Gumptionology: an Exegesis, Part the Zeroeth

Gumptionology is, in a few words, the art of not losing steam.

Cf.: Covey's First Habit: Be Proactive. (links to follow)

The term was coined by Robert M. Pirsig. In 1974, William Morrow and Company published his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (hereinafter, "ZAMM"). It went through five hardcover printings in April through October of that year. In a word, it was popular.

Things that attained popularity thirty years ago tend to have a kind of patchouli patina on them.

I think that a lot of what Pirsig wrote deserves a fresh scrubbing and close examination. Some people on the 'net have taken up the cause of a Metaphysics of Quality, and though I make no claims for what they've done with it, I think Pirsig's writings themselves on the matter can be a worthy source of inspiration. This blog is probably too small a place for it. I'm not going to provide links for it, because I don't know a really head-and-shoulders-above-all place to point you to for cutting edge M0Q work. Seek and ye shall find... perhaps.

[Later: Oh, all right. Here's a Pirsig/ZAMM page that seems to be a sort of clearing house. No warranty express or implied, etc., etc.]

My focus here and now is tighter. My inspiration and this blog's name are taken from 22 pages of ZAMM: pp. 272-293 of the 34th printing of the Bantam paperback (if you don't have that edition, it's at the very end of Part III, and occupies most of Chapter 26). As time goes by, I might be excerpting much from those pages, unless/until I get a cease-and-desist from the publisher. I hope for the best, since my intentions are good. But I expect nothing. ZAMM isn't scripture, nor will this blog be a slavish toe-sucking of same. But I might keep coming back to it. It's not a bad wampeter, as wampeters go.

The main thing I want to be on about, in future, is perhaps pointed to by this fragment, taken from the very end of Pirsig's Chautauqua on gumption:

"....Some could ask, 'Well, if I get around all those gumption traps, then will I have the thing licked?'

"The answer, of course, is no, you still haven't got anything licked. You've got to live right too. It's the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts....If you're a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren't working on your machine, what trap avoidances, what gimmicks, can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together.

"But if you're a sloppy thinker six days a week and you really try to be sharp on the seventh, then maybe the next six days aren't going to be quite as sloppy as the preceding six. What I'm trying to come up with on these gumption traps, I guess, is shortcuts to living right."

The Purpose of Thinking

Edward de Bono's work deserves more attention than it seems to get.

I want to talk about some things he's said that, stated baldly, are almost guaranteed to start a virtual fistfight. Here's one. Socratically, he asks:

"What is the primary purpose of thinking?"

Think about that for a while, please---or try to; it can be a big slippery question, like a 600-pound lamprey: what the hell is this thing doing in the boat with me?

(Pardon me, please: I'm deliberately formatting this so that the latter part of this post is "below the fold" on most browsers. Scroll down when you're ready.)
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de Bono provides this answer to his question:

"The primary purpose of thinking is to abolish thinking."

What could he possibly mean by that?

Audience participation is encouraged. I'll tell you what he says soon enough.

Diogenes, Nasrudin, Quixote, and Link Rot

Diogenes, it's said, once made a point of going about with a lamp, looking for an honest man. Nasrudin rode about on his donkey, telling people he was looking for his donkey. Don Quixote---well, you know about Cervantes's Don Quixote, don't you?

I'm in good company.

The first-linked-to article on Diogenes says "Diogenes left behind him no system of philosophy. After the example of his school, he was more attentive to practical than to theoretical wisdom."

Then, below, it says "The author of this article is anonymous. The IEP is actively seeking an author who will write a replacement article."

<-- NB: THESE TWO THINGS TAKEN TOGETHER ARE IRONIC
{/nonBritishCommonwealthReader=off} -->

The second article linked to in my first sentence is an amusing one, but I have no idea how long it will remain at the other end of the link. Cynically, I expect that eventually it will 404.

The noble Wayback Machine might be of some service in that event. But, un-fed by the advertising engine that is Google, its snapshots are infrequent. (No gratuitous link to Google will be provided; as an advertisement put it about the Pepsi Generation, "If you're livin', you belong.")

