motorcycle zen

At some point in the past, I heard or read something about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, though I can't recall what it was I heard or read. Details haven't stuck. What has stuck is the title; it's hard to purge something so loud and so obviously incongruous from memory once it has taken hold. When I saw the book in the now-defunct Oxfam a while back, I took it without as much as a glance on the content blurb on the back cover. How can a book with such a bizarre title not be good? I didn't know what to expect, though. My bet would have been some outrageous story whose connection with the title is only slowly revealed. I ventured five pounds on fiction, but lost my punt.

The book is non-fiction, and the title is literal, though the philosophic ideas are wrapped in the thick disguise of a gooey travelogue from which they are only cautiously rescued. The narrator and his son are taking an extended road trip on the father's trusty motorcycle. Stops along the way, the half-hours in the sleeping-bag before getting up in the mornings, and calm stretches on the bike become a series of soliloquacious and contemplative interludes that gradually displace the narrative frame. In these interludes, the narrator introduces the reader to his philosophy while coming to terms with his own, highly unorthodox self and the events in his life that made him who he is.

At the time of telling the story, the author is concerned with proper motorcycle maintenance and develops a philosophy, his Zen, that codifies that in philosophical terms. However, in an earlier life, he used to be a renegade academic philosopher and these two identities – skilled craftsman and keen thinker – are ingeniously woven into one, just as the philosophy at the heart of the book tries to mold the left and right cerebral hemispheres into one seamless powerhouse. The philosophy of bike mechanics thus touches on all aspects of life. This literalness takes a bit of the sparkle off the title and ruins the book's chances of running in the greatest-title-ever contest, but that's only a minor flaw. It's certainly a fitting title, well-suited for grabbing attention and honest at that.

I'm two thirds through the book but still not entirely sure where I'm going. There were some powerful early paragraphs, drawn from the author's personal experience as a graduate student in biochemistry (It gets weirder and weirder, doesn't it?), that question the foundations of science, notably the conventions of how hypotheses are generated, how experiments are performed and results are evaluated. It's deep stuff and I'll have to go back to these sections to fully come to terms with them. I should have taken notes as I went along.

Much space and time is invested in a study of the elusive term Quality, which is postulated to be the basic concept underlying all art, science and technology. Quality is reality, according to the book, and perceived and appreciated universally, but I'm still not quite sure I get it. By virtue of the lively writing and the crisp presentation, I progress through the chapters without much pain, but I harbor the fear that I'll have to revisit many earlier parts to make sense of them.

What makes good sense to me and what drove me to write this premature book summary is the concept of Peace of Mind. It is defined as the state of mental quietness and a detaching of the brain from what it is currently occupied with. Peace of Mind is obviously connected, by way of meditation, to the Zen of the title. It is a tool to unlock one's powers when they're stuck in a difficult task, an annoying rut or a temporary dead-end, perceived to be unsurmountable.

Peace of Mind is a prerequisite to taking the proverbial step back and to approaching problems from a fresh vantage point, and it's nothing new. But for me, it sounded convincing for the first time. Sometimes I feel as if I were stuck, and I've realized that my mind is rarely at ease. Maybe the two are connected? My mind might get an hour or two of respite during one of the concerts I go to frequently, but that relaxed feeling doesn't last. Soon I'm back to bombarding myself with all sorts of things that keep me on my toes: work, podcasts on my way in and languages on my way back, books, this blog, unuttered thoughts about the future...

What if I had to take a step back or two to see more clearly what's going on? What if I needed to banish activity from my brain for a while? It wouldn't be easy, that's for sure. When I don't do anything for an hour, I grow restless and tired of inactivity. After all, life is short and there's so much to see and do. How could I justify staring at a blank wall and driving myself to inner silence? But maybe that's exactly what I need to recharge and recover waned enthusiasm and energy. An hour or two won't do any good. Maybe I should go on a road trip myself, drive off into the distance and not look back until I don't remember what it is that I'd be looking back to. But before I end the lease and put my stuff in storage for half a year, I'd finish the book first that put these ideas in my head. There might be more to it.