"What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes."
~ Cook Ling, from The Zhuangzi
The difference between an unskilled job and a skilled job is that, if you stop working at an unskilled job, no one notices. If you stop working at a skilled job, then, people will notice. At an unskilled job, if you take a forty-five minute bathroom break, you won't be fired. Your friendly co-workers will commend you for being paid $7.50 to take a dump, and the rest didn't even notice you were gone.
There is a skill curve, of course, but without much effort, you can punch in an order in less time than it takes the faulty scanner to read a debit card. Give it a good twenty hours, and you'll be flying high with one hand on the receipt dispenser and another hand sucking your vape. Transcend into the flow: an unconscious smi…