The author chucked a lucrative professional career (he was head of an international NGO at the time) as he began to feel increasingly isolated from whatever it was his efforts were supposed to be producing. He knew the organization was important, and he understood that it accomplished valuable goals. But his sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in a job well done was diminishing. So he chose to pursue a more satisfying occupation - repairing motorcycles.
Shop Class as Soul Craft is his manifesto on the humanity of labor, the essential value of learning by doing, of mastering through