Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

  Poincare’s contemporaries refused to acknowledge that facts are preselected because they thought that to do so would destroy the validity of scientific method. They presumed that “preselected facts” meant that truth is “whatever you like” and called his ideas conventionalism. They vigorously ignored the truth that their own “principle of objectivity” is not itself an observable fact… and therefore by their own criteria should be put in a state of suspended animation.

  They felt they had to do this because if they didn’t, the entire philosophic underpinning of science would collapse. Poincare didn’t offer any resolutions of this quandary. He didn’t go far enough into the metaphysical implications of what he was saying to arrive at the solution. What he neglected to say was that the selection of facts before you “observe” them is “whatever you like” only in a dualistic, subject-object metaphysical system! When Quality enters the picture as a third metaphysical entity, the preselection of facts is no longer arbitrary. The preselection of facts is not based on subjective, capricious “whatever you like” but on Quality, which is reality itself. Thus the quandary vanishes.

  It was as though Phædrus had been working on a puzzle of his own and because of lack of time had left one whole side unfinished.

  Poincare had been working on a puzzle of his own. His judgment that the scientist selects facts, hypotheses and axioms on the basis of harmony, also left the rough serrated edge of a puzzle incomplete. To leave the impression in the scientific world that the source of all scientific reality is merely a subjective, capricious harmony is to solve problems of epistemology while leaving an unfinished edge at the border of metaphysics that makes the epistemology unacceptable.

  But we know from Phædrus’ metaphysics that the harmony Poincare talked about is not subjective. It is the source of subjects and objects and exists in an anterior relationship to them. It is not capricious, it is the force that opposes capriciousness; the ordering principle of all scientific and mathematical thought which destroys capriciousness, and without which no scientific thought can proceed. What brought tears of recognition to my eyes was the discovery that these unfinished edges match perfectly in a kind of harmony that both Phædrus and Poincare talked about, to produce a complete structure of thought capable of uniting the separate languages of Science and Art into one.

  On either side of us the mountains have become steep, to form a long narrow valley that winds into Missoula. This head wind has worn me down and I’m tired now. Chris taps me and points to a high hill with a large painted M on it. I nod. This morning we passed one like it as we left Bozeman. A fragment occurs to me that the freshmen in each school go up there and paint the M each year.

  At a station where we fill with gas, a man with a trailer carrying two Appaloosa horses strikes up a conversation. Most horse people are antimotorcycle, it seems, but this one is not, and he asks a lot of questions, which I answer. Chris keeps asking to go up to the M, but I can see from here it’s a steep, rutty, scrambler road. With our highway machine and heavy load I don’t want to fool with it. We stretch our legs for a while, walk around and then somewhat wearily head out of Missoula toward Lolo Pass.

  A recollection appears that not many years ago this road was all dirt with twists and turns around every rock and fold in the mountains. Now it’s paved and the turns are very broad. All the traffic we were in has evidently headed north for Kalispell or Coeur D’Alene, for there’s hardly any now. We’re headed southwest, have picked up a tail wind, and we feel better because of it. The road starts to wind up into the pass.

  All traces of the East are gone now, at least in my imagination. All the rain here comes from Pacific winds and all the rivers and streams here return it to the Pacific. We should be at the ocean in two or three days.

  At Lolo Pass we see a restaurant, and pull up in front of it beside an old Harley high-miler. It has a homemade pannier on the back and thirty-six thousand on the odometer. A real cross-country man.

  Inside we fill up on pizza and milk, and when finished leave right away. There’s not much sunlight left, and a search for a campsite after dark is difficult and unpleasant.

  As we leave we see the cross-country man by the cycles with his wife and we say hello. He is from Missouri, and the relaxed look on his wife’s face tells me they’ve been having a good trip.

  The man asks, “Were you bucking that wind up to Missoula too?”

  I nod. “It must have been thirty or forty miles an hour.”

  “At least”, he says.

  We talk about camping for a while and they comment on how cold it is. They never dreamed in Missouri it would be this cold in the summer, even in the mountains. They’ve had to buy clothes and blankets.

  “It shouldn’t be too cold tonight”, I say. “We’re only at about five thousand feet.”

  Chris says, “We’re going to camp just down the road.”

  “At one of the campsites?”

  “No, just somewhere off the road”, I say.

  They show no inclination of wanting to join us, so after a pause I press the starter button and we wave off.

  On the road the shadows of the mountain trees are long now. After five or ten miles we see some logging road turnoffs and head up.

  The logging road is sandy, so I keep in low gear with feet out to prevent a spill. We see side roads off the main logging road but I stay on the main one until after about a mile we come to some bulldozers. That means they’re still logging here. We turn back and head up one of the side roads. After about half a mile we come to a tree fallen across the road. That’s good. That means this road has been abandoned.

  I say, “This is it” to Chris, and he gets off. We’re on a slope that allows us to see over unbroken forest for miles.

  Chris is all for exploring, but I’m so tired I just want to rest. “You go by yourself”, I say.

