I also love to ride my motorcycle, so what better fit for me than to read a book called "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig. This isn't a new book, as many of you will surely know, but it is a book I just finally got around to reading.
I say "finally" because I did pick it up years and years ago, but I wasn't reading ready for it at that point in my life. It's a deep book, and when I first tried to read it, I was still pretty young and not ready for the deep stuff. I am now.
The secondary title of the book is "An Inquiry into Values," and that's exactly what the book is about. It's not really about motorcycle maintenance in a strict sense even though there is a smattering of discussion related to that topic. It's a metaphorical journey into the self and our deep philosophical pondering. As Pirsig says, "The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself." Mmmhmm, that's so true. We're always just fine-tuning ourselves to keep ourselves heading down the road as long as we possibly can.
I'm going to share the quotes from the book that most resonated with me and some thoughts about them.
**"You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through the car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame." --- So true. Even with the car windows down, you don't feel the air the way you do on a bike, you don't sense the openness of the area through which you are traveling, you don't tune yourself into the road and your surroundings the way you do on a bike.
** "Paved county roads are the best, state highways are next. Freeways are the worst." --- I hate, hate, hate, hate interstates. Even in my car I avoid them whenever I possibly can, which is most of the time. What is the point of them? To get you there faster, that's all. But life isn't about getting places faster. Life is about enjoying the ride while you're going places. I love heading down a road I've never been down before. And for pete's sake, slow down, people. When you go a little slower, you see a whole lot more. "When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things."
** "The best ones always connect nowhere with nowhere and have an alternate that gets you there quicker." -- He's referring to the best back roads, and it's so true. I've found that often when we are heading "nowhere" we find "somewhere" pretty damn cool.
** When you ride, " . . . you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them." You're out in the open with just your thoughts because "You can't really think hard about what you're doing and listen to the radio at the same time." -- Or the TV, or Pandora, or videos on YouTube, etc. This is something I'm always harping on my students about when it comes to doing their schoolwork -- shut the damn noise-making things off! Listen to your own thoughts, give your own brain an opportunity to work for you, and stop letting the garbage pour in every moment of every day. When you do this, you will be amazed at how the world opens up for you inside of yourself. "Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV it's a shame more people don't switch over to it."
** "Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive." -- I love to travel. Absolutely love it. But often when I actually get to where I was going, I'm disappointed because the trip is over. The best riding days are the ones where we just set out to ride and let the roads take us where they will. This is actually a concept that kind of goes against my nature because I'm a planner, but the older I get, the more inclined I am to just go with the flow and see where it takes me. Usually, I'm much more content when I do.
** "Technology presumes there's just one right way to do things and there never is." -- Oh my, yes! I'm a Luddite, I admit it. Yes, of course I use technology. I'm writing this on a laptop after all, but I feel that our society, and especially our schools, have become slaves to technology, and in doing this, far too many people have become close-minded. If Google says it's true, then by God, it must be true and the one and only truth! That has become my reality as a teacher, and I'm tired of it. More and better and newer technology is not the answer -- using the very best computer ever created called our brains is the answer; however, knowing how to use them correctly is a dying art because of society's enslavement to Technology with that capital T.
** "Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships." -- I'm not religious, but I am spiritual. I have my own way of seeing things and believing things that isn't based on any religious tome or doctrine. In fact, I've fought the spiritual side of myself because I thought to be spiritual meant that I needed to follow some religious path that I just couldn't do. Then, to find a little peace inside of my horrible marriage I started "talking" to the higher powers, and things started to change for me and inside of me. Eventually, I got divorced and kept "talking" and my life kept changing and improving every single day. I used to sit in that valley, but now I ride out in the open and cross whatever mountain comes my way.
** "To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top." -- This is so true, yet how many of us don't really pay attention to the road on the way to the top because we're just so fixated on "getting there?" When you think about it metaphorically as a mountain, it brings a new view to the whole thing. The top of any tall mountain is pretty void of vegetation while the sides are rife with it, proving once again that it's so much more about the journey and less about the actual goal, and on the same subject as goals, here's another quote to ponder: "Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster." Something that most reality TV stars would be wise to consider.
** "Most horse people are antimotorcycle." -- This one just made me laugh and laugh and laugh. For me, it works both ways. My ex-husband is a total horse man, and I used to do a stand-up comedy bit about why motorcycles are better than horses. There are many, many, many reasons why motorcycles are better than horses, but my main one is this: when you are riding a motorcycle, you don't have to worry about any other motorcycle suddenly getting the urge to mount your own motorcycle and proceed to fornicate while you are on it!
** "That which turns its back on this inner calm and the Quality it reveals is bad maintenance. That which turns toward it is good." -- We must stay tuned into our inner selves and keep them running correctly, and the way to do that is to find peace. I do that through reading and riding and roaming. The more of those things I do, the happier I am. It's not about owning lots of things or being "better" than everyone else or building yourself up while stepping on others to do so. It's about being true to yourself by listening quietly to yourself and the universe.
** "We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance and old-fashioned gumption. We really do." -- Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy, don't we ever. And let's consider that this book was published in 1974. I was a little kid then. From what I remember, it seemed that the adults I knew then were full of these qualities. Nowadays, though, I find it harder and harder to find people who exhibit all three. I do, though, feel a slow turning in our society as if there are a lot of other people like me out there who are fed up with the greed, the arrogance, the entitlement, and the laziness that have permeated our country for quite some time now. It's only when people get fed up with something that things change, so I'm optimistic, guardedly so, but optimistic all the same.
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