mr donut

In his novel, Slowness, Milan Kundera writes, “The man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight; he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future; he is wrenched from continuity of time. He is outside time; he is in a state of ecstasy; and so he has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed from the future has nothing to fear.” Pirsig, in contrast to Kundera’s euphoric description of a motorcycle ride, views the art of motorcycling as an equality of balance between the romance of the ride and the “classical esthetic” of mechanical maintenance. I must admit that it is at this point where Pirsig and I disagree. In my opinion, riding on a motorcycle can be compared to swimming. In the water, swimming produces a certain high which is caused as a result of the sensory deprivation associated with being in the water. Cut off from your surroundings, your mind slowly numbed from the repetition of endless lap after lap, your body cooled by the water, this sensation too can be very addicting to some. Swimming is a much more technical endurance sport than most due to stroke mechanics which bring a mental challenge to the physical aspect, a person often finds lacking in other sports such as running. As the endorphins kick in one must continue to think in order to be successful. Though it can become instinctual to many, I never fully developed the instincts for the sport. I swam well enough to be somewhat competitive, but they say swimming is a sport you must start very young to be truly successful and develop the instincts for. When in the water, I too often lose the sense of what one or more parts of my body are doing. I do not have that good kinesthetic sense one needs in order to develop really good stroke mechanics. And unless I am swimming in a group or organized workout, I seldom have the patience to endure more than a half of an hour of staring at the bottom of a pool. After swimming for extended periods of time, I long for the reassuring feel of something under my feet, some way to connect with the surrounding world that is not comprised of only chlorine and cold water. This tantalizing state of isolated activity is also one of motor cycling’s greatest appeals. Motorcycling connects the physical and the mental without losing sense of your surroundings. Still present are the elusive moments that cause a certain high, but if the rider loses touch with his or her body or bike they become prone to mistakes and may crash into another rider, or lose that sense of rhythm and cadence needed for success. While a motorcycle requires maintenance, it has been my experience that even the “dirt, the grease, and the mastery of the underlying form” involved in that maintenance is in itself an art. Therefore, the art of riding as well as maintaining a motorcycle is not a necessary dichotomy of classical science versus romantic sensation, as Pirsig argues, rather, it is an almost entirely romantic experience altogether.

Imitation “As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn’t have it. It seemed to come later on, possibly as a result of school itself.” Robert Pirsig strongly believed, along with many other things, that a person who does nothing except copy others can only become an incomplete version of the object of their imitation. According to Pirsig, great writers, great artists, and men in general don't merely copy the world around them. They instead incorporate ideas from their surroundings and then create their own unique syntheses that go beyond what has happened before. They have to be both their own leaders as well as followers of mentors who have encouraged them to grow beyond the egoistic desire of those leaders to be copied. Pirsig has made his own logical fallacy. Imitation is not an evil concept drilled into the minds of brainwashed students from first to twelfth grade. Likewise, it is not the mental crutch of people too dull to think of anything creative. Imitation is, in fact, an integral part of human nature. From the time a person is born, he or she learns how to walk, speak, and even think by constant imitation. The narrator states that imitation must be taught by educational institutions because children don’t have it. He could not have been further from the truth. Children, more than anyone, learn everything through imitation. As a babysitter, it is always interesting to see the world through the eyes of a child. The children I watch are constantly putting on puppet shows, making popsicle statues, and drawing crayon pictures of their family and friends. All of these practices are an attempt to recreate the world that they observe every day. Every good parent knows that they must always watch what they say and do because children are often honest and blunt at the worst times. Why do parents take such great care in raising their children? “Like Father like son,” right? Pirsig’s fallacy was simply an oversimplification of the facts. Rather than demonizing imitation in its entirety, Pirsig should have sought a way in which his students balanced imitation with creativity and clarity of thought. It is likely that many of the students writing capabilities suffered, not because they leaned too heavily on imitation but because they were lazy, undisciplined, not gifted in that area, or simply unintelligent. Perhaps, instead of writing about the nuances found on the back of each students thumb, he should have simply changed the required reading of Advanced Rhetoric for Contemporary Students.

As yet another Valentines Day doing homework in my room comes rapidly to a close, I find myself ruminating upon many things, namely, the caprice of human nature, the transience of happiness, and the vicissitude of life, its purpose and, of course, love. I have often thought about my purpose in this world and aside from living to serve Christ, have yet to come up with a satisfactory and categorical answer. It seems to me that the pursuit of happiness and the improvement of other lives through my personal talents and charities are the obvious contenders for such a daunting question; the combination of which would, upon first glance, be a most worthwhile and fulfilling venture. This response, however, often seems to be one that is superficial and utterly banal, leaving me less satisfied than before. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the narrator discusses the intricacies of many philosophies, transcendental ideals, and their application, but rarely, if ever, mentions happiness or love. 
It seems as though happiness, even if reached through the amalgamation of passion, diligence, and success, rarely ever stays within our grasp. The narrator seeks happiness or fulfillment rather in his idea of quality and its personal application in every area of life. But does this quality of life that he possesses leave him happy? The narrator’s philosophy doesn’t seem to help the disintegrating relationship with his son, irritation concerning his friends, or offer him any joy whatsoever. It is the human condition that we always find there to be something lacking in life, whether it be love, prestige, money, or beauty and our response is to never be fully satisfied with our achievements. In those rare cases that a person is fully content, such complacency, to others, is alarmingly mercurial and unsettling. What then must we think of happiness, love, and purpose in life? Is the meaning of life contained only within the flowering of beatitude or the comfort of personal philosophy? My obvious retort is that sentiment and beatitude, though poetic, are wholly impractical and philosophy is often misleading. And what is to be said about the shadows of discontent, sorrow, and worse of all, monotony, that often dominate our meager lives? Some may argue that it is these very influences that cause life to be so rewarding, and it is for those beautiful and poignant moments of complete happiness that earthly existence is justified—those moments in which we are content, joyful, and even elated with the knowledge that we are fulfilling the task set before us to love our Creator and those around us. There are, however, those unforgettable moments when the swift inevitability of doubt sets in, God seems strangely silent and we, despite all of our efforts, cannot help but still feel dead in our transgressions. It is at these times when life feels like nothing more than mere endurance and dreary preparation for our ascension to the “Elysian Fields.” Whatever the case, we shall never truly know the “correct” answer to such a question or if one exists at all. I simply write this to alleviate my burning mind, which is ceaselessly working against my will—not to find an answer, but simply to pose a question.