PlatKat.com: A Small Victory Dance

Monday, October 30, 2006

A Small Victory Dance

I finally finished the book I've been reading since... I think February: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Yeee-ow.

I had seen the book before, and was mildly interested. But there are so many good books out there about Zen Buddhism and how its practices are applicable to modern day life. I agreed to read this particular novel so I could participate in a book group that, through no fault of the book, went horribly wrong.

The book is only 400 pages long. I blame the length of time it took me to finish on the tedious writing and subject matter. I don't want to spoil it, but there is very little mention of Zen in the entire work, and since the book outlines the character's journey through insanity, I would say the work doesn't even embody the mere idea of Zen. Still, I was able to glean some maxims that I can apply to my career as well as my day-to-day interactions with people. I can't give up on a book, no matter how much I tire of it, and I am thankful that the dreadful parts were usually followed by some clever insights.

Regardless of its inconsistency, I would recommend this book to my friends in the tech industry, particularly engineers who are interested in theory above practice, and also tech writers who are genuinely interested in the products about which they write; generally those who write about consumer products that can be troubleshot by the average person with the use of a guide. I also definitely recommend the book to budding philosophers, or anyone with an interest in philosophy, and probably those interested in classic Greek language and literature. That pretty much comprises almost everyone I've met in my adult life whose opinions I respect to some degree and some intellectual fucks I know who are too pretentious to busy themselves with the plebian activity of riding and/or fixing a motorcycle.

There's a lot of to-do about fixing motorcycles in this book. It made me wish I owned a motorcycle so I could follow some of it. But I also remembered that if I got a motorcycle, it would be a part of my second-wave mid-life crisis (the first happened when I was 20-21; the next will happen when I'm around 27) and it would be a custom Harley or BMW and would likely have some computerized components. Still, you can apply the knowledge to most things.

I'm just happy that I finally finished the darn book. I took good notes, so I can refer back to the parts I liked without sifting too hard through the parts I didn't. Now I just need something light and fun and probably fictional to wash all this down and relax a little.

posted by platkat @ 4:49 PM