Filmed by director Henrik Hansen
There’s a thin line between dedication and madness. It’s almost indistinguishable to some degree. The latter being true, often the case. But once it’s found, dedication, it is unmistakable. As palpable and a distinct as the smell of oil, a piece of cloth, the texture of wood.
The common run-in with the word is hearing it in a work context, “I’m dedicated to my job.”, in which I immediately (and most often, only mentally) call bullshit. The phrase itself is an oxymoron. True as the phrase, “I love shit”, rung off anyone’s mouth.
There is no title in dedication. No job, no Executive Manager. It is similarly unconscious, yes. Bound, yes. Though not to reality, but to a terminal case of gut instinct, every bit as fatal. The latter, probably why we confuse it so frequently.
Greek mythology (and Norse, and Celtic, who knows the difference really) talk of this creature, the Ouroboros. A serpent swallowing it’s own tail. It was created, in the attempt of God, to make the perfect creature. Absent of eyes, or ears. Perfect to a cursed extent needed no one else, and nothing else.
In making his motorbikes, uninfluenced, unconsciously. In a man to spend his entire life, doing only one thing. It isn’t to simply be committed, to be bound. To be dedicated, runs much deeper. For these people, for Shinya Kimura, it’s not simply so much about just bending steel. It’s in doing so, that they make a distinctly human attempt, to reciprocate an effort of God. That is dedication.