Comment on Danny's Post

I think your strongest topic as a theme would be the peace of mind one. As I was reading your post, I felt that you felt most connected to it. Also I agree with the point of peace of mind, and can see how Pirsig incorporates it within the book. I never saw the main character angry, and he always looked as if he was at peace with life and I believe that is a major reason for why he was able to discuss all the topics he discussed in the book.

Your weakest topic even though all of them are great, I believe would be the technology one. Even though I it would be extremely interesting, I think there are plenty of essays written on technology out there and there are plenty of other awesome topics on the book that could be written on. Technology is a major factor of our lives now however, Pirsig's intellectual teachings and rational thinking lectures I think take priority in the book.

Comment on Talia's themes

I think your strongest theme would be how zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is connected with notes from the underground and the stranger.  I hadn't seen it before but now that you pointed it out I can definitely see he connection between Phaedrus and Fyodor and Mersault. They all have distinct views in life that connect in some ways yet differ in others and I believe you will have plenty of support to write about of you choose this topic.

I think all of your topic ideas are great, however, if I were to choose one as the weakest unwound choose the school system one. I just think that with the others you will have much more to talk about and more evidence and support from the book and outside sources to prove your point and produce a fantastic research paper.

Comment on Rodrigo's themes

I think that your strongest theme is the definition of quality. Since Pirsig does mention quality and its definition according to him many, many times in the book you will have no trouble at all getting inspiration and ideas for this theme. It may also be interesting if you were to throw in some of your ideas as to what quality is and contradict or support Pirsig's ideas. If you made your paper like a debate almost between your ideas and his.

Your weakest theme in my opinion is the one where you say that nothing is absolute. I an not quite sure what you are trying to discuss here, but from what I can gather you are contending that nothing is certain. This kind of ties in with your theme about no right and wrong answer. The fact that the is no fact. In some way it ties in to our discussions of NFTU. I think this is an interesting topic but it is not one that is discussed directly at length in the book and for that reason it will be a weaker paper than your other ones.

Comment on Jose's Themes

I think your strongest theme is the need to find a bridge between classical and romantic thinking. I like this theme myself and I do agree that this is a large and important part of the novel that should not be overlooked. I know that you will be able to find plentiful supports to write this paper and I think that the idea of using Phaedrus to describe the "bridge" is very wise because as you said he portrays the qualities of both types of thinking.

I agree with Talia that your weakest theme is the one about people never changing, I think that although the argument could be made that the narrator shows the reluctance of people to change their ways, this is not what Pirsig intended. for this reason I think that finding supports for this paper will be harder than for the other three that you have.

Comment on Rodrigo's post

I think your holding onto your values topic is really interesting and I like it because it somewhat relates to my topic that people never change. I think you did a way better job than I did though of explaining it and being able to turn into a term paper. The examples you give are very supportive of the overall topic and when elaborated on, I think will make a great paper. It is almost as if you can't escape your true self because although Pirsig tries to get rid of Phaedrus by understanding him, he ultimately goes back to his old ways.

Although The theme I spoke about above is very good, i think, as Talia mentioned, that your strongest theme is the one about defining quality. Not only is most of the book dedicated to this one word, as you said, but it leaves much room for different opinions. It would be interesting to see how you incorporate your personal thoughts on quality and discuss those of Pirsig and Phaedrus. There is a lot of material you could use for this topic and the ideas you have in your explanation are well thought out and intriguing.

Possible Term Paper Topics

The first theme I would like to discuss is the benefits and consequences of Classic people and Romantic people. Throughout the part of the book when the Sutherlands are still a part of the trip, we can clearly see the juxtaposition of these two types of people and later, the idea of these two types of people is discussed at length. I think it will be interesting to discuss the good and bad of each type of person and possibly explore a new type of person created by balancing the two extremes.

The next theme that I believe would be interesting is discussing the importance of having and maintaining peace of mind. The narrator discusses this importance when he explains the gumption traps. Like the narrator I believe that having peace of mind will lead to high quality relationships with people and technology alike. This essay would go into depth discussing the extreme need for tranquility. It would focus of the narrator's nervous breakdown and the life of phaedrus before the breakdown.

Going on the idea of technology, it is important to mention that the acceptance or rejection of technology would also be a good theme for an essay. This theme would involve discussion of people like the Sutherlands who reject technology or people like the narrator who accept it and decide that they will control it to avoid letting it control them. Moreover I would talk about the speed and force with which technology is penetrating our lives and the importance of keeping up with the times to avoid being getting caught underwater so to speak.

