Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values

I have finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig and I quite enjoyed it. At the end of the edition I have is an excerpt of a speech given by the book's editor when the book was first launched. He summed up the theme of the book as "... a book about living, about how to live and ... about why". I agree with this. I have numerous pages marked that contain thoughts or descriptions I immediately found relevant in how I live my life. Over the next few weeks I will write some posts expatiating these topics.

The first topic relates to the story the narrator tells of taking his motorcycle to a mechanic to be fixed. He had an immediate sinking feeling as he arrived to find the radio blaring in the workshop. He surmised that the workers were listening to the radio to make the work and workplace "funner". Such an environment is unlikely to yield quality workmanship as the mechanics aren't interested in doing quality work. Sure enough, when the motorcycle is returned it is not repaired.

Regrettably, I find myself to be similar to these mechanics. I regularly listen to music (and even video) while I am at work. If I am honest with myself, I do this to make my work "funner". The music provides a distraction from work I (for some reason) consider dull. When I am really interested in my work I will either completely loose track of the music or I will deliberately play something non-distracting such as Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno, or I just won't listen to music.

What I have taken from "Zen ..." is that I should be striving to direct my life towards Quality. I am not enough of a writer/philosopher to give a good account of Quality. The book provides an analogy to the notion of "excellence" in ancient Greece. The heroes of the time where those that strove for excellence in all they did.

And this is the major thing I take away from the book and what I hope to apply to my life. Whatever work I have in front of me I will strive to do it with excellence. How will I do this? The author proposes that the main way to achieve this is through "gumption". This is a topic I'll get to later.