Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Trojan

Who's read it? What did you think? And had you studied/read any philosophy beforehand?

I'm about 2/3 of the way through, very interesting, but heavy enough reading.

Cheers,
Al.

shotamoose

I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. The parts about his philosophy of Quality really grabbed me and still have quite an influence on my own thoughts. But the story he builds around these parts is pleasant enough but sooooo dull. I got so bored slogging through them I never finished the book. I'd love if someone just stitched all the philosophy bits together and published that.

But I don't want to diss it too much. It's still a unique book and a great achievement. Well, as far as I went with it anyway

Krusty_Clown

This was discussed before..

Personally I loved it, but to be honest, it took me two attempts to read it.. the first time I tried to read it, I was 16, and dumped it for something with a little more pace...

Loved it the second time.. esp. the references to motorcycling!

Trojan

Originally posted by shotamoose
I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. The parts about his philosophy of Quality really grabbed me and still have quite an influence on my own thoughts. But the story he builds around these parts is pleasant enough but sooooo dull. I got so bored slogging through them I never finished the book. I'd love if someone just stitched all the philosophy bits together and published that.

hehe, that's funny - I reckon it's been done before, but it's exactly what I've been thinking about doing lately, I am going to do it over the next couple of weeks, and will post a link here. I'm sure a google will turn up some analysis (addendum: didn't find any on a quick search, plz post if you do).

Originally posted by shotamoose

But I don't want to diss it too much. It's still a unique book and a great achievement. Well, as far as I went with it anyway

It's too difficult to understand, he kinda missed his mark in making it readable for the great-unwashed, you need some formal study in logic/reasoning/philosophy to get some of it, and those who dont have that (like me) spend so much time figuring out all the bits and pieces seperately that they miss the entire message.

soz Krusty, missed that one

Cheers,
Al.

shotamoose

It looks like there's some good stuff written about ZAMM on MOQ.org , if you're interested. I haven't had time to read any of it in full yet.

Trojan

Cheers for the link shot, that looks pretty cool, I'll be reading that this evening.

Al.