The last theme is more prevalent towards the end of the book and this is the importance of having passion in life. This essay would discuss both the narrators love for motorcycles and the way this passion allows him to maintain not only peace of mind but peace of spirit as well. It would also discuss Phaedrus' love of learning and use this love to explain his unique style of teaching and the elimination of grades from his classes to develop in his students a love of learning rather than a love of the immediate reward.

Comment on Talia's post

I really like your second topic because It was an idea that I was also thinking about, I just did not know how to put into words, but you managed to do it very well. I think this topic might be easy to write. Not in the sense that the content being used would be easy to write about though, there would just be a lot of material you could incorporate into your term paper. I agree with your statement that Phaedrus is similar to the man in the notes from the underground and mersault both intellectually and personality wise. It would be interesting to see how you develop their relationships.  I think this topic has great potential because it has the possibility of showing the different or similar ideologies between all three books and what led to these ideas.

Your third topic also has a lot of potential because not only is it relevant in the book, but it's a situation in which people are starting to take notice of and is presently being discussed.  Many students as well as other people are arguing that the school system is in fact "limited" because we are merely memorizing and not developing our skills. There is a lot of material to write about in this topic as well and is a topic in which you can include your personal opinion.

Comment on Rodrigo's Themes

Strongest: I think your strongest theme is the definition of quality. Since Pirsig himself made the students write an essay on the definition of quality, I think that writing an entire term paper about it would be interesting. Much of the second half of the novel talks about the definition of quality through Pirsig's eyes and Phaedrus' inability to define it. I think that this topic is good because you could incorporate a lot of the book into it. Since, as you said, the book is so ambiguous about quality you will have a lot to write about.

Weakest: I don't think that the theme "nothing is absolute" is too strong. It;s not that I don't see it as a theme in the novel, I just see it contradicting too much with your other theme about our personality's and holding onto our values. I don't like either of these two topics nearly as much as the one above. However, if I did have to choose one I would say that the one about values seems to be a better topic to write about. I think that the approach you're potentially taking for writing about this subject is coming from an interesting perspective. Nevertheless, I think you could write a lot more about your first theme.

Themes

Nothing is absolute:

Throughout the novel, Pirsig  constantly talks about different ways people  act and think. Often times he says or gives an impressions that there are better ways of doing certain acts or thinking about certain aspects than others. For example, when he compares motorcycle maintenace between John and himself, he portrays that his way is much better however, everybody must understand and respects that human beings are unique and the "better" solution for everybody will be different. 

The definition of quality:

Since Pirsig uses much of his books space to talk about quality in life, I may be thinking that it could be a topic for our paper. Quality. The word is ambiguous to many, is there an exact definition accepted by all? In my opinion it is a measure of the ratio between the effort intonsoelthing and the success that comes behind it, however, I doubt that is the case for everybody. With such a complicated and misterious theme that even Pirsig and his students we're having trouble with, I believe it is possible to come up with an explication for it. It comes back to the uniqueness of every individual and how they perceive life. Quality for one will be different than quality for another. The way one is brought up, educated, and his interaction to the environment around him all have an effect on the way he sees quality. 

Holding on to your values:

Throughout the book we are embarked in a journey through Pirsig's mind. Both his present mind and past mind of Phaedrus have connections within, and since he is finally brought back to having the same mind he had before, it shows that one cannot detach himself from his true values forever. Even after his electrical surgical procedure in the attempt to detach himself from his ongoing thoughts of rational thinking and intellectuality, he slowly comes back to all of them as he pursues his old self through his motorcycle voyages. He becomes the man he was trying to getaway from by trying to understand how he got that way. I believe one's soul is eternally embedded with him, yes it can be edited as life goes along but in te long run ones true values will always be held strong and shine through. 

There is no right or wrong answer:

Throughout the novel, I sensed that Pirsig's comments and lectures always display a choice, being that one of them would always be more favorable. However, I don't agree with that. I believe life is full of mixed and in between choices. Yes in some cases it is a yes and no decision butoat of them it's an in between decision. When Pirsig talks about romantic and classical thinking, and how they are basically opposites, I was letter doubting that those were the only two types of thinking in the human mind. I believe most if us think in a mixed manner, with some entities from classical and some entires of romantic, and of course spending on the situation, the train of thought also changes. To write about how the human way of thinking and acting is not absolute, but a mixture of a variety of abundant aspects is interesting to me.

