Robert M. Pirsig's 1974 must-read masterpiece, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, contains many worthy quotes, especially when he departs from his literal 5,700-mile round-trip motorcycle journey from Minneapolis to San Francisco with his 12-year-old son to explore quality and being. I suppose I can write several hundred blog posts quoting from this book, which has sold over 5 million copies.
In an hour-long May 20, 1974 talk on the book at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Pirsig anxiously awaits an introduction and quotes a local Zen master by saying, "Whatever situation you're in, you should find yourself in it immediately." From that sentence, he commands my attention like few speakers can.
Pirsig was interested in bridging Western and Eastern philosophical systems in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. His sentence underscores what no Aristotelian or Buddhist thinker would argue. We must be present to observe and to experience. We cannot be in the past or in the future. All we have is now. Fifty years later, this timeless quote remains infallible.