  “No, you come along.”

  “I’m really tired, Chris. In the morning we’ll explore.”

  I untie the packs and spread the sleeping bags out on the ground. Chris goes off. I stretch out, and the tiredness fills my arms and legs. Silent, beautiful forest.

  In time Chris returns, and says he has diarrhea.

  “Oh”, I say, and get up. “Do you have to change underwear?”

  “Yes.” He looks sheepish.

  “Well, they’re in the pack by the front of the cycle. Change and get a bar of soap from the saddlebag and we’ll go down to the stream and wash the old underwear out.” He’s embarrassed by the whole thing and now is glad to take orders.

  The downward slope of the road makes our feet flop as we head toward the stream. Chris shows me some stones he’s collected while I’ve been sleeping. The pine smell of the forest is rich here. It’s turning cool and the sun is very low. The silence and the fatigue and the sinking of the sun depress me a little, but I keep it to myself.

  After Chris has washed out his underwear and has it completely clean and wrung out we head back up the logging road. As we climb it I get a sudden depressed feeling I’ve been walking up this logging road all my life.

  “Dad?”

  “What?” A small bird rises from a tree in front of us.

  “What should I be when I grow up?”

  The bird disappears over a far ridge. I don’t know what to say. “Honest”, I finally say.

  “I mean what kind of a job?”

  “Any kind.”

  “Why do you get mad when I ask that?”

  “I’m not mad — I just think — I don’t know — I’m just too tired to think. It doesn’t matter what you do.”

  Roads like this one get smaller and smaller and then quit.

  Later I notice he’s not keeping up.

  The sun is below the horizon now and twilight is on us. We walk separately back up the logging road and when we reach the cycle we climb into the sleeping bags and without a word go to sleep.

  23

  There it is at the end of the corridor: a glass door. And behind it are
Chris and on one side of him his younger brother and on the other side his mother. Chris has his hand against the glass. He recognizes me and waves. I wave back and approach the door.

  How silent everything is. Like watching a motion picture when the sound has failed.

  Chris looks up at his mother and smiles. She smiles down at him but I see she is only covering her grief. She’s very distressed about something but she doesn’t want them to see.

  And now I see what the glass door is. It is the door of a coffin… mine.

  Not a coffin, a sarcophagus. I am in an enormous vault , dead, and they are paying their last respects.

  It’s kind of them to come and do this. They didn’t have to do this. I feel grateful. Now Chris motions for me to open the glass door of the vault. I see he wants to talk to me. He wants me to tell him, perhaps, what death is like. I feel a desire to do this, to tell him. It was so good of him to come and wave I will tell him it’s not so bad. It’s just lonely.

  I reach to push the door open but a dark figure in a shadow beside the door motions for me not to touch it. A single finger is raised to lips I cannot see. The dead aren’t permitted to speak.

  But they want me to talk. I’m still needed! Doesn’t he see this? There must he some kind of mistake. Doesn’t he see that they need me? I plead with the figure that I have to speak to them. It’s not finished yet. I have to tell them things. But the figure in the shadows makes no sign he has even heard.

  “CHRIS!” I shout through the door.“I’LL SEE YOU!!”

  The dark figure moves toward me threateningly, but I hear Chris’s voice, “Where?” faint and distant. He heard me! And the dark figure, enraged, draws a curtain over the door.

  Not the mountain, I think. The mountain is gone. “AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN!!” I shout.

  And now I am standing in the deserted ruins of a city all alone. The ruins are all around me endlessly in every direction and I must walk them alone.

  24

  The sun is up.

  For a while I’m not sure where I am.

  We’re on a road in a forest somewhere.

  Bad dream. That glass door again.

  The chrome of the cycle gleams beside me and then I see the pines and then Idaho comes to mind.

  The door and the shadowy figure beside it were just imaginary. We’re on a logging road, that’s right — bright day — sparkling air. Wow! — it’s beautiful. We’re headed for the ocean.

  I remember the dream again and the words “I’ll see you at the bottom of the ocean” and wonder about them. But pines and sunlight are stronger than any dream and the wondering goes away. Good old reality.

  I get out of the sleeping bag. It’s cold and I get dressed quickly. Chris is asleep. I walk around him, climb over a fallen treetrunk and walk up the logging road. To warm myself I speed up to a jog and move up the road briskly. Good, good, good, good, good. The word keeps time with the jogging. Some birds fly up from the shadowy hill into the sunlight and I watch them until they’re out of sight. Good, good, good, good, good. Crunchy gravel on the road. Good, good. Bright yellow sand in the sun. Good, good, good.

  These roads go on for miles sometimes. Good, good, good. Eventually I reach a point where I’m really winded. The road is higher now and I can see for miles over the forest.

  Good.

  Still puffing, I walk back down at a brisk pace, crunching more gently now, noticing small plants and shrubs where the pines have been logged.

  At the cycle again I pack gently and quickly. By now I’m so familiar with how everything goes together it’s almost done without thought. Finally I need Chris’s sleeping bag. I roll him a little, not too rough, and tell him, “Great day!”