<-- {RicardoMontalbanAccent=on} -->

Above, I spoke of being in good company. My company is not with Cervantes himself: my life has not been that hard. Above I made my expectation clear that you know of Don Quixote. But ah, Don de la Mancha and I! We have shared many conversations. Especially, we have discussed honesty, compassion and objectivity, and beauty and love, and the kind of life that is worth living, long into the night.

But that was long ago. And now, the Don languishes in a kind of spell. He is convinced that the structure that surrounds him is maintained by madmen. That a governor's clumsy tongue is evidence of idiocy. This and many other things he believes, and some of these things contradict each other. I fear my friend the Don is deluded. We do not speak very much any more.

But that, though it brings my heart much sorrow, is not what this posting is about. No, this posting is about the bright shining image of what the Don wanted to bring to the world---and still does, may God bless him!, and he's still, most tragically, right---before the world turned down a path that was maddeningly close... and it is about what we must, maddeningly, settle for, if we are to live in the world as it is.

He wanted to create a world where practically nothing ever went out of print, you see. Where link rot and 404s (though he did not call them that) were only the result of court orders. Where one could revise and correct, but each version remained intact. Where one, anyone, could trace the progress of a work, of literature itself, as it iterated, and grew, spreading its leaves to catch as much Quality as it could.

Richard Gabriel has tilted at the "Worse is Better" windmill for some time, and he has blown hot and cold about the concept since his original paper. My old friend the Don, and those who labored with him, and I in my small way, had "The Right Thing" in mind.



It is pointless to speculate how much better the world would be, had Project Xanadu actually shipped, and more importantly, caught on in the marketplace. Arguably, it couldn't have---it was too different, not just-different-enough. And I am mostly at peace with that. I will not address any of the calumnies of the past, written by those with cheap eyes. No, the truth is that Xanadu came with too many strings attached, and that is that.

In a way, it is poetic justice that I, and you, must settle for a literature not too much better than the paper one of yore---and even, on some axes, worse, for paper survives where bits do not.

One must satisfy oneself that sand painting beats not painting at all. Tantric Buddhist or Navajo, or sui generis---if you want to paint a perfect painting, it's easy; just make yourself perfect and then paint naturally. Gumptionology is about "making for" the port of perfection, without letting perfectionism, or a sea of troubles, thwart you.

<-- {RicardoMontalbanAccent=off} -->

I, Nortius: being a Species of Introduction

Hello, I'm the Nortius Maximus (he said, humbly). Well, no, not this Nortius Maximus, I mean, well, obviously.... No, no, I'm sure he's a perfectly fine fellow and all that... Well, look, if you're going to be that way about it... well, I mean, "the" Blogospheric Nortius Maximus, I mean, clearly, I am---just Google me.... Oh very well.

"At least, for the moment, I appear to be the Blogospheric Nortius Maximus." (Happy Now?) Ahem.

My boon compatriot 'Marcus Cicero' (of Blogger, Winds of Change and now Donklephant, q.v.a.) suggests it's time I broadened the Nortius Maximus brand by starting a Blogger account. Here I am.

About the blog name: The term "gumptionology" is from Robert M. Pirsig. He's a worthy man. Of him, and it, more later.

About my nom de plume: In days gone by, a misbehaving urchin asked to identify himself might say, "Puddin' Tame. Ask me again, I'll tell you the same!" If asked again, he might repeat that, as promised---or (eventually) escalate: "John Brown. Ask me again and I'll knock you down!" The latter's pugnacity might startle an adversary enough for the speaker to escape---or at least give notice that his name was "none of your bee's wax", as the saying went. (Does that saying still go? Please advise...)

In a similar vein, in Monty Python's Life of Brian, "Nortius Maximus" is how a Roman Legionary identifies himself to Brian's mother, before doing something he probably oughtn't. It's a bad joke the Pythons probably encountered in primary school: Nortius="Naughtiest"; Nortius Maximus="Most Naughtiest"---geddit?

So: picture me as a Roman citizen who, rough around the edges, irreverent, wondering if he ought to be caught doing this, is still willing to be a part of his civilization. I vow I'll keep my gladius strapped, mostly.

My apologies: this post is a trivial, exploratory one. One of the things I want to see is how long it takes for comment sp@m to arrive. I'll bloviate soon enough.