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I just re-read this book and HAD to annotate it because it sent my head swimming. I'd studied quite a lot of philosophy since I read it a year and a half ago and so the philosophies didn't go over my head this time.

First, I must say if you find the narrator off-putting, rest assured that the protagonist is NOT the narrator. The narrator is the nemesis who has eclipsed the protagonist; the story reveals their struggle. The introduction of my edition hints at this, but apparently some people haven't gotten that as I've read comments of several people complaining about the narrator.

Robert Pirsig’s genius in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is to insert classical forms of thought into the backdrop of a cross-country motorcycle trip. He piques our interest by waxing philosophical in an effort to get to the root of the ghost story haunting him. He succeeds in creating the quintessential philosophy book of the 20th Century.

It turns out that the motorcycle is a symbol of the soul.

A brief summary of Pirsig’s “chautauquas�� follows, but bear in mind that this list is informational, whereas his book is spirited and transformational. (Chautauqua means “talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer.�� p. 15)

There are two ways of experiencing a motorcycle:
1. Romantically—riding a cycle down a mountain road, invigorated by the wind rushing past
2. Classically—familiarizing yourself with the working parts of the machine, developing a feel for how tight to secure the bolts.

Romantic experience is “in the moment.��

Classical experience connects the past to the future, allowing us to build on previous knowledge:
1. Systems of Components and Functions—physical working parts which we come to know either:
a. Empirically—knowledge gained by the senses
b. a priori—knowledge gained intuitively (known without prior experience)
2. Concepts—Ideas with the potential to be realized (the thought precedes the creation of the physical object).
a. Inductive ideas start with observing specific examples and end with a general conclusion.
b. Deductive ideas start with general knowledge used to predict specific observations.
Connecting the Romantic to the Classical is Quality. To care about something will increase its quality.

Pirsig creates an analogy comparing knowledge to a railroad train that is always going somewhere:
�� Classic Knowledge is the engine and the cars.
�� Romantic reality adds the dimension of time—it is the cutting edge of the experience, the moment in time.
�� Traditional knowledge is the body of classic knowledge plus the history of where the train has been.
�� Quality is the track—the “preintellectual reality�� or “the moment of vision before the intellectualization takes place�� (p. 247). What carries the train forward is a sense of what is good. It is understood intuitively and enhanced by skill and experience.
�� If your train gets stuck, understand two things:
o Being stuck eventually produces real understanding as you look for the solution in your train of knowledge. (A classical experience)
o Don’t be afraid to stop and analyze—you can see in patterns not only the physical object but the idea or function of the object. Eventually you will be able to break through barriers.

Creative energy is “gumption�� or enthusiasm (enthousiasmos means literally “filled with theos�� or God—appropriate since God is the inspiration of creativity).
Gumption Traps (“An examination of affective, cognitive and psychomotor blocks in the perception of Quality�� p. 305) :
1. External (Setbacks)
2. Internal (Hangups)
a. Inability to learn new facts—slow down and decide if the things you thought were important are really important or if the things you thought were insignificant are more important than you thought.
b. Ego (falsely inflated self-image)—let your work struggles teach you to be quiet and modest.
c. Anxiety (opposite of Ego; you’re afraid you won’t get it right so you freeze up or don’t try)—“work out your anxieties on paper�� (p. 315) Read about the topic, organize your thoughts on paper; remember even the best make plenty of mistakes.
d. Boredom—take a break, rest, or clean out your space.
e. Impatience (results from an “underestimation of the amount of time the job will take�� p. 317)—allow yourself plenty of time to finish the job, break the job down into smaller goals.

Quality is understood in Western Culture as arête/excellence.
Quality is understood in Eastern Culture as dharma/”duty to self��.

Early cultures used Rhetoric to teach Quality in terms of virtue, but after some time the technique of rhetoric was corrupted by the Sophists as ethical relativism. (pp. 376-77) Socrates took issue with the Sophists and established dialogues—or the Dialectic (discussions through which the Truth can be arrived at). Excellence became subordinate to Truth. Rhetoric fell from its supreme position of Excellence (Quality) to teaching mannerisms and forms of writing and speaking.

Quality, Pirsig discovers, is "the Tao, the great central generating force of all religions, Oriental and Occidental, past and present, all knowledge, everything." (p. 254)