  He looks around, disoriented. He gets out of the sleeping bag and, while I pack it, gets dressed without really knowing what he does.

  “Put your sweater and jacket on”, I say. “It’s going to be a chilly ride.”

  He does and gets on and in low gear we follow the logging road down to where it meets the blacktop again. Before we start on it I take one last look back up. Nice. A nice spot. From here the blacktop winds down and down.

  Long Chautauqua today. One that I’ve been looking forward to during the whole trip.

  Second gear and then third. Not too fast on these curves. Beautiful sunlight on these forests.

  There has been a haze, a backup problem in this Chautauqua so far; I talked about caring the first day and then realized I couldn’t say anything meaningful about caring until its inverse side, Quality, is understood. I think it’s important now to tie care to Quality by pointing out that care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristics of Quality.

  Thus, if the problem of technological hopelessness is caused by absence of care, both by technologists and antitechnologists; and if care and Quality are external and internal aspects of the same thing, then it follows logically that what really causes technological hopelessness is absence of the perception of Quality in technology by both technologists and antitechnologists. Phædrus’ mad pursuit of the rational, analytic and therefore technological meaning of the word “Quality” was really a pursuit of the answer to the whole problem of technological hopelessness. So it seems to me, anyway.

  So I backed up and shifted to the classic-romantic split that I think underlies the whole humanist-technological problem. But that too required a backup into the meaning of Quality.

  But to understand the meaning of Quality in classic terms required a backup into metaphysics and its relationship to everyday life. To do that required still another backup into the huge area that relates both metaphysics and everyday life… namely, formal reason. So I proceeded with formal reason up into metaphysics and then into Quality and then from Quality back down into metaphysics and science.

  Now we go still further down from science into technology, and I do believe that at last we are where I wanted to be in the first place.

  But now we have with us some concepts that greatly alter the whole understanding of things. Quality is the Buddha. Quality is scientific reality. Quality is the goal of Art. It remains to work these concepts into a practical, down-to-earth context, and for this there is nothing more practical or down-to-earth than what I have been talking about all along… the repair of an old motorcycle.

  This road keeps on winding down through this canyon. Early morning patches of sun are around us everywhere. The cycle hums through the cold air and mountain pines and we pass a small sign that says a breakfast place is a mile ahead.

  “Are you hungry?” I shout.

  “Yes!” Chris shouts back.

  Soon a second sign saying CABINS with an arrow under it points off to the left. We slow down, turn and follow a dirt road until it reaches some varnished log cabins under some trees. We pull the cycle under a tree, shut off the ignition and gas and walk inside the main lodge. The wooden floors have a nice clomp under the cycle boots. We sit down at a tableclothed table and order eggs, hot cakes, maple syrup, milk, sausages and orange juice. That cold wind has worked up an appetite.

  “I want to write a letter to Mom”, Chris says.

  That sounds good to me. I go to the desk and get some of the lodge stationery. I bring it to Chris and give him my pen. That brisk morning air has given him some energy too. He puts the paper in front of him, grabs the pen in a heavy grip and then concentrates on the blank paper for a while.

  He looks up. “What day is it?”

  I tell him. He nods and writes it down.

  Then I see him write, “Dear Mom:” Then he stares at the paper for a while. Then he looks up. “What should I say?”

  I start to grin. I should have him write for an hour about one side of a coin. I’ve sometimes thought of him as a student but not as a rhetoric student.

  We’re interrupted by the hot cakes and
I tell him to put the letter to one side and I’ll help him afterward.

  When we are done I sit smoking with a leaden feeling from the hot cakes and the eggs and everything and notice through the window that under the pines outside the ground is in patches of shadow and sunlight.

  Chris brings out the paper again. “Now help me”, he says.

  “Okay”, I say. I tell him getting stuck is the commonest trouble of all. Usually, I say, your mind gets stuck when you’re trying to do too many things at once. What you have to do is try not to force words to come. That just gets you more stuck. What you have to do now is separate out the things and do them one at a time. You’re trying to think of what to say and what to say first at the same time and that’s too hard. So separate them out. Just make a list of all the things you want to say in any old order. Then later we’ll figure out the right order.

  “Like what things?” he asks.

  “Well, what do you want to tell her?”

  “About the trip.”

  “What things about the trip?”

  He thinks for a while. “About the mountain we climbed.”

  “Okay, write that down”, I say.

  He does. Then I see him write down another item, then another, while I finish my cigarette and coffee. He goes through three sheets of paper, listing things he wants to say.

  “Save those”, I tell him, “and we’ll work on them later.”

  “I’ll never get all this into one letter”, he says.

  He sees me laugh and frowns. I say, “Just pick out the best things.” Then we head outside and onto the motorcycle again.

  On the road down the canyon now we feel the steady drop of altitude by a popping of ears. It’s becoming warmer and the air is thicker too. It’s goodbye to the high country, which we’ve been more or less in since Miles City.