Comment on Jose's Themes

Strongest: I think your strongest theme is the one where you talk about the fact that we can't figure everything out through rational thinking.  I personally agree with this theme and I think that it would probably be easy to write about seeing as that it also goes with what we are discussing in class right now. To make it better, I think you would probably have to find some specific situations in which you can see that rational thinking does not help Phaedrus at all. You could also probably discuss the idea that maybe rational thinking does not always help us since rationale is not really a thing, if that makes any sense. By that I mean that rationale is just something that human created in order to say that this is wrong and this is right. You could bring that into your argument to talk about how it affect rational thinking helping us sometimes and not with others.

Weakest: I don't really like the people never really change theme. Though I do think it has the potential to be a good research paper, I don't think you supported it really well in your argument. If it becomes difficult to support it in one paragraph, supporting in throughout an entire paper might be even more difficult. I do think that what you pointed out in your paragraph below the introduction of the theme is interesting, though. Maybe you could find another theme or idea that goes along with that paragraph because it does have the potential to inspire a good research paper.

Possible Term Paper Topics

1.  The first topic I was thinking about writing about was the way in which I think Pirsig displays Phaedrus. I wanted to possible talk about how he is described and portrayed in a God-like fashion and  how eventually Pirsig leads us to believe that reason is more important than belief. I think I could support this topic because most of the time that Phaedrus is being mentioned, it is done in a very ambiguous matter. We do not really know much about him, even when the book is over. The main character seems to take everything that Phaedrus says/does as a devout Christian does with the word of God in the Bible.

2. The other topic I wanted to possible write about was how similar this novel was to The Stranger and Notes From the Underground. My main support for this topic would be Phaedrus and possibly the main character, though I am not too sure how well he could support the argument. I think that the three novels are heavily related because of the fact that Phaedrus is such an intellectual individual. Phaedrus seems to have the same level of intellect as the underground man and Meaursault from The Stranger. His intellect is what separates him from society and renders him partially inactive. I don't want to call Phaedrus a completely inactive man though, seeing as that he IS able to teach and function partial in society. I think that so many of Phaedrus' ideas and ideologies or very in tune with that of the underground man's.

3.  The third topic I wanted to write about was the irony behind our current school system. The main support for this would be the entire premise of the Church of Reason speech in the novel. I think that the main character criticizes our school system through Phaedrus' experiences heavily in the book. He reveals how truly limiting the way in which we "learn" is. He shows us that our schools system is not really about learning, it is more about memorizing what someone else does and doing our best to mimic it a little bit later. He also shows us how inept we are of accepting change when he talks of Phaedrus' teaching skills.

4.  The last topic I want to write about is the novel being a sort of critique on the way society functions. I think that Pirsig touches lightly, but still thoroughly on the fact that we can not get past the wall that the underground man speaks of because of the way in which our society is set up. I think  that Pirsig believes that the fact that we have to create everything around us is preventing us from going past our wall. He says that quality is the stimulus that causes us to create everything. However, I believe that quality is this idea we can't really get rid of so our wall is unbreakable.

Themes

People never really change-

                At the end of the book Pirsig reveals that he has been speaking about himself in third person, referring to Phaedrus throughout the whole novel. “Phaedrus”, Pirsig’s former personality was of a philosopher with a creative mind. He thought about anything and everything nonstop, until one day his mind became too much for him. In other words, his thoughts led him to a sort of realization about his life which caused him to go insane and enter a deep depression.  After undergoing electroshock therapy, he left his family and was considered cured because it was thought that he was a completely different person. However, as time went on, he started going back to his old ways, as we can throughout the book. The dreams he keeps having are about Phaedrus who is revealing himself to Pirsig little by little, indicating that he is coming back and eventually does. His constant rambling and ongoing thoughts about a single word seem to not only overtake his head, but make his readers as well as himself insane. The thoughts and ideas he has resemble those Phaedrus had before he went insane, in fact they were about the same topic. Not to mention, Pirsig almost loses his family again as his relationship with Chris diminishes. 

