I first read this when it was first published. I was a senior at UC Irvine having completed requirements for my BS in Biological Sciences, I loaded the year with enough chemistry courses to gain me a B.A. in Chemistry as well. I was working part time at Disneyland as a short order cook, and I had applied to graduate school.
In my junior year I had taken a 'Humanities Core' course that had broadened my way of thinking like nothing else before it. In the course, we were required to keep a journal, and I have kept that habit to this day. The combination of finding new ideas and recording personal thoughts was akin to opening a valve, accessing a stream of water that turned formerly idle turbines and nourished nascent regions of my mind. At this time, Pirsig's book appeared.
Here I record some of the ideas I recall from reading Zen.
Gumption Traps
Throughout the book, Pirsig describes the quest to maintain his motorcycle. In the quest he observes that the spirit required to pursue the various maintenance procedures needs encouragement. His son-in-law and daughter accompanying the main character and his young son are clueless about maintenance and actually disinterested in the activity. They connect mechanics to some kind of soul-killing devotion to technology and rationality, themes antithetical to their pursuit of artistry and spirituality. He argues that mechanics and technology are just as much a part of the spiritual. However, the performance of motorcycle maintenance requires a quiet mind, proper tools, instruction and a dedication to understanding. Such preconditions are susceptible to distraction, and these are termed 'gumption traps.' The character states that an organized and complete tool set, and a minimum of distraction helps him to bring the state of mind that can sustain concentration and attention. Also of help is frequent practice, which help deliver understanding as well as a subject with best chances of being maintained. The idea of 'gumption traps' itself helps me overcome inertia because it helps me put emotions and irrationality off to the side, leaving only the work to be done.
Language and Reality
Several aspects of my own philosophy came from discussions in the book about the relation of language to 'reality', however one wants to define it. One is the disdain some ancient philosophers had for the written word. Their inclination was to have a dialogue in order to understand. The written word was felt to be a substitute for memory. The insight I gleaned from this discussion is how readily our culture gravitates towards the written word as if it was somehow superior to experience or other forms of understanding. From a certain perspective, one could argue it is the medium of least fidelity! And yet, when the written word, prose or otherwise, attains a common understanding throughout cultures and generations, something magical is attained.
A second aspect concerns an analogy he makes about reality and comprehension (measurement, recording) as a train, with the leading edge being 'reality' and the rest of the train being the record of the reality. I need to reread this to recapture this thought, but it seems intuitive that we often mistake the sensing of an event as the event itself. I find it useful to keep this in mind, especially when we are trying to understand events. Of interest here are famous case studies of the fallibility of eye witnesses that have failed to alter our esteem for such evidence.
Both of these aspects along with a host of others describe my philosophy or belief that every individual creates their own 'reality', and all of these creations are simply mental reconstructions. They must be so! This philosophy does not deny that there is a kind of reality independent of experience. Rather, it denies that one can talk about it or write about it or even think about it except by analogy. And language is often itself at the root of misunderstanding between people because it such an imperfect representation of reality.
For me, the consequence of accepting these fundamental limitations is to become less judgmental in a way. It also allows or even demands respect for each individual in their struggle to understand. Perhaps I am too smug in my belief in this way, and I often forget this understanding when I become exorcised about this action or that calamity of the day. When I am at my most centered, I feel some peace, a release from a struggle, while I become more excited about the admittedly pointless attempt at perfect understanding. It is a little bit like accepting the certainty of one's mortality; the fear leaves and somewhat paradoxically, you become emboldened to experience as much as you can.
