"Normally screws are so cheap and small and simple you think of them as unimportant. But now, as your Quality awareness becomes stronger, you realize that this one, individual, particular screw is neither cheap nor small nor unimportant. Right now this screw is worth exactly the selling price of the whole motorcycle, because the motorcycle is actually valueless until you get the screw out. With this reevaluation of the screw comes a willingness to expand your knowledge of it."
I spent a long summer in 1998 researching the life of Mr Pirsig. Here is some little known trivia - some of the years when he disappeared, were spent in Banaras Hindu University (Varanasi, India) with Prof Mukherjee (head of the philosophy department) learning about Indian (Hindu) philosophy. I met Prof MUkherjee, who was retired by the time I went looking for him. I tracked him down and asked him if he remembered Mr Robert Pirsig (I took a picture that I had printed from the internet). He told me about a curious "American fellow" who used to "audit" the classes in the philosophy department, hang around the library and the canteen - and would seek him out to have discussions with him. He said that he was very quiet and nice guy.<p>Interestingly, Prof Mukherjee had no idea that Mr Pirsig has written this cult book or that he was a famous author/philosopher. To him, he was just an odd student (because of his age).<p>I wrote about this in our campus newspaper - but no one cared. I thought that I was the only fan of Mr Pirsig in this small town in India. Once I found the <i>internet</i> I discovered that I wasn't alone. It was a great feeling.<p>Anyway, i was very proud that he went to the same university that i went to. It was exciting to learn that in 1998! Also, while i didn't fully get the philosophy-the father and son journey in Zen really meant a lot to me while growing up.<p>Edit: by the way, Prof Mukherjee is mentioned in his book "Lila", and that is how I found him.<p>Edit2: "Lila", the name of Mr Pirsig's second book, seems to have been inspired by his stay in Varanasi (India). In Sanskrit, the word Lila is "a way of describing all reality, including the cosmos, as the outcome of creative play by the divine". Someone on Wikipedia also seems to have made this connection: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila:_An_Inquiry_into_Morals" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila:_An_Inquiry_into_Morals</a><p>Edit3: I spent the last hour digging into a 15-year-old hard drive (oh, what painful fun). I found a folder with my notes on Robert Pirsig! Most interestingly, my meeting notes with Dr. Mukherjee. I gave him the book and he flipped through the chapter for 20 minutes reading the sections I had underlined (where his name was mentioned). This frail man of seventy, said with a smile on his face: "He must not have been an attentive student. I never taught him this way". Most of the notes are about him reminiscing about the "golden years" of the philosophy department when according to him many great philosophers came to visit and study at the philosophy department at Banaras Hindu University.
I was kind of a punk in high school and I was in a week-long suspension room for skipping a bunch of classes. The room monitor was this cool older dude with a long beard who talked a lot about life, philosophy, and things like that.<p>We weren't allowed to read or do anything but sit in boredom during suspension (school rules) but he made an exception for me if I wanted to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (at his recommendation).<p>I bought a copy and brought it to suspension the next day, read the whole thing that week. Good memories thanks to the room monitor dude and an excellent book.
I read once somewhere that a reviewer said something along the lines of: "He didn't understand Zen and he didn't understand motorcycle maintenance either."[1]<p>However I read it several times and I think that interpretation is very uncharitable.<p>It is a touching big hearted story about a fractured person struggling to put himself back together while trying to connect with his son and while trying to figure out what it means to live 'the good life.'[2]<p>If what he had was metal illness, I think that he might be an example of someone putting it to the best use possible.<p>I'm honestly not sure if the MOQ holds up as philosophy or not, or even as a coherent mystical system. But I can say that I wish there were more books like it, that is to say: written by authors way on the fringe of mainstream thought.<p>[1] My critique about the Zen aspect is that Buddhism is not something you theorize about, it is something you practice. To theorize about Buddhism would be like a guy who reads a lot about golf trivia, golf training, golf biographies, but does not play golf. Golf is a thing you do, an aspiration to get the ball into the little hole. It is something you have to embody and realize in yourself. Buddhism more resembles learning a sport or a craft than a philosophy.<p>[2] Many of us should be so lucky to achieve even one of those things in a lifetime.
And you think you're having troubles with your startup?<p>"Zen was published in 1974, after being rejected by 121 publishing houses...then Pirsig lived reclusively and worked on his second book Lila for 17 years before its publication in 1991."<p>"Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist."
I must have ready ZMM at least seven times (so far) in my life. Back when I was taking an undergraduate, I read it the first time and was inspired to take as many English courses as I could. I wanted to be a technical writer. After a series of co-op work-terms in the field (the companies loved a tech writer who could also program), I landed a full-time job as a technical writer in a large telecommunications company. I would read ZMM on the bus to work for inspiration. Pirsig could write with such clarity that I tried to emulate him in my writing (as I'm sure all poor writers do). I eventually returned to programming as it was my first love. The job as a tech writer definitely improved my writing skills, and reading ZMM definitely improved my life.