Life can’t be figured out through rational thinking-

In other words, Pirsig is showing us that the truth about life will never be found through rational thinking. Pirsig continually searched for a rational and logical explanation to every situation and scenario, but eventually realized that science and philosophy are merely gateways of the truth, but we use love or religion in order to try and understand life. You can’t explain everything in life through science and philosophy. For example, in class we spoke about space and its endless boundaries and how it just blows our mind; it does not make sense. We also spoke about how humans make rather stupid decisions that are damaging to one’s own health and considered irrational for the basic reason that we can; the actual truth behind it is unexplainable. Darwinism or creationism, there is no absolute truth. Yet, we use religion and give God the responsibility of being the answer to all the unknown questions. 

 Search for identity-

            Although this book has been repeatedly described as a guide for living, the book does not actually tell you what do or how to do something. Instead, Pirsig gives the readers a variety of ideas and even though Pirsig has his own preference, the book forces you as a reader to think about the ideas and come up with a conclusion on your own, your own personal idea. In essence, the book is encouraging one to pursue things for the sake of their own interest and avoiding fear as a motivation for your quest, rather than following the crowd. The book becomes a gateway to exploring new ideas and finding out how you feel about them, therefore, learning new things about yourself. Through my personal experience, I think I can say that I learned about myself because as Pirsig developed ideas, I thought about them and either agreed, disagreed or had my own opinion towards them which as a result causes you to think about other things in life through the eyes of those ideas.

Finding a bridge between classical and romantic thinking-

                Throughout the entire book, Pirsig clearly differentiated the differences between classical and romantic thinking as well as doing. John and Sylvia were perfect examples of romantic people while Pirsig was the face of classical reasoning. Although he had some obvious preference towards a classical way of being, he never belittled romantics and considered it as a wrong way of thinking. Yet, as the book goes on, one begins to realize Pirsig’s ulterior motive stating that a person can only handle the truths, frustrations, and problems of everyday life by accepting both the romantic and classical views. This means understanding irrational ideas as well as science and reason.  Pirsig suggests that a combination of both will bring a higher quality of life. Phaedrus’ purpose in the book is to be the bridge between classical and romantic views because he has found a common ground and comprehends both sides. If this split continues, according to Pirsig, then people will continue to go on a path to ultimate failure. 

Reaction to book

I have to admit, I was never able to fully connect with this book due to it's topic and intellectual ideals that most of the time just seem boring to me. I like to see action, things happening, people moving and acting in society and dealing with conflicts and fighting on to  solve them. However, unfortunately, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenace did not provide me with the essentials for me to enjoy reading it.

On the other hand, that does not mean I did not get anything out of it, but on the contrary, many aspects and thoughts on logic that Pirsig provides to the readers are ones that I agree with. Such topic as the "what is quality" , where he spends a vast amount of time explains that quality, or "beterrness" is different for all since everybody woes life and different life situations differently. Quality for me may be different from somebody else's quality. In my opinion, quality is the measurment and ratio of how much effort and passion one puts into an action and how much success or accomplishment follows that action. I believ a work with good quality is one that has a lot of effort and passion behind it, therefore it was done with high regards and successfully represented in life.

Pirsig's way of describing how one should live life takes a while to comprehend and I am still not sure whether I understand it correctly. Throughout the entirebstirybhebregards himself as the nameless narrator following somebody's footsteps (Phaedrus) which in some ways I believe is the same person. But through his travels he shows how people should live with their own rational thought, as everybody's rational thought is unique and will work best for their own decisions an actions in life.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mainenace is a book that I will never forget, both for it's constant rambling of on and on boring intellectual though stuff and for the key points that actually came through to me, and for the beautiful descriptions of the American scenery and all the weird yet satisfying interactions between the narrator and Chris and the people they meet on the way.

Constant Rambling

Although on the surface Pirsig’s writing seems to have no purpose due to its constant and nonstop rambling, I am pretty sure that everything he writes in his book has a purpose that alludes to something else even though I will never fully understand most of what I have read due to the deep analysis that Prisig requires from the reader. When Pirsig keeps referring to the night he spoke in his sleep to his son, it seems as if that story is made up. I understand that Pirsig is a very intellectual person and likes to make situations more complicated than they really are, but sleep talking has no purpose, or at least it seems that way. Pirsig is probably the only person that takes sleep talking and what he said to his son so seriously, most people would brush it off of their shoulder and not think much of it. From having read so much already, I know that the sleep talking is however, going to have some sort of impact on the book as a whole, on quality, or at the very least in Pirsig and Chris’ relationship. The only part that bothers me about all that is that it seems too perfect. In other words, it is too big of a coincidence to take place at this moment in the book. The book is supposed to be a real life story of events that took place, but at times it seems as if some things were forced in. I think my problem with this book that I am too direct. I guess I do not look at the bigger picture and take everything that is happening into account; I focus solely on what I am reading and forget about everything else that I have read.

