Question: Have you ever seen a bigger load of horse feces than Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

I've had the section on writing about a brick assigned to me in a few teaching and writing classes. That part is pretty good.
 
I keep my zen in my coffee and my coffee in my zen.

Self-help is the worst of all literary genres, and it’s one of the most successful.
 
I've never read it.

Seems like one of those books you read only because someone in your life keeps pushing it on you. "Man, you gotta read this! Changed my my whole fucking outlook on life!"

So far, I've been lucky.
 
I went to grad school with a guy that talked about that book constantly. He was an idiot, so that put me off from reading it. If he identified with the book, I wanted nothing to do with it.
 
I loved it but I probab ly read it at a time when it just clicked. A profound book. One of those things a person either gets or doesn't.I would say that book and Hesse's Siddhartha were the most important books I've read which kinda shaped my pholosophy on life....
“And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”

― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
 
smurfco said:
I have tried three times in my life to get through this absolute clunker and have failed every time. Go kick rocks, Phaedrus!
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Kinda weird to try three times. I mean once, yeah ok....twice sure why not....by the third time why? is there nothing else to read. i mean millions of people dug Nicklebback but I never tried to get into them. Lotsa of people liked Dave Mathews band.....I never tried to get into them twice let alone three times :wink:
 
I never read it, but if there's a chapter on rebuilding Mikuni carburetors, maybe I should pick it up.
 
It’s pretty clearly not my bag and I’ve had friendly but not really reconcilable worldview/philosophical differences with people who’ve sworn by it or tried to press it on me. I don’t think it’s attempting to address anything I’m interested in and its recommended lifestyle is not really for me. But, like @Flamencology, I’m allergic to self-help, seemingly profound motivational coach speak, and the like.
 
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I enjoyed it when I read it decades ago, but also didn't see it as a self-help book, so maybe I wasn't paying enough attention (more like a slightly-goofy-but-endearing-at-the-time novelization of a bunch of fairly old school philosophy)
 
yabba said:
I enjoyed it when I read it decades ago, but also didn't see it as a self-help book, so maybe I wasn't paying enough attention (more like a slightly-goofy-but-endearing-at-the-time novelization of a bunch of fairly old school philosophy)
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As I understand it, it skirts into self-help by virtue of its didactic “this is the correct way of being” message. It’s not 7 Habits, but it’s not unlike other try-hard borelord with a weird hat and an elaborate drink at an undergraduate party favs like Atlas Shrugged, On the Road, or the Stranger. Though most of the guys I’ve known who were way into Zen and the... were more blue collar, performatively anti-intellectual strong silent type dudes who liked to hide in garages and mutter that the world was going all to hell.
 
I enjoyed it as a youngster. I didn't really see it as self help, but more of an exposition on/introduction to Zen philosophy.
 
Peen Simmons said:
As I understand it, it skirts into self-help by virtue of its didactic “this is the correct way of being” message. It’s not 7 Habits, but it’s not unlike other try-hard borelord with a weird hat and an elaborate drink at an undergraduate party favs like Atlas Shrugged, On the Road, or the Stranger. Though most of the guys I’ve known who were way into Zen and the... were more blue collar, performatively anti-intellectual strong silent type dudes who liked to hide in garages and mutter that the world was going all to hell.
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I guess I can see that, but (at least as a non-philosophy major sort of guy) I don't think it would be that much of a stretch to apply the same criticism to a lot of philosophers (or at least there's plenty of "this is the correct interpretation of reality, and therefore there are assumptions about the correct way of being that come from that" if not straight up "this is the correct way of being"). Most philosophy types strike me as try-hard borelords with a weird hats anyway I suppose..

TLDR: there are many many many big loads of horseshit out there and I remain unconvinced that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is indeed the biggest
 
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