If you love the book and haven't seen the other photos from the trip, check them out—it's 12 photos Pirsig took during the summer 1968 trip! Pirsig sent them to a professor who was doing ZMM-related research:<p><a href="http://venturearete.org/ResearchProjects/ProfessorGurr/gallery/Pictures-Robert-Pirsigs-original-1968-trip" rel="nofollow">http://venturearete.org/ResearchProjects/ProfessorGurr/galle...</a>
While I enjoyed the book, for me going back over it years later, in the afterword for the second edition: a crushing blow. It now overshadows the book for me. It describes the murder and aftermath many years later of his son that was featured in the novel. Here. I found it. Read it.<p>:'(<p><a href="http://theaetetus.tamu.edu/online-texts/zen/zen-afterword.html" rel="nofollow">http://theaetetus.tamu.edu/online-texts/zen/zen-afterword.ht...</a>
May he rest in peace.<p>Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance was one of the first books on philosophy that I read outside of my philosophy curriculum at university and it stayed with me.<p>It's a great book discussing the metaphysics of quality, but not just that. It's written in a captivating way, mixing both the 'food for thought' as well as a pleasant narative about a father and a son on a motorcycle trip.<p>It's one of the philosophy books that I can recommend to people who are not directly interested in philosophy as well, which gave me some quite fun discussions with my friends about the topics in the book without being too deep into the philosophy itself.
"Zen" has its strengths and weaknesses, but I found its discussion about "gumption traps" (Chapter 26, I believe) to be absolute, solid gold. Pirsig's description of what it's like to do gritty work on a complex system -- and all the logical, mental, and emotional blocks associated with that -- really resonated with my experience as a software engineer, and they've helped me get better at being aware of those blocks and getting past them.<p>May he rest in peace.
"Phædrus' provocation informed the Chairman that his substantive field was now philosophy, not English composition. However, he said, the division of study into substantive and methodological fields was an outgrowth of the Aristotelian dichotomy of form and substance, which nondualists had little use for, the two being identical.<p>He said he wasn't sure, but the thesis on Quality appeared to turn into an anti-Aristotelian thesis. If this was true he had chosen an appropriate place to present it. Great Universities proceeded in a Hegelian fashion and any school which could not accept a thesis contradicting its fundamental tenets was in a rut. This, Phædrus claimed, was the thesis the University of Chicago was waiting for.<p>He admitted the claim was grandiose and that value judgments were actually impossible for him to make since no person could be an impartial judge of his own cause. But if someone else were to produce a thesis which purported to be a major breakthrough between Eastern and Western philosophy, between religious mysticism and scientific positivism, he would think it of major historic importance, a thesis which would place the University miles ahead. In any event, he said, no one was really accepted in Chicago until he'd rubbed someone out. It was time Aristotle got his."
I wish more people had read that book.<p>Anybody with some education in philosophy figures out that utter, logical-proof certainty can't be had. So what does one do for epistemology instead? There are two main alternatives:<p>-- Religious-style faith. This is not my preferred choice.<p>-- An aesthetically-tinged approach to epistemology.<p>What I mean by the latter is, for example, generalizing Occam's Razor into usability. The problem with Occam's Razor is that it says, in effect, "In case of doubt go with the simpler answer", without giving a general way to judge what's simpler. Any solution to that problem winds up being an aesthetic kind of judgment.
There's a rather negative critique floating around that someone is bound to post, sooner than later. And it is, in itself, worth reading. It's possibly even right–I read both the book and the critique twice, and came away believing both, somewhat paradoxically.<p>But I wish to make the case that the book is worth reading for its literary value alone. The narrative parts are a gentle, beautiful telling of this father/son trip across the northwest, and reading it will leave you with enjoying nature (or, more generally, reality) with something like a calm optimism.
The conclusion to one of my favourite sections:<p>"In other words, any true German mechanic, with a half-century of mechanical finesse behind him, would have concluded that this
particular solution to this particular technical problem was perfect."<p>Anyone else remember that bit? I now ride a big BMW R1200RT. I wonder if this book influenced me to do that? RIP Mr Pirsig
Not a fan of the book (it calls to mind an acid trip - the author sounds like he understands something deeper, but there's no clarity to it), but the author undeniably had a thought process different than the mainstream, which is always valuable.
