[MD] Transhumanism

[Ian Glendinning]

Hi Dan,

There but for grace ... go we all. Salutary.

I didn't read ZMM until 2001 after decades of sharing some of Pirsig's
frustrations without knowing it. I had started a new job on 01.01.01
and the millennium lifestyle change gave me the opportunity (and
motivation) to read. For me it was a release I've never looked back
from.

Ian

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 2:35 AM, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
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