How Resistance Measures Progress
And draws blood at times
Yesterday, I tried to take the blade off the weed eater. It’s a blade built to cut through one- to two-inch trees. These “woodies” are the opportunists who move in when the prairie doesn’t get enough fire to maintain ownership of the space. We have a lot of them here.
I don’t know what this machine is called. I just call it The Blade. In anything but working position - harness on, hands on handles, blade parallel to the ground - it’s clunky to manage. The end of the device with the motor and gas is so much larger and heavier than the end with the blade. It’s awkward but it works.
This was the first time I tried to take off the blade since buying the machine. The original blade had served me well, cutting through hundreds of dogwoods and autumn olives, honey suckle and more dogwoods. But it was now worn out and dulled after all that hard work. I could relate.
A farm volunteer was living here for the week. He was a 22-year-old inside kind of guy trading work for room and board in a program called WWOOF. I figured he could hold something still long enough for me to turn a screw.
Call me an Ugly American, but I firmly believe that “leftsy loosey, rightsy tightsy” should be international law. But no. My first attempt to loosen the nut securing the blade housing tightened it instead. These hands, in denial about oncoming arthritis, couldn’t deny the pain when the ratchet wrench slipped. My bare finger sliced open on the blade, which was here to tell me there was still some life in the ol’ boy yet.
(I had taken off my leather glove to mess with the nut. I spend a lot of time every day putting on and taking off my work gloves. I spend the rest of the time looking for them.)
As the blood dripped off the tip of my finger, I found my glove and put it on so my WWOOFer wouldn’t see it. I didn’t need the guy fainting on me, too.
I scrubbed the grime off the blade to find the manufacturer had conveniently stamped arrows into it. Taking the hint, I tried turning the nut the other way, to the right, but the entire housing turned with me. I asked my volunteer to hold the blade while I attempted to turn the nut. After two tries, he complained that his hands hurt, even through his gloves. While I caught my breath and stared at this infernal machine, he pulled his bare hands up close to his face to inspect them for possible amputation.
The magic, and there’s always magic in overcoming resistance, was to create resistance by sticking something into a certain hole on top to keep the blade from turning with the housing. I grabbed a tool off the shelf. It had wooden handle with a metal end made into a groove, like a tiny little chisel. We tried it. Our chisel flew out of the hole and across the floor, bent beyond recognition.
Then I remembered that what I needed was an Allen wrench. After accidentally dropping a few behind the work bench, accompanied by the requisite cursing, we found the right size, stuck it in the hole and turned the nut. Voila!
I needed resistance to succeed. It seemed so simple then, because isn’t that the way? How else do we measure progress, success or victory except by how much resistance we meet along the way? Everything would just fall apart if humans didn’t use resistance to apply the laws of physics in certain ways. The blade would just keep spinning. Nothing would change.
It’s like Frederick Douglass said – “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” The demand is the Allen wrench. Power is the spinning wheel.
Resistance often requires bloodshed, so I wasn’t surprised to pay a price. A sliced finger is a lot less blood than machine-gunned fathers in Ukraine or blown up mothers and children in Gaza. In a less dramatic form, a smart Black woman running for president will create a lot more resistance than an old White guy, and let’s hope no bloodshed. But when it’s over, there’ll that much more progress to celebrate.
Oh but it’s so tempting to kick back and let go. There are so many other things demanding our attention while corporations run our country. Hustle to get to work every day while politicians cut taxes to starve public services. Get your kids to their games while state legislators send public money to private religious schools. Use a dull blade. If it doesn’t affect me directly and right now, why resist? Why risk the pain?
Unless we actually want to get something done, that is, something significant, something that will fulfill the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, I regret to inform you, requires resistance, because American capitalism doesn’t default to those settings. Citizens have always had to fight for them.
We put the new blade on carefully and took it for a spin. It wobbled, which is dangerous at that speed. We took it off. We tried any number of ways to get it back on. By now we’d become old pros at the left-hand thread, as they call it. As I watched the bright, cool morning disappear into history, the WWOOFer observed that the hole in the middle of the blade was too small for my machine.
No resistance necessary. We were in the wrong war.
I went to the shop to exchange the blade. I muttered about this being the second time they’d given me parts that didn’t fit. I mentioned something about bloody hands. I dropped a hint about lost time and a 45-minute one-way trip on such a fine day for outside work. Behind the counter, a guy my age quietly looked up the part, went to the shelf, confirmed it was the right size and put it on. I eventually ran out of steam, took a deep breath and said, “How ‘bout this weather!”
As he finished fussing with the blade, I employed my inquisitive voice to ask why the darned thing unscrews the wrong way. I mean, who does that? Why create more problems than necessary? Where’s this thing made, anyway? Why not keep it simple?
“Because the blade turns to the right,” he explained. “You don’t want it loosening up every time it meets resistance. That wouldn’t be good for anybody.”
Resistance that is consistently applied, reliable, designed intelligently and meant to endure. We humans could learn a few things from a little machine like this.
Scenes from Draco Hill to send a little beauty your way!
Really beautifully written, thank you. This was the first thing I read this morning and it has galvanized me to meet my day head on.
I can appreciate dealing with reverse-thread devices. It’s enough to drive you nuts.