We ride because ugliness and foulness have clipped our soul’s wings. Why did Pirsig name the wolf Phaedrus? Plato wrote Phaedrus as a dialog between Phaedrus and Socrates it was on the topic of LOVE, madnesses(4 of them) , divine inspiration, and mastery of an art and for them it was the art of rhetoric. Phaedrus leads Socrates out to the country. Socrates is out of his element because his love for learning has kept him in the city and he sees no value in being where “the trees and open country won’t teach” but he credits Phaedrus for leading him out of his comfort zone or “native land.” Socrates says, “Yet you seem to have discovered a drug for getting me out. A hungry animal can be driven by dangling a carrot or a bit of greenstuff in front of it; similarly if you proffer me speeches bound in books I don't doubt you can cart me all around Attica, and anywhere else you please." Why do so many men go middle age crazy? Madnesses? Errotic love is way deeper than sex. Plato shows in the dialogue between Praedrus and Socrates that a relationship is give and take. Socrates wants Phaedrus to deliver the Lysius speech but he only does it after leading Socrates out of his comfort zone. Socrates is ecstatic! He says that Phaedrus gave the speech better than Lyscius did! Then Socrates says he can give a better speech on that subject than lyscius did!Phaedrus begs to hear it and Socrates refuses. Phaedrus threatens to whoop his ass wants to hear it. He wants understanding. Phaedrus throws a temper tantrum and says he will NEVER recite one of Socrates speeches again! That is a nail in rhe coffin for a rhetorical artist. How will his legacy live on without being remembered? Socrates relents and gives several speeches. One on the 4 madnesses of Love and if the previous speeches were right then the madness of love is wrong. But what if the gods gave the madnesses? The prophetic, the poetic, the erotic, the initiatory(leaps of faith) He tells Phaedrus that there is DIVINE love and it has been given to us in these forms. Socrates goes on to tell the famous chariot allegory. All souls are chariots with wings. But it is ugliness and foulness that makes these wings disappear. Leaving the soul unable to fly. That is why my fried has logged 250,000 miles on his GOLD WINGS. He doesn’t know why but I do. His wings were clipped like many of us with the ugliness and foulness done to us. But do we have the courage to ask ourselves who we have clipped with our foulness and ugliness? I just finished a 5 day trip 10 hours per day logging 1471 miles. We road the tail of the dragon, the devils whip, the rattler, the charahola skyway. Why? It is as close to getting our soul’s wings back. By the third day my friends weight of the world was lifted and a smile was returning to his face. We punished our bodies like monks seeking redemption on our motorcycles. I saw my friend get his wings. Phaedrus leads Pirsig. Pirsig is Socrates. The nymphs and muses are saying find your wings. My friend said to me that Dollie his Harley was speaking to him about forgiveness. She is his muse leading him to the greatest understanding of all. We get our wings back and we give wings back with forgiveness. Ps all my kids can ride and all do their own maintenance. All own Subarus so the better know how to do maintenance! One can remove your cataract, one can teach you to master math, one can shim his own Ducati valves and tune that belt by ear. One built three motorcycles by the time he was 15. I am very optimistic about the next generations.
It's a wonderful book! Read it a number of times, and I discover new details in it every single time. It's not an easy read by any means, but I never thought it was meant to be either. For those who want to dive into Pirsig's mind and ways of thinking even deeper, I would recommend Lila: An Inquiry into Morals.
Zen... really drew me in when I first read it in the late 70's. It took about 5-7 days to finish it I think. I decided to revisit it two months ago and I'm still slogging through it. For some reason I have to make myself read it. I don't know if it's because the book hasn't aged well, or maybe it's because I haven't aged well. But Mr. Richardson is right about Pirsig being a good writer.
I read the book in 1975 appro. when riding my Ducati 900ss around Australia when I was 25-26 years old. I loved it and have re-read a number of times. It changed my live!
"I'm glad I never had the opportunity to meet Mr. Persig." As they say "Never meet your heroes". It's often not a good idea at all as you find they're not what you're imagining. Really interesting interview!! Haven't read Zen in a long time but I'm tempted to give it another go as I'm finding my riding has taken on a new and vibrant feel after many years of not riding. I'm absolutely loving riding again and it's been a LONG time since I felt this way!!
I tried. I tried so hard to get through that friggin book. After the 30th page of seemingly endless circular pontification about the nature of the word "quality," I gave up.
I hated that book. I started riding 54 years ago. Because people knew about my love of bikes they all thought I must love this book. They were wrong. A trip through psychological hell. When I got to his rant about not trusting any mechanic who listens to music, I gave up. What a load of crap.
Years ago I attempted the book and I distinctly remember one part where he's standing on a bridge, in the early morning hours, watching commuters driving to work. He made all sorts of statements about them that weren't very kind. He was clearly projecting and it really soured me as he seemed to posses zero self awareness about this fact. It didn't even seem to occur to him. And in a book where there's a lot of introspection, this seemed really wrong to me. I dunno, that was 40 or more years ago when I tried to read it so perhaps I'm remembering it incorrectly.
I agree with Shopcraft’s assessment of Zen that it’s wrong about both Zen and motorcycle maintenance. And the thing it wants to be right on, it manages to fumble really badly. It’s an important book, but only because it got people to think. It just didn’t get anyone to think well, at least that I’m aware. Every conversation I’ve ever had about it seemed like the book was provocative in thought, but not worth holding in mind. If you hold it in mind, you won’t think well or learn or grow well, in my experience. I did enjoy reading it, but quickly learned to throw it out of my mind.
It is a good book, however, as the narrative moves along towards the reiterations and labouring over his history and internal conflict the pages become tiring and repetitive. The point of his losing his son is the eye opener and therapy. It was a book of its time. A brilliant fellow. Funny and sad.
Then don't purchase a bike that you can't do at lease a little work on. What's the point? I put 2k miles on a bike in late 1980 going coast to coast reading this book at almost every time I stopped for coffee. More than once I had a person invite me to sit with them and tell them a little about my trip. You don't get that while driving most cars!