When Phaedrus conceptualizes quality as a “pre-intellectual reality”, he basically stated what I was thinking the whole time. I mentioned in my previous blog that in my opinion, quality is different for each person. However, I was never able to explain why, but Pirsig did it for me. I completely agree that people perceive quality differently because they approach it with different experiences in their past. 

Final Reaction

Reading this novel at the same time as many of the other books we have read this year has allowed me to make many parallels and connections. To begin I would like to discuss the similarities between Phaedrus, Mersault and the narrator from Notes from the Underground. Like Mersault, Phaedrus is not the type of person to pass judgement, this is due not only to his extraordinarily high IQ level but also to his way of thinking rationally and logically instead of with feelings and emotions. He makes me think of the clarity lecture because he is another example of the stage between winter and spring. Now, to compare Phaedrus to the narrator from Notes from the Underground, both of these characters have a way of viewing knowledge and facts as things that are not what we think they are. Let me clarify, like the narrator from Notes from the Underground, Phaedrus believes that a fact is actually just something that someone made up, similar to how the narrator from Notes from the Underground believes that religion and science are simply ideas that somebody made up. both of these individuals would agree that there is no end to knowledge because facts are constantly changing. They both touch on the idea that like life, science is always changing and there is and never will be a right and final answer to any problem. This is because no matter what, there is always a new experiment that can be performed or a new theory to be tested that will either confirm or deny the previous one. 

To comment on the style of the novel, I really enjoyed the parallel between the philosophical and theoretical ideas and the storyline that as developed with Chris and his father’s trip across the country. On top of that, I enjoyed the analogies to motorcycles and their maintenance that Pirsig used to discuss technology and its effect on people. I like how he talked about Einstein because Einstein is well known for his concerns about how technology will affect the individual and his or her interaction with the rest of society. Overall, it is definitely not a book that I would have read on my own but I am glad that I was compelled to read it because it is very insightful and it can be interesting if you learn to open your mind and accept that there is more than one answer. 

Stuckness

Pirsig heavily discussed the idea of being stuck. When he first brought the subject up, I immediately thought of writer's block. Obviously, I am not a writer but I can most certainly speak for every student that has ever had to write a paper when I say that there are times that you sit down at the computer and have literally NO clue what to write. Not having a clue only becomes more frustrating the more you think about it. Sometimes you get so frustrated you kind of want to throw your computer out the window. Every bit of this frustration was captured perfectly by Pirsig.
The point of this point is not to discuss how accurate Pirsig was in his writing, however. Pirsig's writing made me think of what it is that must bother us about stuckness so much. I think we hate it so much because stuckness forces us to feel incompetent and worthless. It is degrading to every part of our self esteem that something so small as a screw (using Pirsig's examples) or an essay can quite literally, render us completely inactive. Something not even capable of thought can stop us from doing anything. I think humans in general are so attuned to the idea of perfection, of never being brought down, of being immortal that anything that brings us down kills us inside. This led me to wonder how those people that Dostoyevsky describes as the inactive men of society feel their entire lives. This stuckness only affects us for moments at a time, however the stuckness affects the inactive people their entire life. At first I had thought of Dostoyevsky referring to himself as smaller than a rodent as strange and a little exaggerated. Nevertheless, reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has made his comment seem completely rational. The inactive man feels the frustration of stuckness every moment of his life. He is never able to get out of the frustration.

The Difficulties in Adapting to new Understandings

I have realized throughout this chapter that the narrator takes the position of a professor of rational thought for both the reader and the other characters. His argument and ideas, even know May sound complicated are well thought through and make sense. His examples, especially with reference to the past, provided great evidence and understanding.

