Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values

Was truly fortunate to read this masterpiece by Robert M Pirsig recently. It's such a radical work of philosophy, science & art, I was completely blown away by it. It's a deep inquiry into what is the meaning of 'quality' and how to distinguish it. 

When it comes to understanding & defining quality, the questions that everyone struggles with are:

1. If quality exists in the object,  why can't scientific instruments detect it? 
2. Is quality subjective? If so, quality would not reside in the object but in the observer. 

Since all the traditional methods of philosophy & science fall short to answer these questions, the author has laid down a completely out-of-the box contextual road-map. He states that "Quality is not a thing. It is an event. It’s a place where subject meets the object. An event where the subject becomes aware of the object... People differ about quality, not because quality is different, but because people are different in terms of experience... Quality is the continuous stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it."  

I was particularly struck by the following conclusion- 

A person who sees quality and feels it as s/he works, is a person who cares. A person who cares about what s/he sees and does, is a person who is bound to be given by quality. 

Sharing here some notes from this book that I found extremely useful in dealing with 'lack of gumption'. To the first time reader, it may sound a bit confusing. So I encourage everyone to read this book for themselves. These notes are just for the reference once you want to actually practice the Zen & the Art in real life.

Gumption traps:

The author calls this philosophy as 'Gumptionology 101—An examination of affective, cognitive and psychomotor blocks in the perception of Quality relationships.

Since it’s a result of the perception of Quality, a gumption trap, consequently, can be defined as anything that causes one to lose sight of Quality, and thus lose one’s enthusiasm for what one is doing.

There are 2 major types of gumption traps- Set backs and Hang-ups:

1. Setbacks (primarily caused by external conditions) 
1. Out-of-sequence-reassembly: occurs when  you're doing something for the first time. When you are almost done, you find something that's left out or is unexplained. 
• Solution: As you go about the process, maintain a thorough log of what you did, when,  how & why you did it. 
2. Intermittent failure setback: the thing that is wrong becomes right all of a sudden just as you start to fix it.
• Solution: Observe correlations. When is the failure occurring, in which conditions, what time, etc. 
3. Parts setback: when parts are to be replaced, you don't get the right parts. You may have mispecified the part, the dealer may have noted the wrong information, the part may be overpriced, etc. 
• Solution: Deal with the one supplier who is most cooperative. Keep an eye on the price-cutters, they sometimes have have good deals. Take calipers with you to measure the new part. Manufacturer your own parts. 
2. Hang-ups (primarily caused by internal conditions) 
1. Value traps: Which block affective understanding...
1. Value rigidity: Inability to revalue what one sees because of rigid commitment to previous values. The facts are right in front of you but you don’t see them. If your values are rigid, you cannot learn new facts. Happens in ‘premature diagnosis’, meaning, you are sure what’s wrong with something but then when it turns out that you are wrong, you are stuck.
• Solution: Slow down deliberately and just observe the facts. Evaluate whether what you thought was important was really important. Be with it for a while. What it the way you watch a line of fishing, and before long, you will get a nibble, a little fact asking in a timid, humble way if you are interested in it. That’s the way world keeps on happening. Be interested in it.
2. Ego: If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new traps is weakened. Your ego isolates you from quality reality. When the facts show that you goofed up, you don’t accept it. The false information makes you ‘look good’ 
• Solution: Be modest. If that’s not possible, fake modesty to begin with.
3. Anxiety: You are so sure you’ll do everything wrong, you are afraid to anything at all! This makes it difficult to start anything new. So you end up fixing things that don’t need fixing & chase after imaginary ailments. You jump to wild conclusions and build all kinds of errors in the machine because of your own nervousness. These errors, when made, confirm your original underestimation of yourself. This leads to more anxiety & further errors- a self-stroking cycle.
• Solution: Work out your anxieties on paper. Read everything on the subject. Remember, it’s peace of mind you are after and not just fixing a problem. Understand the even the masters or experts goof up once in a while.
4. Boredom: You are off the ‘quality track’, you are not seeing things freshly, you’ve lost your beginner’s mind and your motorcycle is in grave danger. Boredom means your gumption supply is low & must be replenished before anything else is done.
• Solution: Stop. Do something else. If you don’t stop, a huge mistake is inevitable. Sleep. Get some coffee.
5. Impatience: You underestimate the amount of time an activity may take. And when things don’t work out, you impatience turns into anger. 
• Solution: Allow an infinite time for jobs, particularly the new or unfamiliar ones. 
2. Truth traps: These block cognitive understanding.
• In Japan, there's a concept of ‘Mu’ meaning ‘no thing’ or ’no class; not one not zero, not yes not no'. It points outside the dualistic way we see the world. It states that the context of the question is such that the question becomes too small for the truth of the answer. Our dualistic mind tends to see such Mu occurrences in nature as contextual cheating, or irrelevance, but Mu is found everywhere in nature & in science & nature’s answers are never irrelevant. (It's similar to the Quantum computing concept, where qubits do not represent the traditional dualism of 1 & 0, but 1 & 0 occur simultaneously.)
• Solution: When you come across a Mu, don’t brush it under the carpet hastily. It is an important answer. It tells the scientist that the context of the question is too small for nature to answer. So enlarge the context of the question and ask again. 
3. Muscle traps: They block psychomotor behaviors.
• Muscular insensitivity: Occurs due to lack of kinesthesia, a failure to realize that although the motorcycle is rugged and strong externally, the inside mechanisms that actually run it are delicate. This is what’s known as a ‘mechanic’s feel’.
• Solution: Realize the difference between ‘finger tight’, ’snug’ and ’tight’. Exercise ‘care’. 

“Well, if I get around all those gumption traps, then will I have the thing licked?” 

The answer, of course, is no, you still haven’t got anything licked. You’ve got to live right too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way all the experts do it. 

The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn’t separate from the rest of your existence. If you’re a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren’t working on your machine, what trap avoidances, what gimmicks, can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together. But if you’re a sloppy thinker six days a week and you really try to be sharp on the seventh, then maybe the next six days aren’t going to be quite as sloppy as the preceding six. What I’m trying to come up with on these gumption traps, I guess, is shortcuts to living right.
  

The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be “out there” and the person that appears to be “in here” are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.      
   

(Thanks to Par Bolina, MD for recommending this book to me. You are an inspiring leader, mentor and beyond all, a great human being. Thank you for everything.)