Hey, gang.
This isn't a responce to any particuler thread of posts; I just
thought I'd throw-out my own general thougts on what morality/quality
is... for the record.
Quality/care is the means to a state of at-one-ment. It puts you
"in synch" w/ things -- "in the groove."
Quality writing is a book/poem that you *identify* w/.
Quality art is a painting that "connects" w/ you. -- "grabs you."
Quality motercycle mantinance is when you and that machine are one --
you're "in synch" w/ the bike.
Quality experienced in a relationship w/ a nother person... Did
anybody see *Jerry Mcquire*? Remember: "You complete me"?
In ZMM the Narrator mentions his old cycle gloves. He says they're
old, sweat-stained, molded to the shape of his hands, and he's stitched
them up more times than makes any sense (more trouble than it's
[objectivly?] worth). But, he profeses, he can't imagine getting rid of
them. He really CARES about those gloves.
Care is the subjective side of quality -- the objective side. The
two are really the same thing except that quality is percieved as in the
object and careing is percieved as the subject's responce to that quality.
In careing about the gloves, the Narrator identifys w/ them. Getting rid
of them would be like lossing a piece of himself.
Joseph Campbell used to talk about an event that happened in
Hawaii a while back. Two police officers were driving up one of these
cliff-side roads, and they saw a guy on the other side of the guard-rail
making to jump off the cliff -- a suicide. Before the car had completely
stoped the first cop jumps out, runs to this guy and grabs him -- Which is
exactly what every cop is trained not to do w/ a jumper because they'll
take you w/ them. And, sure enough, this guy goes over and he pulls that
cop right along behind him, and they would have died together except that
the other cop had gotten around the car and he grabs his partner and
anchors them both, and, w/ great labor, pulls them back up to safety.
Now, this made all the news, and this cop was asked, "Why did you hold-on?
Why didn't you drop this guy? You've got a wife, kids... Why did you risk
all that for this complete stranger?" And the policeman said, "I don't
know. I can't explin it, but I just knew that if I let go, and I allowed
him to fall, I would have died w/ him."
For just a brief moment, he and that other were at-one.
That's a Quality moment of about as high magnatude as you can go.
ZMM is a grand myth that's all about this Quality--->at-one-ment.
The Narrator talks about reconciling various oppostitions, but all the
wile he lives in isolation and builds up walls. You notice that Chris is
in the habit of saying "we" whereas, w/ the Narrator it's always I-him.
Chris trys to bond w/ his father but is usally put-off. The Narrator
spends most of his time "meditating" on vallys miles and miles away, and
events years and years into the past. Everytime the Narrator seriouly
fails to comfort his son in some way -- that's when he/Phaedrus has the
nightmares. By the 2nd or 3rd such nightmare, the reader is begining to
realize that the Chatawqua itself is the real villion in the story. Just
as Phaedrus' misguided pursuit of Quality and those "waves of
crystalization" took him away from a child who needed him, now the
Narrator continues the mistake -- living in exile from himself and from
others.
In the mountains, the Narrator chikens-out. (Refusal of the Call)
He will not go to the top, where the land meets that sky (but he will
later be redeamed at a place where other pairs of opposits -- land and sea
-- meet). He is affaraid of the sacrofice he must make. He will have to
crucify himself so that Paedrus, his true self, can be reborn. Phaedrus
scares him, of course. He tells us that "pheadrus" is Greek for wolf.
But in reality, "lukus" = wolf. "Phaedrus" means "raidaint one." (Compare
"Buddha" = "Enlightened one.") It is a name usually associated w/ the
religion of Apollo. Apollo is usually identifyed as the Greek counterpart
to Christ (by the Alchemist, Neoplatonists, Milton, etc.). "Chris," short
for Christopher, is literally "Christ-bearer," just as Chris in the novel
"carrys" his true father, Phaedrus.
But the Narrator does more than chiken-out and lie about who/what
Phaedrus was. When he realizes that it is in responce to Chris that
Phaedrus is waking-up, and that he can no longer burry Phaedrus (now that
he's un-earthed him w/ the Chataquwa) he momentarily considers killing the
boy -- even if sub-consciously: hidden from himself but clear to the
reader (THAT is increadable writting on Mr. Pirsig's part!). That
paragraph always creeps me out.
But in the end it works out. There is death, resurection and
at-one-ment. In a published letter, Pirsig wrote that it is this
"unintended Christion value-myth" that is the real power behind the ending
chapter of the book.
A while back, someone asked if the MoQ was a new religion. The
answer, of course, depends on what you mean by "religion" (and there are
whole philosophy books and classes to debate that question), but I'll
leave you w/ this thought: The word is of a Greek derivartion. "Lig" is
Greek for link or join (as in "ligament" -- those tissues which join
bones). Re-lig-ion is literally "a linking back." And the Greek word for
"sin"? It's usual equivolent is "harmata" which means, literally, "to
seperate." (The Judao-Christian concept of original sin is to be
interpreted as "funsdamental seperation" or "sheer otherness.")
I know this has nothing to do w/ Marxism or burning rainforests...
But, IMHO, if you need philosophy to tell you whether or not you should
stay in your marrage vs. commit adultry -- or whether you should ambush
schoolkids w/ a gun -- then you've got problems more serious than we can
deal w/ here. It is not the purpose of metaphysical inquiry to tell you
how to vote in the next ellection.
Quality/care = what leades to at-one-ment.
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
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