Thoughts on …
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
By Robert M. Pirsig
I’ve been on a motorcycly twice in my life. One of those times was when my brother’s friend came over riding his Honda bike. I asked if I could try it out, and with his affirmative answer, I climbed on and promptly killed the engine. Thinking it was underpowered, I started it up again, “goosed” the throttle, and headed for the side of the shop beside which was piled all the junk iron saved for welding repairs. It wasn’t underpowered! I hit that pile of iron before I could think to steer it away. I was on crutches for several days thereafter.
The other time was when I climbed on behind Larry Sprunk on an Indian motorcycle and went for a ride down a dirt road. We seemed to go faster than I thought comfortable, but when he finally let up on the throttle, he turned around and said, “You just turned 80 miles an hour on a dirt road.”
I use the above experiences in working up to comments about a book I like to lift off my shelf occasionally - Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance. While it is such an unlikely name for a book that is fast approaching classic status, it offers much to think about.
On the surface the book features the author, his son, and another couple driving on their motorcycles across country from Minnesota to California. One or two of their overnight stops are familiar to us who live here. On another level it is a philosophical journey that he likens to Plato’s character Phaedrus who searches for what defines “good.”
Little gems can be lifted from the narrative, such as this: “Phaedrus wandered through this high country, aimlessly at first, following every path, every trail where someone had been before, seeing occasionally with small hindsights that he was apparently making some progress, but seeing nothing ahead of him that told him which way to go.”
My copy is a newer edition and contains an interesting afterword where he talks of how his son, some years later, was mugged and murdered on the street. Pirsig relates later on his wife becoming pregnant and that they determined to abort it because of their advancing ages. He had been obsessing in his philosophical way with wondering where the soul of his son had gone. He said an intense feeling came over him that made him announce to his wife that the pregnancy must continue. The afterword ends with a line that the little girl tapped on his keyboard: “ooolo99ikl;l.,pyknulmmmmmmmmmmm.” He went on to day that if this gibberish passed the eye of the book’s editor, it would he her first published work.
It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling. - A Pirsig quote