One topic he mentions is the "topsy-turviness" of understanding. That point where not everything is clear and one just can't seem to understand something to it's maximum capacity. This was the case when, as the narrator suggested, Columbus discovered the new world. That made me imagine, what if now we are told that a huge amount of land, the size of Greenland, let's say, has been discovered in the middle of the pacific ? How would that make us feel? It would take some time, at least for me to comprehend it fully. Therefore I understand how the people do the time might have felt with the news, and the incapacity of comprehending such material. It is a challenge however, to surpass that topsy-turviness and understand an aspect in life. Like the narrator explains, in order to have harmony between man and machine, one must not follow instructions but create his own path to solve a problem. That way he will be thinking throughout the action and will make sure he works with harmony and connection with the machine and society around him.

Towards the end of the chapter he begins talking about Phaedrus to his fellow friends, and I was finally excited to learn some more from him however he concludes the conversation before much is said due to the time. The mystery of Phaedrus and the narrator's pursuit of him is the entity that keeps me on my toes to continue reading the book.

Our School System

I think Pirsig's writing in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance really helps the reader see the school system from a different perspective. While at first the idea of having grades may seem logical, useful, necessary, etc. Pirsig does a good job of showing us just how detrimental they are. However, they do seem to be a necessary evil. Grades are very much connected with the idea of quality; the higher quality something is, the higher grade it receives. Nevertheless, Pirsig presented the question: What is quality? I myself thought it was a simple answer at first but then I sat down to truly think about and I could come up with close to nothing. What's to say something has more quality than something else? Essentially, quality is a made up standard that we have brought out by our competitive nature. Grades do not accurately reflect someone's level of intellect or quality of work seeing as that quality is a completely subjective matter.
The idea of getting rid of grades all together sounds wonderful as a student that worries so much about her own grades. The problem with our school system (as I have realized through Pirsig's writing) is that we are taught to value grades much more than we value learning. In fact, I'm not all that sure we are even taught to value learning at all. We're really taught to value a manner of thinking that will get us to survive. When Pirsig went through the potential situation of what would happen without grades, it all seemed completely logical. However, it was extremely frustrating to see that it might take someone 10 or something years to find out that he/she actually wanted to learn. To me, it seems like a complete waste of time simply being fed up with the school system. I don't know exactly how this could be done but I think that the younger generations need to begin to be taught that learning is much more important than the one of five letters that shows up on some flimsy piece of paper. If children are taught from the start that their worth is determined by a handful of letters, I think we would get much more out of the future generations than we are now. I realize this sounds kind of strange as the wording makes them sound like some sort of robot or toy but, we would be allowing ourselves to unlock much more potential from the younger people in our world.

Sunday Night Post

Quality Depends on the Person

                The more I read this book, the more I seem to lose interest in what I am reading. In the beginning, it was fascinating. I was never really forced to think about the topics discussed so it was entertaining, it was new. However, the book started to feel redundant and repetitive. It all deals with Phaedrus, his ability to think of every possible idea in the world, but never decide on which one is right. I think this relates to our class discussions because Phaedrus is so smart, he sees every side to each situation. His consciousness is high and therefore has equal thoughts on opposing arguments. Which brings me to my next point on scientific materialism, in which I tend to disagree with. If the only things that are real are things composed of matter or energy, measureable by an instrument, then is consciousness real, are dreams real? There is no way to determine that both these things exist, but they do.  Classic formalism states that quality is unimportant because it deals with the emotions and not intelligence. When I first read this, I disagreed because I jumped to conclusions; one must obviously have intelligence to determine the quality in something. Quality is dependent on tastes and emotional attachments, but that has nothing to do with IQ, it is pure instinct. For example, when deciding between two great shirts, you do not really know why you pick one over the other; it’s just a feeling you have. This now leads me to my own personal opinion on quality. Although I do believe that quality cannot be defined, I do not think it has anything to do with what it is, rather than on the person who is deciding what it is. In other words, I think that quality itself and what determines quality lies on the eyes of the beholder.  The one example that was stuck in my head throughout the entire reading was soccer cleats. Everyone soccer player has a different pair of cleats and each player can tell you the specific reasons as to why they bought their cleats, whether it be comfort, durability, color, brand name, superstition, tradition, anything. To one player this pair is the best one ever made, to another it is atrocious. They disagree, but the cleat itself still has quality, depending on who’s looking and what they think quality is. One might think that quality is durability and comfort while another thinks it is style and price; it depends on who’s judging. 

