Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

By Robert Pirsig.

Many, many years ago a favourite University lecturer discussed this book with me in conversation at the end of a lecture. Basically, he was amazed that I hadn't read it. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't on the reading list he gave us and he knew that I read almost all of the books on his list (and at least skim read the others.) It is a book for your life, one of the few books that everybody should read. I was actually feeling embarrassed when I said I hadn't read it and that must have stayed in my subconscious all of these years. That is because I rated the lecturer so much.

Last week, for some reason I thought about that and downloaded the book on kindle. I'm still reading it. It is a book that helps you to ground yourself and sort out problems that irritate you, those problems that you feel you are helpless against because you haven't got the knowledge to deal with them. It worked for me today actually. I had taken the day off work yesterday and this morning I had a phone call from the manager (I own the business) telling me that the phones had been dead since Wednesday morning (which means losing business.)

Normally, I would have been highly irritated and anxious about this and I would have ended up ringing a phone line engineer to try to sort it out (at an inflated cost.) But I didn't, I used the philosophy of the book and had it sorted within 5 minutes of entering the premises. And I actually feel rather good about that. It was the highlight of my day.

It is quite a difficult book to read in some parts (I had to reread the part about Hume and Kant's versions of knowledge to understand properly.) But I do feel changed, or maybe validated by the book.

It is about a guy travelling through the US on his motorbike with his son, but it is not really a novel as such. Everything he does, including and especially the maintenance of his motorbike is approached with a philosophical mindset. Basically, the message is that whatever you do - peace of mind in doing it is the essential part of the act.

I even feel more at peace doing the housework after reading (so far part) of this book so that can't be a bad thing can it?

Sounds really good! What sort of price was it on your Kindle?

I LOVE! this book. It is so well written.
Everytime I read it I want to buy a motorcycle and take to the roads.

Eleanor wrote:Sounds really good! What sort of price was it on your Kindle?

I think it was around £6

Not a bad price! Might look it up soon!