Zhuzhing

There's a Yiddish word which nearly crossed over into English in the mid 20th century, but has since receded (though it's still used by garment industry veterans, both gentile and jewish): zhuzh.

Do you remember how, back in the day, respectable men's clothing salesmen would give a little pull here, a smack there, just generally touching things up and "making it nice"? It was part of the ritual. Old-fashioned barbers did the same. They were zhuzhing. And it’s way more significant, and broadly applicable, than it seems. 

The essential part is the most banal: "Make it NICE." This plummy Mittel-European wheedle makes an insipid impression on moderns. But it's a missing vitamin. "Nice" (a word I’ve been pondering since we toured David Sanborn’s house) implies some open-heartedness. One can’t malevolently zhuzh.

Zhuzhing, the antithesis of snarking, is a key to the kingdom. Tender minor adjustments are (if you do it right) how art gets made, and children get raised, and love gets stoked. It's not just the way to build; it's also an approach to appreciation. Finally, it's how life gets lived if you'll allow yourself the possibility of happiness.

I once claimed that I was able to create an almost magical sense of comfort in my last couple of homes, despite having no flair for design, color, decoration, any of it. It was gradually induced via a disjointed and tentative set of adjustments. No overarching plan, I was just attentive. I removed every point of micro-irritation, adding elements sensitively and sporadically, with little intellectual calculation. All done with love, but not sopping in some pushy florid display of DEEP CARING. I just wanted to make it nice. I zhuzhed my houses!

Remember when I analyzed what's required to be a great chef?

From my seat at the counter in front of the open kitchen, I watched Nudel Restaurant's highly-skilled chefs churn out plate after flawless plate. Since I've been on a quest to boost my cooking skill, I paid careful attention, hoping to pick up some pointers. What I noticed was the softness of their hands. They weren't wrestling ingredients into submission. Their actions were gentle and sweet. They coaxed rather than compelled. 

Zhuzhing! 

Artists appear to zhuzh for hours, even years, making their process seem grander than "little tugs" and "making nice." Yet execution is built upon myriad aggregated zhuzhes. Inspiration arrives in an untidy flash (it's a whole other thing), but execution is polishing. That’s why it’s frequently observed that writing is mostly a matter of editing.

As with all simple answers to thorny mysteries, you can't selectively ignore parts. Simple notions require enhanced attentiveness. For example:

• The tender-heartedness must be sustained. A robot pushing things here and there won't conjure deep results. It all just gets worse and worse. 
• This is less thinky, more feely. So when nothing instantly pops up - so your mind gets impatient and demands to grab the wheel - don't yield. Dilatory patience is required, not clever machination. Wait till there’s something real. You can’t polish a turd. 

The observation, above, that "Inspiration arrives in an untidy flash, but execution is polishing" tells you what's ok to belabor and what isn't. You can't belabor inspiration. You can only wait for it (leaving yourself susceptible by hovering comfortably in the impasse - the same gambit that empowers my Memory Trick #2). The zhuzhing, however, can (and likely will) be energetic once it commences. Squares call it “obsessive”.

Zhuzhing, once you grok the concept (simple though it is, it’s quite easy to get hilariously wrong), is a helpful framing to create wholes greater than their parts. This is how you cook (or write or dance) with love. This is where "soul" comes from, and "quality", and "feeling". And the sky’s the limit. The option is always available for you to zhuzh everything. Zhuzh the world!


That last part was yet another angle to convey the notoriously slippery concept of karma yoga. Here's a more direct explanation, and here are all postings labelled "Karma Yoga" in reverse chronological order. 

When much younger, I concluded that quality (deliciousness, for example) is aggregated by tens of thousands of careful, sensitive microdecisions, all stemming from a certain mindset. From love. That was good, but I think “zhuzhing” is better.