Review of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Book Link: https://smile.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry/dp/0060589469

I bailed on this book before actually finishing it - the story seemed interesting but the writing was too verbose for me and the pacing was very slow to keep me interested and wanting to keep reading. I was also distracted from the story a bit because it always feel like the author was trying to hide who Phaedrus was when it was pretty obvious from early on how they were connected. My take after reading only 30% of the book is that this would make a better movie than book since driving west on a road trip provides an incredible backdrop and expansive vistas that are more appealing as a visual medium than a literary medium. Maybe I'll come back to this in the future because there were some really good gems in the parts I covered that touched on relationships, how people see and are incentivized in the world differently, and purpose/meaning of life too. Or maybe I'll wait for the movie and be surprised how the remainig 70% plays out :-).

Some highlights from my reading: 1. We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on “good” rather than “time” and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes. 2. I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn’t mean much. 3. When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. 4. A classical understanding sees the world primarily as underlying form itself. A romantic understanding sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance. 5. But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. 6. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. 7. It’s sometimes argued that there’s no real progress; that a civilization that kills multitudes in mass warfare, that pollutes the land and oceans with ever larger quantities of debris, that destroys the dignity of individuals by subjecting them to a forced mechanized existence can hardly be called an advance over the simpler hunting and gathering and agricultural existence of prehistoric times.