[MD] The need for quality

WES STEWART wesstt at shaw.ca
Thu Aug 31 21:45:45 PDT 2017


Hello Andrew; 

Towards the end of the novel Lila, Pirsig comes up with a statement that good or quality is a noun. With the Platonic view of subject object, the object is always a noun. We do use nouns to describe both good and high quality, for instance that person is an angel or saint, we all know what that means, an angel is a noun. We do use nouns to describe people that are not that good, for example a dirt bag, a bag of shit. 

Our science is based on only subject object, because they tell us that those are the only things that can be measured. Physics, chemistry, biology are only subject object observations. Pirsig rewrote values into our reality. Honesty fairness, respect, equality, and empathy are all real values, that can be measured , they are not subjective. Rudeness and ignorance can be measured and they are part of our reality, good is a noun and we can observe it , as equally well as the reaction of mixing sodium bicarbonate and vinegar. 

It appears you are a good man Andrew, seeking that knowledge that sometimes comes as a spark of dynamic knowledge, to bring betterness to that educational culture, which is part of our society. 



From: "Andrew Chu" <andrew.chu at gmail.com> 
To: "moq discuss" <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org> 
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 2:17:19 PM 
Subject: Re: [MD] The need for quality 

Great thoughts. 

For me, purpose is inexorably tied to creating quality work. When you connect with an act or work, then it transforms to craft. 

Ultimately I think that’s what we’re all here to find, our craft, the work that we uniquely connect with. 

For me, yep, I’m very lucky that I do feel connected with the work I am doing, particularly with helping my son’s school. It’s like a positive vibration I feel when I am there and working with other parents, teachers, etc. I feel connected to my day job too but in a different way, more cerebral and less emotional. Not a lower quality, but different. 

I think what’s great about this world is, if given a baseline of resources, many of us have the opportunity to explore and find those things that we uniquely connect with. Just takes some trial and error some times. 

From: WES STEWART 
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 12:01 AM 
To: moq discuss 
Subject: Re: [MD] The need for quality 

Hello Andrew and Dan, 

There are two realities that we feel. The intellectual reality and our biological reality. Pursig defined the only true reality, and he was right, you have to bring morality and classical scientific thought together. Its not all about the physics of bowling balls and the trajectory of a missile that are the only things we can measure. 

We can measure honesty, fairness, respect and kindness, its not subjective, and is inherent and part of our reality. 

It is difficult to build quality into ones own biological life, because it is highly dependent on those who surround you, the ones you interact with. It would be very difficult for a World War ll concentration camp prisoner to find meaning and purpose from his biological side, however it is possible that quality was found from the higher intellectual side, because meaning and purpose, like you have already said Andrew, does not rely on comfort level or money. 

Money could have easily bought your way out of a concentration camp at that time; according to the utmost scholar of holocaust studies Raul Hilberg. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> 
To: moq discuss <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org> 
Sent: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 23:39:58 -0600 (MDT) 
Subject: Re: [MD] The need for quality 

Hello Andrew, 

What I mean to ask is not what you have to do but rather what you are 
meant to do. How far are you willing to go to find your purpose? And 
if in fact you believe you have a purpose? Are you simply here to work 
for some company a set number of years before they put you out to 
pasture and bring in fresh meat to take your place? Or are you part of 
something larger? 

If money was no object, what would you do? 

Much of Robert Pirsig's work is devoted to that question, at least the 
way I read it. Consider his attempt at withholding grades in ZMM in 
order to show his students that they knew what quality was even if 
they couldn't describe it. The act of learning for learning's sake and 
not to impress teacher and parents with grades. How do we take that 
lesson and apply it to our own lives? 

What is the quality of your life? 

If let's say all of a sudden the parameters of how we judge success 
were eliminated: 'Is this guy fired yet?' seems to qualify as such a 
moment, would our purpose survive? And no, earning money is not a 
purpose. We've taken that off the board already. So we could say 
knowing how money is crucial is actually blinding us to what is really 
important: our purpose. Rather than living for the sake of living, it 
is easier to live to make money our purpose. Which it is not. 

But why is that? Don't we have to go back to ZMM and those students 
who discovered they weren't being graded and how they reacted? How 
ultimately the experiment failed. How like grades we are so 
indoctrinated to making money we cannot see beyond the means to an 
end. How we take that as our purpose. 

But all this is predicated upon knowing our purpose. Knowing what we 
would do if indeed money was no object. How many people can answer 
that question righteously? I don't mean typical generic answers like 
quit my job take a vacation be a stay at homer but rather to 
concretely know exactly what you are meant to do even if nobody was 
paying you to do it. 

And if you know that purpose, then are you actively achieving it? 

On Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 8:38 AM, Andrew Chu <andrew.chu at gmail.com> wrote: 
> Hi Dan, 
> 
> Interesting question. So just about two years ago I faced this very question, or at least, the inverse of it, i.e. even if money were an objet what would I not be willing to do? 
> 
> I had worked at a company for five years and it was a good job. Not a dream job, not bliss, but good. Good paying, good people (mostly) and generally engaging. In the last year, things started to turn towards a very low quality situation. 
> 
> It’s one of those situations where life reveals to you some options. I had the option to ultimately work for someone who I didn’t respect and in my view, didn’t respect me. 
> 
> Aside: he at one point pointed to me in an open office setting and jokingly said without actually joking “Is this guy fired yet”? He is and was the president of the company and I was, at the time, working my tail off to fix a critical problem and, while I don’t do anything in expectation of deference, I certainly don’t believe I deserve that type of attitude or treatment. Just because he was in an open political feud at that time with my direct manager at the time, does not merit that type of petty behavior, particularly from someone who is in a leadership position like that. A bit stressed and particularly engaged in some vexing work, he broke whatever quality connection I was trying to invest in my work, and so I looked him in the eye and responded simply “that would be a mistake”. He stood back a bit, unsure how to take this as he had never had a subordinate react this way and after a moment responded “well it’s not the first time the company made a mistake” and walked away. 
> 
> Needless to say, having someone openly challenge him did not put me on his favorites list. So the writing was on the wall and, unsurprisingly, my work situation became more and more precarious as he pulled strings using whatever political means he had. 
> 
> My option was thus as follows: continue to work and get paychecks in an increasingly low quality situation or make a decision that even if money were an object, I would not subject myself to that declining quality. 
> 
> So in September 2015, with one child and one on the way, I quit. 
> 
> I had no job lined up, I was accused of secretly having a job already with one of our competitors, of basically being a corporate spy, to which I simply and flatly denied. 
> 
> I don’t recommend people take this line of action, cold turkey as it were. I am very fortunate that I was able to save enough and that my family was supportive enough that I could essentially leave this situation behind and have some time to figure out my next move. 
> 
> The next year I spent reflecting on exactly the question you asked. 
> 
> I spent time writing, which is something I realized I enjoyed to do even published a short collection of essays about quality (which probably no one has read but that is ok). My son’s public school district was thrown into a giant controversy touching on racial and socioeconomic segregation literally the month after I quit which added to an already uncertain situation. I spent some time creating software which I also enjoyed. 
> 
> The interesting thing is, while I didn’t know it at the time, each of these activities/events has played a part in getting to my current pattern if you will. The software I made didn’t amount to much but it helped open conversations to my current employer who, in contrast to my prior executive, I truly respect and is teaching me so much every day. My son’s school situation struck me as a disaster at first but since then I have invested myself into building the school and joined the school’s leadership team as a parent in hopes of creating something new, a third way between overpriced private schools and segregated public schools. 
> 
> So long story short, I know money is crucial and again, I don’t propose others take the drastic route I did, but I do think there are ways to allocate time towards things that, even if they don’t generate money, offer psychic, emotional and perhaps even karmic value that is very hard to predict. Watch one less hour of tv a week and write. Skip the first half of that big game on Sunday and go for a run. Instead of dropping your child straight off at school and picking them straight up, stop in and ask if they need help with anything. I’m sure the folks on this list already do a lot of these things in big and small ways so this is preaching to the choir. 
> 
> I guess what I’m trying to say is no matter what it is you think you would want to do, just try it, but try it consistently. In short weekly sessions perhaps at first. And if you find you like it, you may naturally allocate more time. If you don’t connect with it, then try something else, no harm done. And don’t necessarily do it with the money in mind, you have your day job for that hopefully, do it because you connect with it. It’s an investment in quality and, if anything, the last two years has taught me that investments in quality do come back to you in sometimes unpredictable and surprising ways. 
> 
> From: Dan Glover 
> Sent: Friday, August 25, 2017 12:09 AM 
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org 
> Subject: Re: [MD] The need for quality 
> 
> Andrew, all, 
> 
> If money were no object, what would you do? 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 6:48 PM, Andrew Chu <andrew.chu at gmail.com> wrote: 
>> Maybe one way to spread quality is to imbue it in what we do? 
>> 
>> Spend our precious hours finding those things that we uniquely connect with and venture into that quality connection. 
>> 
>> Has anyone watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi? That’s quality if I ever saw it. It’s as if a low thunderous roar of quality was building over the last 70 years of his life and once it crested it left a lasting impression across the world. 
>> 
>> We need more of that. It could be anything, sushi, soccer, singing, strawberry jam. The paradox of our time is that we have so many ways to express our quality and so little quality to express. 
>> 
>> That needs to change. 
>> 
>> From: Dan Glover 
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 11:19 PM 
>> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org 
>> Subject: Re: [MD] The need for quality 
>> 
>> Hi Adrie, 
>> Yes, new every day. I like that. Thanks, Adrie! 
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 3:18 AM, Adrie Kintziger <parser666 at gmail.com> wrote: 
>>> Can we still be surprised and feel awe when we discover a bird's nest in 
>>> the 
>>> shrubs or a frog in the polder?,we should be!,....many people loose this 
>>> ability early in life.We can ask ourselves,... 
>>> Did the emotional/intellectual adaptive filter close too early for them,and 
>>> did the pattern dissolve itself to give way for other patterns to 
>>> emerge?......, 
>>> 
>>> Sometimes a bit strange that i will take a philosopher stance to stop 
>>> thinking about these things, and go back to expiriencing again, as if 
>>> everything is anew every day. 
>>> 
>>> Adrie 
> 
> 
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