For the past few years I’ve made Robert Pirsig’s book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, required reading for the capstone course I teach. Required “possession” may be more accurate, you can lead a student to a book but you can’t make them read it. Some will, some won’t, and I’m fine with that.

If I took major issue with students not doing what I’ve suggested they do, all I would get done is taking major issue with students that don’t do what I’ve suggested they do. As Pirsig says, “until they have a real felt need they are just going to resent help.”

I cater to those that feel a need or a want to pick up what’s been put in front of them, and hope curiosity gets the best of others as the semester progresses. Sometimes hope is rewarded, and sometimes, curiously enough, some aren’t that curious about much.

So as we move through the semester and explore this-or-that, some willingly choose to come along for the entire ride, some may hop on and hop off dependent upon their interests, motivation, or lingering blood alcohol content.

Some miss the boat entirely, choosing to sit and gaze at the seagulls while the rest of the class disappears in fits-and-starts over the horizon. Gaze at seagulls long enough, and you’re sure to get crapped on. So it goes.

The reason I chose this book as “required” reading for this course, is that this course is a capstone, which means it is taken by seniors and is supposed to help them “cap off” their experience at college. Hopefully help them to make a little sense of the totality of all the courses they’ve left in their wake as they’ve moved from their first semester to their last (some a more direct route than others). There’s that word again, “hope”…there’s always hope.

Isn’t that what most of us want out of much of life? To try and make a little sense of what we’ve just spent time, money, effort, and whatnot on? Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as the subtitle states, is “an inquiry into values”. My hope (hope…hope…hope), is to give the students an opportunity to inquire, to think, to ponder, and in some cases, to fret and complain about the “value” of their college experience.

Was it worth it? Would they have been better off gazing at seagulls (mouth closed), or foregoing higher education all together, and getting a job? Maybe, “yes” to all three? Who knows what happens on paths we leave untrodden.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a true story about real life, real choices, and a quest to answer the question, “What is Quality?”

Good question. If you’re interested in such things, take the book for a spin and see what answers you arrive at, or more likely, what other questions it begs to be answered.

I hope (last one) you had a lovely Thanksgiving. Perhaps some quality time with those you value and a fist full of turkey (I hear seagull is gamey).