It's no exaggeration to say that this book changed my life. I learned so much from it, and apply what I learned on a daily basis. I was only thinking a couple of weeks ago that it's time for another re-read: that's definitely the case now.<p>RIP Robert M. Pirsig :-(
A couple of other obituaries:<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/books/robert-pirsig-dead-wrote-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/books/robert-pirsig-dead-...</a><p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-robert-pirsig-obituary-20170424-story.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-robert-pirsig-...</a>
I remember -- belatedly, after a few suggestions to do so -- reading "Zen" the summer after I graduated. I rarely notate in a book, but that copy ended up full of notes in the margins.<p>At the time, I thought it was one of the most significant things I'd read. Of course, I was young, and it was a long time ago. (And then, life and injury and illness and... well, a distinct <i>lack</i> of quality happened, and I never got back to it.)<p>I've been meaning, intending, lately, to reread it. Last year, I was invited into a book club. I've considered suggesting it -- I think I will.<p>Quality. Eloquence, in a word.<p>P.S. I've been thinking about getting a bike and riding for a summer. Adequate, but not overdone -- and quiet.<p>Piece by piece, this rough idea has been sketching itself in.<p>Don't know why I'm telling HN, this, or why you should care. Except that we all should care about quality. And about a man who thought and felt hard on the topic and in turn gave us much to think about. Reflected much of ourselves, to ourselves -- giving us eyes and ears into ourselves and our choices.<p>Anyway...
>>>"The book is brilliant beyond belief," wrote Morrow editor James Landis before publication. "It is probably a work of genius and will, I'll wager, attain classic status."<p>Amazing when things like that are foretold. (Yes I know, survivorship bias blah blah)
Was there a US university philosophy class in the 70s and 80s that didn't include reading this book? Maybe outside the US, as well. Someone said about it that it was as much about riding and fixing motorcycles as Moby Dick was about whaling. Much like the book, I'm not sure I totally understand that but you can't deny its importance.
I don't remember how I came across it, but I remember reading it early in high school - 9th grade, I think - and loving it. While the philosophy was a great read, the ideas of understanding and caring for your equipment influenced my thoughts on all the technology I use, even if I'm not a mechanic.
I stumbled across this quote somewhere in my university days: "The errors of great [people] are venerable because they are more fruitful than the truths of little [people]." (It's Nietzsche reflecting on Schopenhauer IIUC – and it's a quote I think can apply equally well to Nietzsche himself!)<p>I think this applies to a lot of the great writing I have loved, and perhaps Pirsig's ZAAMM falls into this bucket. After all, for all of its classical philosophical underpinnings and serious intent, it does not seem to have achieved much status as as work of philosophy. You won't find Pirsig's name (except in passing) in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for example. The book is also over a generation old. I suppose there's a question, therefore, of whether it will endure as a book that future generations will draw inspiration and ideas from.<p>Nevertheless, I think it stands admirably as a iconoclastic, genre-bashing, cross-pollinating, fascinating exploration of philosophical ideas, and, as Pirsig himself observed, as a "culture-bearer" of the time and place it was written. This makes it a classic of American writing as far as I am concerned, if not a classic treatise in philosophy.<p>RIP, Mr. Pirsig.
If anyone hasn't heard this(hour long):
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2623057085" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2623057085</a><p>An interview with someone who interviewed Pirsig. With clips from that original interview.<p>Very, very good radio.<p>From personal relation to the book. When I was young I went on a motorcycle trip on the back of my father's motorcycle, with his friend and son.<p>We pulled into a small rural gas station, and there was a younger guy filling up a small foreign car. And he just started laughing upon talking to us. He had just taken time off his undergrad after reading a book about man and his son on a motorcycle trip. And wrote the name down on the back of our map.<p>While I was far to young to understand the book at first, reading it over again and again as I got older it was a different learning experience each time as I grew.
A wonderful book that I'm amazed ever got published. Still, as noted in wikipedia: "It was originally rejected by 121 publishers, more than any other bestselling book, according to the Guinness Book of Records."<p>[edited to remove spoiler I shouldn't have mentioned -- my apologies]
For those who enjoyed "ZenATAOMM", I found another in a similar vein: "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work"<p>"...author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker," based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world."<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Class-Soulcraft-Inquiry-Value/dp/0143117467" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Class-Soulcraft-Inquiry-Value/dp...</a>
I've (re-)read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance every time I've bought a motorcycle [1997, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2014].<p>Pirsig's concept of "quality" sticks with me in every decision I make as a parent, engineer, and product manager.<p>RIP, Mr. Pirsig.
<i>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</i> is a great philosophy book, but kinda rubbish as a motorcycle travel book. I recommend <i>Jupiters Travels</i> (from the same era) for an excellent motorcycle travel book.
A thought occurred to me the other day. What if it's not so good to "be one with the bicycle" ? What I mean is, I feel the narrator identifies too strongly with the machine. The frustrations of the machine translate directly to him, leading to crap avoiding gumption traps.<p>Like composition v. inheritance, you don't always want to <i>become</i> the thing, you just want to use it. It's dangerous to become a thing, especially one without any Quality.<p>Maybe I resonate more strongly now with the BMW driver. I don't know. Maybe I didn't really understand the book.
