Robert Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“Like what?”

“Like into realms beyond reason. I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you’re presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There’s a very close analogue there.”

“But what’s happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we’re getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought… occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like… because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by classical reason.”

“Analytic reason, dialectic reason. Reason which at the University is sometimes considered to be the whole of understanding. You’ve never had to understand it really. It’s always been completely bankrupt with regard to abstract art. Nonrepresentative art is one of the root experiences I’m talking about. Some people still condemn it because it doesn’t make ‘sense.’ But what’s really wrong is not the art but the ‘sense,’ the classical reason, which can’t grasp it. People keep looking for branch extensions of reason that will cover art’s more recent occurrences, but the answers aren’t in the branches, they’re at the roots.”

A rush of wind comes furiously now, down from the mountaintop. “The ancient Greeks”, I say, “who were the inventors of classical reason, knew better than to use it exclusively to foretell the future. They listened to the wind and predicted the future from that. That sounds insane now. But why should the inventors of reason sound insane?”

DeWeese squints. “How could they tell the future from the wind?”

“I don’t know, maybe the same way a painter can tell the future of his painting by staring at the canvas. Our whole system of knowledge stems from their results. We’ve yet to understand the methods that produced these results.”

I think for a while, then say, “When I was last here, did I talk much about the Church of Reason?”

“Yes, you talked a lot about that.”

“Did I ever talk about an individual named Phædrus?”

“No.”

“Who was he?” Gennie asks.

“He was an ancient Greek — a rhetorician — a ‘composition major’ of his time. He was one of those present when reason was being invented.”

“You never talked about that, I don’t think.”

“That must have come later. The rhetoricians of ancient Greece were the first teachers in the history of the Western world. Plato vilified them in all his works to grind an axe of his own and since what we know about them is almost entirely from Plato they’re unique in that they’ve stood condemned throughout history without ever having their side of the story told. The Church of Reason that I talked about was founded on their graves. It’s supported today by their graves. And when you dig deep into its foundations you come across ghosts.”

I look at my watch. It’s after two. “It’s a long story”, I say.

“You should write all this down”, Gennie says.

I nod in agreement. “I’m thinking about a series of lecture-essays… a sort of Chautauqua. I’ve been trying to work them out in my mind as we rode out here — which is probably why I sound so primed on all this stuff. It’s all so huge and difficult. Like trying to travel through these mountains on foot.”

“The trouble is that essays always have to sound like God talking for eternity, and that isn’t the way it ever is. People should see that it’s never anything other than just one person talking from one place in time and space and circumstance. It’s never been anything else, ever, but you can’t get that across in an essay.”

“You should do it anyway”, Gennie says. “Without trying to get it perfect.”

“I suppose”, I say.

DeWeese asks, “Does this tie in with what you were doing on ‘Quality’?”

“It’s the direct result of it”, I say.

I remember something and look at DeWeese. “Didn’t you advise me to drop it?”

“I said no one had ever succeeded in doing what you were trying to do.”

“Do you think it’s possible?”

“I don’t know. Who knows?” His expression is really concerned. “A lot of people are listening better these days. Particularly the kids. They’re really listening — and not just at you… to you — to you. It makes all the difference.”

The wind coming down from the snowfields up above sounds for a long time throughout the house. It grows loud and high as if in hope of sweeping the whole house, all of us, away into nothing, leaving the canyon as it once was, but the house stands and the wind dies away again, defeated. Then it comes back, feinting a light blow from the far side, then suddenly a heavy gust from our side.

“I keep listening to the wind”, I say. I add, “I think when the Sutherlands have left, Chris and I should do some climbing up to where that wind starts. I think it’s time he got a better look at that land.”

“You can start from right here”, DeWeese says, “and head back up the canyon. There’s no road for seventy-five miles.”

“Then this is where we’ll start”, I say.

Upstairs I’m glad to see the bed’s heavy quilt again. It’s become quite cold now and it’ll be needed. I undress quickly and get way down deep under the quilt where it is warm, very warm, and think for a long time about snowfields and winds and Christopher Columbus.

For two days John and Sylvia and Chris and I loaf and talk and ride up to an old mining town and back, and then it’s time for John and Sylvia to turn back home. We ride into Bozeman from the canyon now, together for the last time.

Up ahead Sylvia’s turned around for the third time, evidently to see if we’re all right. She’s been very quiet the last two days. A glance from her yesterday seemed apprehensive, almost frightened. She worries too much about Chris and me.

At a bar in Bozeman we have one last round of beer, and I discuss routes back with John. Then we say perfunctory things about how good it’s all been and how we’ll see each other soon, and this is suddenly very sad to have to talk like this… like casual acquaintances.

Out in the street again Sylvia turns to me and Chris, pauses, and then says, “It’ll be all right with you. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Of course”, I say.

Again that same frightened glance.

John has the motorcycle started and waits for her. “I believe you”, I say.

She turns, gets on and with John watches oncoming traffic for an opportunity to pull out. “I’ll see you”, I say.

She looks at us again, expressionless this time. John finds his opportunity and enters into the traffic lane. Then Sylvia waves, as if in a movie. Chris and I wave back. Their motorcycle disappears in the heavy traffic of out-of-state cars, which I watch for a long time.

I look at Chris and he looks at me. He says nothing.

We spend the morning sitting at first on a park bench marked SENIOR CITIZENS ONLY, then get food and at a filling station change the tire and replace the chain adjuster link. The link has to be remachined to fit and so we wait and walk for a while, back away from the main street. We come to a church and sit down on the lawn in front of it. Chris lies back on the grass and covers his eyes with his jacket.

“You tired?” I ask him.

“No.”

Between here and the edge of the mountains to the north, heat waves shimmer the air. A transparent-winged bug sets down from the heat on a stalk of grass by Chris’s foot. I watch it flex its wings, feeling lazier every minute. I lie back to go to sleep, but don’t. Instead a restless feeling hits. I get up.