Peace of Mind

As the narrator talks about peace of mind, I was able to relate tremendously to his opinions. As a child, I remember that peace of mind was a challenge for me. Playing my childhood video games and not being able to get past a level drove me insane, I would get extremely mad and my life felt it was ruined every time. The narrator says that peace of mind is required for life, whether it be to build a machine or to just find your own way to deal with a problem. As a matter of act, he is right. Sure enough, I would never be able to get past a a level with fury in my ind as a child, however, the next day, when I was no longer mad, I would pass the level in a heart beat. This shows how peace of mind is required to act and to think at one's maximum capacity, a level of upmost importance especially in todays world.

As the narrator suggests, sometime people take advantage of the users of their goods, such as the factory that gives instructions for "their way" of how to put the machine together. As the narrator suggests, nothing is concrete, and their are always multiple ways of putting anything together or acting on something. Instructions are meant to give you a starting point and to accomplish one end result, but that does not mean that it is the best end result. One will require peace of mind to first, be able to follow the instructions that may be confusing or annoyingly long, and second, to figure out and find the best solution and best application of the machine for yourself. Peace of mind will allow you the time to study and figure our the best outcome for the machine, which turn will reward you with more peace of mind as it works toward your intentions.

What is Quality?

The part of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  that I read this week presented a question that I am not all that sure I know how to answer my self: What is quality? The main character goes on about Phaedrus' troubles answering the question himself after being asked if he was teaching quality to his own students. He went on to ask his kids for a 350 word essay on what it was (which seemed like a cop out to not having finished his lecture) and when I tried to answer it i could only come up with a meekly ninety eight words. I think that quality is a made up standard. Its sole purpose is to distinguish the "good" from the "bad". I think that it is brought out by man's innate need for competition. We literally cannot survive without some sort of competition and this idea of "quality" is a "civilized" man's attempt to bring competition into civilization. Essentially, quality is a game where the rules are being made up as the game i being played for the first time/ However, these rules do not favor the general public or any other individual they favor one person, the winner.
I have begun to see a distinct comparison with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Stranger, Notes from the Underground, and Atlas Shrugged. The basic similarity that I find within these four novels is the concept of society's best (and by best I do not mean the wealthiest doctors, lawyers, business men I mean society's smartest people, those with the highest IQs) not being able to be active in the game that society plays. In Atlas we see all of the people that live in Galt's Gulch completely separated from society because the standard of living, the basic principles which society founds itself off of are completely unethical for them. In The Stranger, you have the main character being executed because of his Jesus like character that they are too blind and unaccepting to recognize (which is talked about in Zen when Pirsig discusses the idea of today's people not accepting Jesus if he were to appear before us).  In Notes, we see it in the main character who lives underground everyone listening to their thoughts and how petty and ridiculous they all are. The main character has distanced himself and has made himself live beneath them because he himself cannot function with them.
Talia Akerman

Quality and Intelligence

This week’s reading somehow connected with the discussion we were having in class. I never noticed it before, but now I realize that both Pirsig and Phaedrus are intelligent man who can see both sides to everything. Phaedrus sees both sides to everything such as square and quality or romantic and classical and Pirsig understands what Phaedrus sees. He also knows the in and outs of both sides. However, the fact that Pirsig has a family and friends signifies that he does not see both sides equally and is inclined to one side more than the other.

I am enjoying reading this book because as I read, it makes me stop and think about what Pirsig is saying. The interesting part is that I do not always agree; there are instances where I completely disagree with him. For example, when he states that any effort aiming at self-glorification is destructive, I think he is dead wrong. There is nothing wrong about being motivated to obtain something you want. How is it that the best athletes or business owners or doctors or lawyers became the best? Because they wanted they wanted to, they worked to be the best, they wanted that praise. Although I agree with him that motivation is greater when something other than yourself, the ultimate motivation will always be for oneself. We are innately selfish people and no matter the outcome, we always look to benefit ourselves.  

Another point I found interesting was if quality existed. It is a complicated subject to think about because, at least in my opinion, if you cannot define it, there is nothing you can say about quality because you do not know what it is. Therefore, if you do not know what it is, does it exist? Before I read ahead, I actually stopped and tried to find a way to prove that quality did exist. I mean it is obvious that something’s are better than others, but how or why? It depends on what you use them for and their purpose. So my conclusion was that quality can be anything depending on personal opinion. I would have never thought that the absence of quality on the world would as a result destroy life as we know it. The last sentence seems insane, but it makes sense. Quality causes competition which is basically what our world revolves around.