Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (ZAMM), by Robert
M. Pirsig, is such sweet Monday inspiration!
Well, it quite reminds me of our
oft-discussed cult favorite from the 1950s, Jack Kerouac's On the Road quite
much-o-much!!!
The father-son duo have been such
tremendous inspiration to us all for years! Ain't they? This apart, he’s also got such a
huge Heideggerian streak to him!
The protagonist beautifully sets out
to resolve the legendary clash between ‘the classic values that create
machinery, such as a motorcycle, and romantic values, such as experiencing the
beauty of a country road’!!!
How beautifully he comes to terms
with the central question in this wonder-read of sorts!
‘What is quality? What makes a thing
or a person or an idea good?’
Art, to him, is not necessarily when
rubber hits the road, but it is there, found in the numerous sketches and
portraits and vivid details all along the road!
How trueee!
“In a car you’re always in a
compartment,” Pirsig writes, “and because you’re used to it you don’t realize
that through that car window everything you see is just more of TV!!!!!”
Well, you’re just a passive observer
and it is all moving by you boringly in and through a frame!
But but but…
To Pirsig,
‘On a cycle, the frame is gone!
You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just
watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.’
What a lovely-o-lovelyyyy view to
life and values!
While going into the subtitle of ZAMM, “Inquiry Into Values,” Pirsig
feels that, values per se, have gone for a huge toss, because of the harsh
binaried prejudices that’ve been plaguing western thought, where, the mundane,
the gross, the technology, the money and the materialistic cult have always
gotten top priority and precedence over what is really ours - the ethereal, the
sublime, the beauteous, the marvelous, the wild, and the romantic!
That brings out to the fore the
wordsworthian within the legend!
With inputs from: afdotreutersdotcom
Images from: ss term paper whkt jordancatapanodotus
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