I confess that I've never read the book... motorcycle maintenance didn't sound much like a metaphor I'd appreciate anyway. But surfboards, those, I understand.
When you buy a brand new surfboard, they're smooth and shiny and beautiful. If you have any intention of surfing on it (some buy them for display, I think), you rub a layer of surf wax on the deck for traction. Surf wax keeps you on the board, so it would be useless if it were anything other than super tacky. Being super tacky, however, the wax traps a lot of dirt. And as you layer on more wax (and more dirt) each session, the board gets quickly covered in a thick grey armour of sticky, dirty, cement-coloured wax. To a non-surfer, a well-seasoned surfboard would appear visually and tactilely unattractive.
Once the wax build-up reaches a sort of a "critical mass," it tends to fall off the board in chunky flakes. This is an indicator that it's time to strip the board and start over. Yesterday, I stripped both my boards. I laid out my boards wax-side-up on my sunny back lawn (which shall be no more in a couple of weeks) and, with the help of the warmth of the sun, scraped off a year's build up of wax to reveal two just-off-the-shelf-beautiful boards.
The boards are smooth and shiny and beautiful again. How's that for a metaphor?
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