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Essay on self discovery
What is zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance about
What is zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance about
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He was a man in search of himself, a man not willing to follow the human race as it moved drearily on, a man who would not cease in his journey until he knew what truth and quality were. His expedition across American answered his inquiries. In actuality, he provided his own answers, solutions that would provide for the most important of all states: peace of mind. Such is the depth of discovery that a reader will find in Robert Pirsig's masterful innovation, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
The story is an eye-opening look into the thoughts and feelings of an unnamed man who saw too much of his society and started asking questions. In the story, his quest begins when he hops on a motorcycle with his young son, Chris, a sharp but slightly confused boy. While Chris thinks that the trip is meant only to be a vacation on the back roads of America, his father knows that he is really taking this trip for himself. It is meant to be a period in which he can think about and piece together the events of his early life, a time in which he started to wonder about the faults of society, eventually driving himself insane. Their journey leads them through highways, roads, one lane country passes, and finally into beautiful pastures and mountains. It was during these extended rides and rest stops in nature that we see what this story is really about.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance really isn't a story so much as it is a doctrine of philosophy. The novel, in effect, appears to be just a vehicle to express Pirsig's ideas to a large audience. If, in fact, this is what he's doing, he does a wonderful job at it. The most striking detail about the book is in how Pirsig relates the entire motorcycle journey and the process of maintaining that cycle to, in essence, all of life. A major point of the novel is that in order to find the answers to anything you are looking for you must first clear your mind and make sure that it is as fine tuned as possible. Most times, in order to do this, you must leave the highway and journey into the pastures or mountains where everything is clearer and easier. Metaphors like this one are really what brings the book alive.
I will first attempt to fit the ideas of Perry Farrell into a philosophical Zen framework. A good starting point is the song “Ocean Size” that points to the Zen theme of a oneness with nature. The speaker in the song seeks to get beyond his thinking self, and become like the ocean. The almost interminable suffering of human existence is described by Farrell as, “Like a tooth aching a jawbone” (2:6). He writes of his own human weaknesses, “I was made with a heart of stone/ to be broken/ with one hard blow." (2:7-9). His frailty contrasts with the strength of nature, “We’ve seen the ocean/ brake on the shore/ come together with no harm done" (2:10-12). The song’s verse states, “It ain’t easy living.../ I want to be/ as deep/ as the ocean/ mother ocean" (2:13-17). He calls upon the common theme that words fail to convey the true meanings in Zen with, “I want to be like the ocean/ no talking/ all action" (2:21-23). In the words of Lao-tzu “Those who know do not speak; Those who speak do not know” (Watts xii-xiii). Only through an escape from his thinking, talking self can the author can stop experiencing the suffering of being human.
Although, Chris McCandless may be seen as stupid and his ideals uncanny, he gave up everything to follow his heart he escaped the world that would have changed him, he wrote his own tale to feel free, and he left a conformist world to indulge in true happiness. How many people would just give up their lives, family, material goods, to escape into a world of perfect solitude and peace; not many and Chris was one of those that could and he became and inspiration. “The idea of free personality and the idea of life as sacrifice” (187).
The dynamic between parents and children condition what the child will think and follow through with. It is important that child and parents establish an appropriate relationship that can guide them through their life.This struggle between parents and children as discussed in In Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the life of wealthy Christopher McCandless is chronicled, and what may have drove him away to traverse the wilds of Alaska, which ultimately lead to his demise. Jon Krakauer takes the reader on ride explaining the damaged relationship between christopher and his parents using specific events and words, this shaped Christopher into the person that went into the woods to find new horizons. Krakauer does this by introducing his purpose.
“High levels of hormones can cause problems in the human body, but can hormones we ingest really alter our hormone level...
Benjamin, S. (2013, 09 10). Quebec Seeks Ban On Religious Symbols In Public Work Places. Retrieved 12 10, 2013, from huffingtonpost.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09/quebec-religious-symbols-_n_4072327.html
Jon Krakauer, fascinated by a young man in April 1992 who hitchhiked to Alaska and lived alone in the wild for four months before his decomposed body was discovered, writes the story of Christopher McCandless, in his national bestseller: Into the Wild. McCandless was always a unique and intelligent boy who saw the world differently. Into the Wild explores all aspects of McCandless’s life in order to better understand the reason why a smart, social boy, from an upper class family would put himself in extraordinary peril by living off the land in the Alaskan Bush. McCandless represents the true tragic hero that Aristotle defined. Krakauer depicts McCandless as a tragic hero by detailing his unique and perhaps flawed views on society, his final demise in the Alaskan Bush, and his recognition of the truth, to reveal that pure happiness requires sharing it with others.
