![]() ![]() Like the book, this article focuses more on the philosophy of boat repair than on the technical aspect of how to swap out a water filter or replace a spark plug. I even went as far as to write down key passages, tucking them away for times when I knew I might need some wisdom. ![]() ![]() By the time I finished the novel, I felt like some people do after reading a particularly relevant Bible verse: inspired, clear-headed, and awakened. I read the book while on a boat delivery and couldn’t help but think how relevant it was to the cruising and endless maintenance world I was living in. Positive vibes - Bethany Whitley smiles while sanding away. The novel follows Pirsig’s narrator as he explores philosophical concepts: What is quality, Zen, value, and social acceptance? These concepts are made relatable to the reader through the concrete storyline that follows the narrator and his family as they travel across America by motorcycle, battling breakdowns, routine maintenance projects, bad weather, and internal conflict. While quite cumbersome to read, it contains nuggets of wisdom that transcend time and machines. Many consider it to be the greatest American philosophy book of all time. Last year I read Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. So when I come across something that truly influences my approach to boat projects, I feel compelled to share it with my brethren. Conversations spin around and around with veracious, unavoidable, and mythic-like debate. Boat maintenance is a topic spoken of by sailors with the same enthusiasm as the weather. You’ll commonly hear this idiom around boat yards and internet forums. PirsigĪsk five cruisers how to fix something and you’ll get six answers. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. But if you have to choose among an infinite number of ways to put it together then the relation of the machine to you, and the relation of the machine and you to the rest of the world, has to be considered, because the selection from among many choices, the art of the work is just as dependent upon your own mind and spirit as it is upon the material of the machine. And when you presume there’s just one right way to do things, of course the instructions begin and end exclusively with the rotisserie. “Technology presumes there’s just one right way to do things and there never is. Here she shares a fun approach to the topic of maintenance through the lens of the well-known book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Bethany Whitley is one of Quantum’s expert copywriters and has also spent her fair share of hours working on cruising boats in all sorts of conditions. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |