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.