This book was on my reading list for many years, and I finally read it a couple years ago. A wonderful book.<p>Highly recommended to anyone who likes reading. It's not just the philosophy and it's not just the story, it's the way they are part of the same whole, with deep roots in the American landscape, that makes this book so special. Now I want to revisit it and see if I can pick up his later work as well.<p>If you still haven't read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy.
“I think its important now to tie care to Quality by pointing out that care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person whos bound to have some characteristics of Quality” Thank you and RIP Mr.Pirsig
If you are thinking of purchasing this book from the kindle store, buy the mass market paper book for $3.99 and then matchbook it to get the kindle version for $2. This way you end up with 2 copies for the price of the standalone kindle version and you can give one away.<p>I borrowed the book from the public library just last week.
I read a little over half of ZMM about a year ago, and there's one aspect of it that caught my attention which I'm surprised to not see mentioned here.<p>He gives a break down of a certain style of thinking about things where you break the subject down into parts and the relationships between the parts. He gives examples in technical writing that this process has a degree of arbitrariness to it. His circumscribing the general process of conceptualizing things suggests that the process itself has limits, and while valuable, is not everything (despite the tendency of certain mentalities to see things that way. He has an ongoing contrast between himself who is inclined to think that way and others who aren't.) I see this as a bridge to understanding Eastern philosophy's low opinion of language and penchant for indirect explanations.
There is a lot for an engineer to love in the ZMM -- fixing things, a meditation on screws, the quality of shims, and father-son story. It's tempting for a rational engineer to laugh at philosophy. But it's a quality book.
My first thought: why is that name so familiar?<p>My second: Oh.<p>Pirsig's book was there for me during a challenging time of my life. I never finished it, but I'm not so confident that I really needed to. Just starting the book in many ways can be enough.
I love the Zen book but did not understand it at all the first time I read it (somewhere in grade/high school). All I got the first time around was that it was sort of a boring book about a dude taking a motorcycle ride and there was a lot I skipped over.<p>Read again when I was a bit more ready to hear it and wow, profound book. The church of reason lecture is awesome. And timeless.<p>I hope this guy found some peace in his life, I did get the sense that he was struggling but that's just a guess.
I had finished reading the book(ZAAMM) recently. I have been sharing its snippets with friends and talking over them. I found it really insightful and reflective.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is <i>not</i> a very good book but it <i>is</i> a good book.<p>I loved it and will always remember it when I have forgotten many other books. It is not a 'philosophy' book but it is quite philosophical.<p>It's worth a read but it's slow in parts. Push yourself through or skip a few chapters.<p>Like many other readers my favourite part is the drink can as shim.
Rest in peace, Mr. Robert Pirsig. Your books stimulated and entertained my intellect during my high school/undergrad years, served as a gateway to get a better grip on philosophy in general, and had a lasting influence on me this day. Thank you for sharing your life with us.
I am surprised the article doesn't cite how his son Chris was murdered outside the San Francisco Zen Center in the '80s. I assume that single event changed Robert's life forever, and certainly inspired a lot of what went into Lila.
I found the road trip part of the book enjoyable, but the philosophy (Quality) talk a bit drawn out and something I didn't get. Have been intermittently reading it, but haven't finished it yet.
I remember reading his book years ago and thinking it was an amazing read. I don't remember much about it now and I will for sure take a look at it again. I highly suggest it!
RIP RP.<p>For those who are interested, a little more info to contribute...<p>RP, apparently though I can't substantiate, was tested as having a "Genius level IQ" as an early child.<p>After reading both ZMM and LILA carefully, I believe he has gotten as close as anyone to a philosophy that explains humanity and blends successfully eastern and western history and perspective on such.<p>LILA is the serious effort and a far more important book, though it has gone largely ignored.<p>Some interesting info for fans to dig into here:
<a href="http://robertpirsig.org/AHP%20Transcript%203.html" rel="nofollow">http://robertpirsig.org/AHP%20Transcript%203.html</a>
It's amazing public schools are permitted to do this. There's nothing for the kid to grow from in a child sitting around doing nothing. Children grow from experiences and challenges. Minds forced into isolation with no stimulation are stunted, and there's scientific evidence to support that. Obviously one week is not going to make or break a person, but this school policy is exceptionally ignorant.
My introduction to Quality Without a Name and motorcycling. I still ride and still appreciate engineering that somehow manages to be greater than just the sum of its parts: the Leica M3, the Blackbird SR71, the HP 12C.
<i>We weren't allowed to read or do anything but sit in boredom during suspension (school rules)</i><p>What kind of fucking school discourages people from reading even if they're in detention. Stories like this make me glad I didn't grow up in the USA.