The book begins as a mystery novel with a goal of finding the killer of the neighbor's dog, Wellington. The mystery of the dog is solved mid-way through the book, and the story shifts towards the Boone family. We learn through a series of events that Christopher has been lied to the past two years of his life. Christopher's father told him that his mother had died in the hospital. In reality she moved to London to start a new life because she was unable to handle her demanding child. With this discovery, Christopher's world of absolutes is turned upside-down and his faith in his father is destroyed. Christopher, a child that has never traveled alone going any further than his school, leaves his home in order to travel across the country to find his mother who is living in London.
Sometimes a character may be pushed over the edge by our materialistic society to discover his/her true roots, which can only be found by going back to nature where monetary status was not important. Chris McCandless leaves all his possessions and begins a trek across the Western United States, which eventually brings him to the place of his demise-Alaska. Jon Krakauer makes you feel like you are with Chris on his journey and uses exerts from various authors such as Thoreau, London, and Tolstoy, as well as flashbacks and narrative pace and even is able to parallel the adventures of Chris to his own life as a young man in his novel Into the Wild. Krakauer educates himself of McCandless’ story by talking to the people that knew Chris the best. These people were not only his family but the people he met on the roads of his travels- they are the ones who became his road family.
In an attempt to overcome writers’ block, Jack Kerouac, alongside Neal Cassady, explored the American West in a series of adventures that spanned from 1947 to 1950. On the Road is the “lovechild” of Kerouac and Cassady’s escapades, fueled by jazz, poetry, and drug use. Its political and aesthetic dimensions are thoroughly complex, yet intertwined. On the Road portrays the story of a personal quest in search of meaning and belonging in a time when conformity was praised and outsiders were scorned. It was during this ...
Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, describes the adventure of Christopher McCandless, a young man that ventured into the wilderness of Alaska hoping to find himself and the meaning of life. He undergoes his dangerous journey because he was persuade by of writers like Henry D. Thoreau, who believe it is was best to get farther away from the mainstreams of life. McCandless’ wild adventure was supposed to lead him towards personal growth but instead resulted in his death caused by his unpreparedness towards the atrocity nature.
The author skillfully uses literary techniques to convey his purpose of giving life to a man on an extraordinary path that led to his eventual demise and truthfully telling the somber story of Christopher McCandless. Krakauer enhances the story by using irony to establish Chris’s unique personality. The author also uses Characterization the give details about Chris’s lifestyle and his choices that affect his journey. Another literary element Krakauer uses is theme. The many themes in the story attract a diverse audience. Krakauer’s telling is world famous for being the truest, and most heart-felt account of Christopher McCandless’s life. The use of literary techniques including irony, characterization and theme help convey the authors purpose and enhance Into The Wild.
Triggs, CharlotteWest, KayAradillas, Elaine. "Toddlers & Tiaras TOO MUCH TOO SOON? (Cover Story)." People 76.12 (2011): 160. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
1. My first impression of the story was the setting reminds me of a fall day in Michigan. It was dark and cool so it reminds me of my childhood in the mornings getting ready for school. At first I thought it was something like a family trip for the guys before the characters where describe. The thought of a young boy on a trip into manhood with his father and Uncle. As the story goes along my impression changes over time to its a story about life circle and the development of a young man 's understanding about life at the hands of his father.
Works Cited Armstrong, Lance, and Sally Jenkins. It's Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. New York: Putnam, 2000. Print.
... executed in order to set off into the world alone. The influence that independent travel has on an individual is a splendor upon riches because it does so much for a person, and provides humans with a sense of the world. How a person can makes new friends and learn about new cultures and accept other people’s way of living. With its educational purposes traveling alone can bring, offers an endless amount of living data that tops any history book or internet page. Traveling is concrete history that is continuing around everyone. It can provide people to look through different lenses and experience aspects of life that they know they will never experience again in their lifetimes. Traveling alone provides an endless journey and an empty page in the minds scrapbook that is waiting to be filled with new memories and the endless amount of true belonging and bliss.