A Selfless Art

There’s been a bit of a gap in posts here, partly intentional, partly not. Intentional, because I do not want to exhaust my subscribers’ patience or interest with endless posts. If that happens, just unsubscribe: you can always check back another time.

Unintentional because of busy days and fluctuating mood. Ups and downs are normal in freelance work. Ups and downs in how I feel are also normal, the personal climate in which work happens and which influences my changing ideas, especially in recent years. If and how that should be part of A Selfless Art is a question I’ve yet to resolve.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig, was very important to my ideas of quality. More recently, I’ve been thinking more about that book’s form. It describes a motorcycle journey the author made with his young son in 1968, from Minnesota to Northern California. Through that story, Pirsig weaves an account of his evolving philosophy and his breakdown ad hospitalisation. His former self is another figure in the book: Phaedrus, named after Plato’s dialogue.

Robert Pirsig’s approach inspired early drafts of A Selfless Art, but I have none of his genius and must, in any case, find my own voice, my own solutions. Still, his courage and creativity continue to show me that it’s possible to balance the personal and philosophical.