Powerful opinions can grasp a
strong hold on a person’s psyche, to the point where they lose the capacity for
practical thought. John holds on tightly to his opinion that motorcycle
maintenance should be left to the “professionals”, and that he should not
burden himself with the knowledge of how to properly maintain his bike.
However, that point of view is not exactly practical. As the narrator mentions,
if the bike were to break down, John could potentially be stranded and even if
he were to find a mechanic he may not be particularly trustworthy, as evidenced
by the narrator’s own experience with “trained professionals”. So why then does
John insist on holding onto his opinion on motorcycle maintenance, and
technology in general, when would be so much more practical to simply learn?
According to the narrator, it is not as if John is incapable of learning, nor
is he being lazy. He simply has decided, perhaps not consciously, to rebel
against technology, and his way of doing so is, ironically, taking the rides on
his motorcycle away from city life and the technology it has. If he were to
maintain the motorcycle himself he would be brought back to the technology he
is trying to escape. It does not matter how many valid points the narrator may
make about the practicality of maintaining one’s own motorcycle because John is
not thinking from a practical standpoint, he may not even be thinking at all.
All he is focusing on is the discomfort he feels in the thought of maintaining
a motorcycle and for that reason alone he dismisses the idea altogether.
A blog dedicated to the in depth study of the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and its author Robert M. Pirsig, by the 2nd period AP Literature Class group.
I agree with Monica that John as decided that he is just not going to deal with maintaining the motorcycle, but I would like the elaborate on the idea if he has done it consciously or not. I believe that John and Sylvia both consciously decided at some point that they were no longer going to deal with it; they told themselves to it and have stuck to their guns. But I believe that both the faucet and motorcycle are situations that show that even when they don’t want to deal with it, they still have to “hear about it” (14). This is the root of the problem, they have tried to push the idea of technology away, but it will still always be a problem for them, because like or not they even need some of the products of technology in order to escape it.
ReplyDeleteJohn, and Sylvia for that matter, have both made their decision on how they feel about technology. They decided they don’t want to live with it, but they must or else they would not live at all. It is a conflict within the self for survival, and in this case survival will always supersede the decisions one decides to make consciously or unconsciously, it is simply human nature. John and Sylvia have chosen to live understanding this concept, that is why they are on the open road, and it is also why they hate the very motorcycle that allows them to get there.