[MD] Transhumanism

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 9:06 PM, Mary <marysonthego at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What was it like for you the first time?  I bought the first book thinking I
> was reading just another novel, but by the end it had turned into a "Holy
> Shit" experience I didn't expect.  Caught me totally off guard.  Knocked me
> off my complacent, muttering at the insanity on the evening news rocker.  I
> didn't understand half of what I read, but the half I did was enough.  I was
> doomed or hooked or something, and here I am now talking to you. :)

Mowers and Madness

I read ZMM when it was first published in 1974. The world was
different yet much the same. It seems smaller now. Back then, I didn't
dream of talking to good people all over the world about the book.

I remember I was working at a small engine repair shop at the edge of
some town who's name escapes me just now. The shop was called
Greenwalt's but the fellow who owned it was named Luttick...
pronounced with a long U as in Louie. LU-tick. The old man would get
mad if a person didn't pronounce the name right. I'm much the same
about my name.

The family lived in an old Victorian down the hill behind the shop.
The old man was named Eldon. He drank. He'd show up at the shop about
10am each morning. He knew his small engines and showed me just about
everything I know today. By noon though, he'd be so drunk he'd have to
go home and sleep it off.

Arnie, his son, ran the place; he's the fellow who hired me. I'd been
driving down the highway and saw a HELP WANTED sign in the window. So
I stopped. Arnie worked the counter. I did the repairs in the back
room as best as my ability allowed, relying on help from Eldon any
time I got stuck.

Behind the shop, vast stacks of junk were heaped in hopes of finding
some future use: old chain saws, lawn mowers, snow mobiles, dirt
bikes, even old cars and trucks. There was no obvious order but Eldon
always seemed to know just where to look when we needed a spare part.

A slow-rotting picnic table once painted green and leaning to one side
sat under an enormous oak in which someone had long ago hung a tire
swing from a branch some fifty feet high. The rope looked to be half
rotten and the tire seemed to stay full of brackish water.  Between
jobs and on my breaks, I sat at the picnic table and read.

I'd seen ZMM on the bookshelf at the grocery. One day I had a few
extra dollars so I threw the book on the conveyor with my groceries. I
brought it work. One day I forgot it and left it laying on the picnic
table. The next morning I discovered the book soaking wet and swelled
up like a balloon as it rained during the night. By carefully peeling
each page back, I was able to continue reading though the ink often
bled through from the back side and blurred the words.

I heard a laugh behind me and turned to see Arnie watching me. Arnie
was a few years older than me and I  knew him to be a Vietnam veteran
though he never mentioned it. I only knew on account of an old
yellowed article mounted in a picture frame and hung on the wall
behind the counter with a grainy photo of Arnie standing among a group
of soldiers. He looked younger and somehow fresher.

The article told how Arnie had been awarded the medal of honor for
actions above and beyond the call of duty in the land of Vietnam.
Since I couldn't see Arnie doing it, I imagined that Eldon had mounted
the article in the frame and hung it on the wall but I learned later
it was actually Arnie's sister, Lynn. She didn't come around the shop
much as she was away at college but from time to time she'd stop and
visit with Arnie. She never said a word to me and indeed I was quite
sure she had no idea I even existed.

"What'cha reading there?" Arnie asked, still chortling at my efforts
to read a water-logged book.

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," I told him. I held up the
detached cover for him to see.

"What's it about?"

"Well, I haven't finished reading it yet but it's about a motorcycle
trip a father and son make across the country with a couple friends.
The father is battling mental illness. He's be institutionalized and
given shock treatments. Now, he's struggling to regain his identity.
He's not the person he used to be, and his son knows it."

"How about motorcycle maintenance? Does it give any pointers on that?"

"No," I said, "Not really."

"Why is it named Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?"

"Well, there's a tension between the author and the friend who's
traveling with him. The author does all his own motorcycle maintenance
while the other fellow doesn't. He relies on the integrity of his
bike, trusting that it won't break down or need servicing. The author
travels with a toolkit and is fully prepared to make all his own
repairs.

"There's also a tension between the author and his friends in that
they knew "him" before his institutionalization and subsequent shock
treatments meant to obliterate the old personality so a new one could
flourish. The author is never quite sure what his old friends remember
or what they think of the "new" him.

"On top of all that, the author states that the world isn't made up of
subjects and objects as is commonly supposed, but rather it is made up
of Quality. He ties this in with zen teachings, though really there's
not much about zen in the book either. At least not so far."

I recall Arnie being a bit taken aback at all this. He seemed
particularly interested in the author's institutionalization, though.

"Did he check himself in?" Arnie asked.

"No. He was forcibly committed, from what I've read so far."

"Why?'

"Well, things had been building for a while, I guess, and finally, he
wrote how he was sitting alone for three days. He didn't get up and go
to the bathroom but just sat in his own piss. And he let cigarettes
burn down to his fingers, causing blisters all over his hands. So his
family worried that he was a danger to himself and possibly others and
had him committed."

"The family must have been wealthy," Arnie said. "Otherwise he would
have ended up in jail."

One day Arnie poked his head into the back room where I worked and
asked me to come up front. Lynn was standing outside and as usual did
not acknowledge me at all. Arnie asked if I'd watch the counter for a
while as he was going out back with his sister to show her how to
shoot a gun. Apparently there'd been some rapes on campus where Lynn
attended college and she was concerned with her safety. Arnie left for
an hour or so and then returned.

That day, when I left for home, I noticed Lynn's car was still in the
parking lot. I thought it odd and considered for a moment going back
in and telling Arnie but then I rationalized to myself that he knew
she was still there, so I left.

The next morning, the door to the shop was locked and Arnie was
nowhere to be seen. I waited. Lynn's car still sat there. Arnie's
truck sat there too. I had a bad feeling; the longer I sat there, the
worse the feeling grew. I got out and walked around the back of the
shop. I noticed a police car sitting out in the field... no, two
police cars, and men milling about. One of them looked to be Arnie. I
walked out there to see what was up.

Arnie's eyes were red, his shoulders hunched as if he carried a
hundred pound sack over them. Lynn was dead, he told me when I
approached. What?!? I said. She shot herself through the heart, he
said, his voice breaking. I was dumbfounded. There was nothing to say.
A policeman walked up to me and asked me my business. I told him I
worked there. He took my name and phone number then walked away.

I didn't know what else to do so I went back to the shop and sat in my
car. I saw Eldon coming up the path from the house. He was obviously
very drunk and could barely walk. He kind of waved at me and stumbled
into the shop. I followed, though with intense feelings of
trepidation.

"Her mother killed herself too," Eldon said. I looked around. There
was no one else there so he must be talking to me, I thought.

"What?" I stammered. I knew what he said. I just didn't understand.

"When the kids were little, their mother dropped them off at school
one morning, and then drove her car into a pond and drowned herself."

"Oh no," I said. Things were starting to come together... Arnie's
interest in madness, Eldon's drinking, Lynn's seeming shyness.

"Here," Eldon said, holding out some money. "Arnie told me to pay you
up. We won't be needing any help for a while though. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too, sir," I told him. "I enjoyed working here, thank you."

He waved me off again, so I walked out of the shop, got in the car,
and drove away. Sometime later I recalled that I had left my book
there but I never went back. I thought maybe Arnie might get something
out of it.

 BTW,
> who _are_ you anyway?  <grin>

I am all these things, sadness, madness, laughter and sorrow. All
these feelings populate my mind and guide me on the way. I look back
where I've been but it all seems a dream.

Who am I, indeed.

Thanks for reading,

Dan