Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
This book is one of those classics that makes tons of essential readings lists so when I saw that it was available at the library, I scooped it up at once.
It’s a very interesting and unusual read. It’s a fictitious account of a father and son taking a motorcycle trip that I believe is loosely based on a trip he really took with his son. Intermixed with the story however, are lengthy philosophical discourses, sometimes using the example of motorcycle maintenance as an analogy for life and general and sometimes you get the philosophical views of the authors other personality.
Overall, it was interesting, dense, and not quite what you expect from a book.
I’ll admit that for me it was somewhat of an uneven read. Some parts captured my attention as it seemed the author was making a crucial point that was still relevant today…and sometimes my eyes glazed over.
This is one of those books where if you like it, you probably really like it but most people just read it to say they’ve read it.
Here are my notes:
- When you travel by car, it’s like passively watching on TV: the view goes by, frame by frame. Being on a motorcycle means that you are out in the environment. The feel is completely different.
- When practicing the scientific method, he emphasizes getting the questions at the beginning correct. Don’t state any more than you actually know. It’s better to ask a “dumb” question (e.g. “why is the motorcycle not working?”) than a more specific question that might be wrong (e.g. “what is wrong with the electrical system?”). Once you state the problem, you come up with as many hypotheses as possible and find ways to test them. You want to ask “why is the motorcycle not working?” and then a hypothesis might be “because something is wrong with the electrical system”
- An experiment is not a failure if it doesn’t confirm the hypothesis, it is only a failure if it doesn’t adequately test the hypothesis.
- Manual labor is only a small part of what a mechanic does. The main job consists of observing and thinking.
- The vast majority of people go to college for a degree, not an education.
- In college, grades and degrees give the appearance that something is happening when in reality nothing is happening (my note: when I was in college spent $20 one time to go to Tutoring Zone the night before a statistics test. I saw someone I knew there who I had never seen in class and they said they said that they never went to class they just relied on going to Tutoring Zone the night before the test to get them through. How savvy do you want to bet that person is with statistics today?)
- “Grades really cover up a failure to teach.” A teacher can show up, leave nothing memorable for his students, administer a test, grade it on a curve, and will still be able to distribute grades.
- “It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.” In other words the journey, not just the destination is valuable.
- Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that studies quality.
- Quality is almost impossible to satisfactorily defend, yet people know it when they see it.
- You shouldn’t do anything if the only motive is self-aggrandizement. It won’t be enough, and you’ll feel like you have to go on proving yourself.
- “Geometry isn’t true, it’s just advantageous.” In other words, scientists understand that there are multiple (and sometimes competing) ways of understanding things and measuring things that aren’t more true or false than others, but some are more convenient (my note: it looks like the Sun revolves around the Earth, and then you learn the stunning truth that the Earth revolves around the Sun. But all movement is relative. We could say that my little finger is the only fixed point in the universe and that everything is moving in relationship to it, but that would make the math very complicated and wouldn’t let us use concepts like gravity to explain and predict movement)
- You can’t think about two things at once. The reason why so many people struggle to write is that they stare at a blank page (or, in the digital age, a blinking cursor) and try to think both about what they want to say and what they want to say first. To get un-stuck, separate the tasks. List all the things that you want to talk about and then pick the order.
- “The physical distances between people have nothing to do with loneliness, it’s the psychological distance that matters.” He notices the irony that in a city, where people are physically closer, they end up being more lonely.
- He mentioned that TV was increasing loneliness, not because it is bad, but because it promotes behavior that leads to psychological distance.
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