I was 16 when I hitchhiked out to the Rockies from Milwaukee, to spend the summer backpacking around the Rockies and learning to be good at it. To be good at making fires and catching trout, to be comfortable in a tent during thunderstorms or invasions of mosquitoes, or to have my tent pitched above the treeline, and for the first time in my life, to see the stars so plentiful and magnificent and infinite all around me. To feel right-sized for the first time in my young life. I brought three books with me in 1976, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, and Notes on Love and Courage, by Hugh Prather. I also picked up a paperback in Boulder of short stories by Hemingway...all of which kept me great company that bicentennial summer, where I was trying to piece together myself and the world around me. I still keep those books on one of my nightstands, and though I have read many, many more books those still hold a special place in my heart. Thank you for channel and your readings and thoughts on what I consider to be still one of the greatest ever written.
I'll be tracking with you on this. There have been any number of times when I have felt out of my depth in all this because my education, my reading, might not have run deep enough. But I am a natural to this thinking. One reason I believe that, now that you mention it, is all the times when I was obliged to do work other than music, most often construction trades and always the grunt part of it, but never had an attitude problem. In a way, whether I was up singing with my guitar Underground Atlanta or lugging adobe bricks up a hill in New Mexico, it all seemed the same thing to me.
I'm looking forward to this series of commentaries. I read Zen a few years back and finished it with more questions than answers. Answers that I am still searching for.
Thank you Sevilla. I had stalled on Lila primarily due to work load, (support work in the MH sector now) I love that you are now doing this book which i have recently ordered. I do like the format you intend to use. I have never considered you to be a "rambler." luckily I have recently taken on some clients that are a few a hours drive away, your works on Lila and this emerging work will now accompany me on these drives. Keep up the brilliant work, I sense a slight cold, I hope you recover quickly. Thank You.
I am sitting here stunned. I did not know Chris had been murdered. I read zataomm in 1988. It was a huge influence on me. I bought used copies and gave them to friends over the years. I only commented once before here and it was on the centrality of quality in that book. I see it as the nature of things. I'm from Maine and I am curious about your thoughts on New England existentialist thought and art, Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, Dickenson, Frost, Beston, etc... Except for Beston, I read them before Pirsig. I went on to actually practicing Zen in So Cal. Don't worry, I did contract cable instillation and repair for Time Warner for a job. I'm back home here in Maine now. Classic Zen move.
Most people personalise random number selection, usually with a birthday, or the ages of their kids, in one way it's easier to remember, but we all feel there might be some cosmic significance; that nothing is truly random. Of course, Bob had to go one step further.
yes .. that became apparent to him when he experienced the uncaring wrench turners who damaged his bike .. therefore he learned to do his own maintenance. ie. injection of romantic 'caring' into hitherto classical actions.
Hello! I just discovered your channel, the day after Xmas 2022. I wanted to ask you if you've read ( or even heard of ) the 2008 book Zen and Now, On The Trail Of Robert Pirsig And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Mark Richardson? I first read ZAMM the year it came out, 1974. Or I should say I tried, or at least began, to read the book. I was not yet 19 years old and a motorcycle rider since I was 15. I was away from home serving in the US Air Force in California, and my mother sent it to me. She had had no idea of the book's scope or content, only that it was "about motorcycles", my passion. It took a few tries and a few years to finally "get" what Pirsig was writing about. Or at least to begin to get it! Richardson's book is wonderful, both a book about his own journey retracing Pirsig's as well as a great biography of Pirsig. I highly recommend it!
I found your channel after listening to a podcast with Robert Breedlove. I have not read Pirsig's books yet but plan on watching your videos as I do. Would you happen to have a recommended order to reading Pirsigs books?
He only has 2, and now this of course but on Quality is different since it's mostly a compilation of Pirsig's ideas about Quality that Wendy thought were the most relevant, and it's not a novel, and it's posthumous and short. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the first novel, and in it he walks through the development of the philosophy in Lila. That isn't to say you should read it first, since a single reading will not suffice for either of these books. Go with your intuition! Follow the Quality!
you didnt know they were casino dealers? you not seen yet latest vintage of bob talking to Minnesota Art students... just after first edition ill post link .. btw. looking good !
