A More Triumphant Return...

Part 1: Zen and the Art of Rooftop Snow Removal

There's just no easy way to do this in the traditional sense of the word "easy." The whole concept is just lunacy, and that's all there is to it. Snow is, by nature, slippery, cold, and wet. Rooftops are, by nature, high off the ground, and usually slanted. Unfortunately, snow is also heavy - especially when it is over 18 inches deep. The rooftop in question belongs to my garage. My garage is old, and the rooftop attached to it is supported by trusses that are just as old; which is to say that they are not really holding all that well any more. My rudimentary (albeit entirely over-thought) estimate is that there were at least 2.5 tons of snow on my garage rooftop. That creates a problem.

In Zen Buddhist terms, the problem exists because of my desires. The actual concept is much more complex, but basically Buddhists believe that desire is the root of all suffering. If you think about it, it makes sense. If you are cold, the only reason you suffer from it is because you compare your coldness with your memories of warmth and desire to be warm again. Any time you desire something you don't have, you suffer at least a little.

I like my garage, and I want it to be functional. I have insurance, but the insurance will not pay for damage to my property if I am negligent in maintaining it. The trusses on the roof of the garage need to be replaced one way or the other, but that is not worth filing an insurance claim. If the roof caved in, that would be an insurance claim. Now, having worked for insurance companies for most of the last seven years, I know that if they can find a reason not to pay a claim, they will use it. So, because I like my garage, and I want it to be functional, I have decided to remove the roughly 2.5 tons of snow from the rooftop.

I tried to think of all kind of creative ways to do this at first. My first thought was that maybe I could use some kind of small explosive to create an avalanche. Seriously. I thought that might be an option for at least a couple of minutes. After I realized how impractical (not to mention absurd) that idea was, I thought I might devise some kind of extension pole for a large squeegee, so I could just pull the snow off from the ground. After a while, I deemed this idea impractical as well. Finally, I just decided to bite the bullet and I borrowed a ladder and a snow shovel from my dad (I broke my snow shovel a couple of days ago).

In his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig tells us that gumption is the most important tool in any toolbox. He says that if you haven't got a good supply of gumption before starting a project, you might as well put every other tool you have away because they aren't going to do you any good. This is because gumption is the only thing that is going to motivate you to pursue Quality in the task at hand. And when you get right down to it, if you're not going to pursue Quality in whatever your task is, you might as well not perform the task at all.

Tonight I had my gumption. I had been mentally preparing to conquer the roof all day. At about 7:00pm I got started.

The first scoop is the hardest - especially if you've never shoveled a rooftop before -but once you get started it's not all that bad. You get in a rhythm, and before you know it, you've got a quarter of the job done. Now it's at this point that you'll probably take a moment to look at the whole picture, and you might try to figure out how much snow you actually have to shovel in order to be effective. You kind of want to get a minimum acceptable amount, if you will. This is very, very dangerous.

God is a synonym for Quality. In fact, you might even say that God is the anthropomorphic representation of Quality. Again, I am citing Pirsig here. Pirsig theorizes that Quality is inherently undefinable - much like the widely accepted view of God. The moment you think you've got Quality pinned down, you've lost it. As I said before, it should be the only reason for doing anything. A job done without considering Quality isn't worth anything, and in fact, will almost always cause more problems than it solves. On the other hand, a Quality job will endure. Quality isn't hard to achieve, but it takes gumption. You've got to want to achieve it. Cutting corners won't do. If you really want to save time that badly, you should just hire someone to do the job for you and spend your time doing what you'd rather be doing.

Any engineer or architect will tell you that a very important thing about the stress on a structure is weight distribution. Weight distribution is what makes the arch such a powerful design. Weight distribution is why it takes much less force to puncture skin with a needle than it does to puncture skin with a penny. If you remember this while you're on the roof, you'll come to the quick conclusion that if you're going to shovel some of the snow off, you've got to shovel all of it off. You can't leave any untouched. 2.5 tons spread out accross 550 square feet causes a lot less strain on the structure than 1 ton would if that ton were concentrated in a smaller area. No, you've just got to get it all off once you've started. No half-assing allowed.

Zen practitioners use meditation to help cultivate their concentration skills. Concentration is fundamental to Buddhist thought because concentration allows you to pay attention to everything that is going on around you while you are in the moment. To quote another favorite author of mine, Chuck Palhaniuk, "The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up." The "big picture" is our western thought system of categorizing, classifying, comparing, and judging everything we experience. With well cultivated concentration skills, we can learn to see everything we experience for what it really is - not for what it could be, or what it should be, or what we wish it was, or what it is compared to anything else - just what it is.

You'll get cold and wet up there, but if you just focus on each scoop, it won't really bother you. I knew that my legs were starting to go numb about a half-hour into it. My jeans were soaked, but I just kept thinking about getting the job done - well. It didn't matter that I was cold, I was going to finish the job and then go inside and get warm. The warmth was not for now, it was for later. Now was the time to be cold and shovel the roof. That was the way of things.

Once a Zen practitioner cultivates his concentration skills, he begins to meditate while performing everyday tasks. This is why you'll often see Zen monks in Japan raking "rock gardens." They're not just raking to make neat little designs in the gravel, they're meditating while they're raking. They are paying absolute, full attention to their raking, but they are not really thinking about the raking in the traditional western sense at all. They're not dwelling on aching muscles, or wondering what time dinner is, or stewing over who's going to win Survivor, they're just raking, and noticing the sound that every single piece of gravel makes as the rake passes over it. They are thinking about right here, right now. That's it.

When the job is done, you have to climb back down the ladder. By this time you've probably had to climb up and down the ladder a few times (if you're rooftop is in as dire straits as mine, that is - weight distribution again dictates that it's probably not a good idea to walk in the middle of an already-sagging rooftop). I had a very hard time getting on the ladder to climb down the first couple of times. I was over-thinking it. The last time was easier. I wasn't thinking about slipping and falling off of the ladder. I just knew that I had to climb down the ladder, so I did. About half-way down the ladder, I realized that I had a much easier time of it, and I was glad.

Not long after that, I was warm again in my house. And I will have an easier time sleeping tonight.
I was going to try to write a second part to this blog tonight that dealt with politics and the upcoming presidential elections, but I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to call it quits for the night. I'll do the election blog later.

I am the Reverend Humpy and I approve this message with gladness in my heart!

***P.S. I went back and over-thought my estimate some more regarding the weight of the snow. If my new calculations are right, there would have actually been over 11 tons of snow on the roof. I'm just sayin'.