Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Persig, is a semi-autobiographical description of a trip taken between Minnesota and Montana. Using the motorcycle itself and the trip vs. the author's perspectives upon artistic and intuitive philosophy, the book draws a distinction between the analytical vs. the romantic worldview. The trip itself is romantic; the author reconnects with his son, he is travelling to Bozeman where he previously lived and taught at university (and had a breakdown). Keeping the motorcycle in working order, the forced experience of travelling on a motorcycle and dealing with the real world, these force values of logic, precision and understanding of how systems work.
I was told to read this book by many of my friends when I was in high school, as well as several older persons with whom I had a continuous, intellectual relationship. They felt the book would give my 17 and 18 year old self insights that they felt I needed... but when they would describe the nature of the book to me, in my mind it fell into the category that included The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castenada, which I considered a load of self-reflective junk thinking (and still do) and Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, which predates the same themes as Catcher in the Rye and which I consider to be Hesse's worst book. I did not, as a young man, consider the world to be "superficial" and "unfulfilling." I considered the problem to be those rigorous systems interposed between me and the world, namely school and family, which fought me at every turn as I struggled to free myself, embrace and fall in love with the world. Thankfully, I succeeded.
I don't think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a good book. I think it has the idea of being a good book, but the author's ultimate attempts to reflect Phaedrus from Socrates wallows in neo-romantic counter-culturalism, exactly the culture that I intellectually grew up in with the late 70s and which I rejected out of hand because I felt it was going — accurately — absolutely nowhere. As masturbation always does.
But, about seven years ago, with little else to do, I finally read the book; I did not find a regret that I hadn't read it at 18. If I had, I would have infuriated my friends by refusing to find in it anything of value. What I did find at the age of 53, however, was a framework for positioning two worlds within a narrative, which struck me as brilliantly intuitive for something that, publishing his book in 1974, Persig wouldn't know about.
Dungeons and Dragons is usually viewed as a separation from reality, just as we normally do with most forms of media intended to entertain us. Less than an art film or an art book, like Zen et al..., D&D is not seen as particularly expressive of anything. It's for "fun." Just as most movies are, particularly those of the stripe that feature a lot of noise and arm swinging. There is a fixed sentiment in the minds of most players that D&D is escapist, and that it ought to be, and that in fact any attempt to veer away from that escapism is viewed as ruining the game and further, making it some version of either squick or player abusive.
I have long argued that any performance-based activity is, necessarily, not only creative but ultimately informative. Though we may resist the idea that D&D is making us better as people through teaching us how to manage others, even our friends, or work collaboratively together, or gain insight into history, physics and, most of all, ethics (my gawd, no!), the truth is that we are affected by our game play. Granted, for those who are encouraged or empowered in some campaigns to act out, abuse others, self-aggrandise or otherwise behave like poopy-heads, the effect isn't necessarily positive. Comparing D&D to film, we might rank such game experiences on a par with abusive forms of pornography or episodes of the Angry Video Game Nerd. Nonetheless, the argument made here is that we're affected positively or negatively, but that we're affected. To pretend otherwise is to turn a blind eye to one's motives.
One assumes that those with sight prefer a positive effect. Which, logically, provokes a discussion and interpretation of how this is done... which brings us back to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Both sides of Persig's book — the technological and the romantic — evolve essentially from the same deeper truth — that the actions we take are based in our desire to obtain things, whether material or not. We seek peace, we seek stability, we seek a better car, we seek a chance to visit a distant land... a process that is rooted in our biological need to sustain ourselves and survive. If I do it now, sitting at this computer, or some other place, churning out food in a restaurant for clientele, the gifts I use for solving problems and meeting obstacles do not change when I am playing a game of D&D. I am still me, seeking, acting in accordance with my ethical framework and striving to overcome. D&D is not an escape from life... it is life in a different form.
Conversely, arguably, life itself is D&D. My fighter character and an NPC decide to have a baby; I and my partner decide to have a baby. My fighter has to find his way out of a dungeon; I have to find a job. My fighter has decided to journey 500 miles to get the thing he wants. I want to drive 500 miles to get to a D&D game.
There is no difference. Out here, in the "real" world, the difficulties are more complex, the NPCs more difficult to predict, the choices more varied, the consequences of my actions more concerned and ultimately more final, but the principles by which I think my way through these difficulties are the same as I display when I'm playing.
This is the purpose of my novel. It is auto-biographical, though I lie where I want to make the story work. It is a philosophical investigation of life, but primarily in relating how the strategies employed here also apply there. It does discuss my manner of DMing; but in exactly the same way, it describes my manner of being a friend and a co-partner with my other half.
It's funny. When I posted the first 6,000 words into ChatGPT and asked the program, "What is the book trying to say?" I nailed the answer right off. I suppose, because it's not hung up on literary rhetoric.
Incidentally, "Zen" refers to a state of mindfulness and awareness, such as we might have about ourselves when we are in the world, thinking about how a D&D character might handle this problem, and while we are playing D&D, thinking about how a real world person might do so.
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