We're related to each other in ways we never fully understand, maybe hardly understand at all (Robert M. Pirsig)

Wie geht's?

Fathers' Day was on Sunday, and very appropriately, I finished my fifth reading of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance then. Part of the story traces the relationship between Chris and his dad (the narrator).

Stories about fathers and sons fascinate a lot of people, and I think the reason is largely because we can't fathom our fathers. No matter how hard we try.

As Robert M. Pirsig says, "We're related to each other in ways we never fully understand, maybe hardly understand at all".

We're always from different generations, we've not yet fathers ourselves and then we have our own sons and they struggle in the same ways. And so it goes on.

Certainly Chris fails to understand his father in ZMM. 

I sometimes got a glimpse of understanding from my dad but it was a struggle most of the time. While quite effusive with Jacky and my children, he was more guarded with me, or at least I sometimes felt that way. I know he was proud of me because other people told me he was but he seemed to struggle letting me know it.

Only three times did he let his guard down completely with me. Once when, as a preteen, I criticised his mother, then right after my mother passed away in 1983, and when he was about to in 2009.

During his few days I sat beside his bed and listened to him open up and tell me how things were between us (during which he stunned me somewhat by saying what a wonderful son I'd been).

At the time, he quoted the Masonic prayer and a section from Philippians. I knew my dad had spiritual values because of his Masonic background but we were never church goers as a family. It was a surprise to me, when we had to clean out his unit afterwards and I found a new Bible beside his bed that he clearly read a lot. It's beside my bed now.

Anyway, I wrote down in my copy of ZMM the bit he told me from Philippians 4.8-9, where Paul is encouraging the Lord's followers:

Finally, my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly and proper. Don't ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise. You know the teachings I gave you, and you know what you heard me say and saw me do. So follow my example. And God, who gives peace, will be with you.

That kind of sums up things for me in many ways: being a father is about setting out values and examples and a way of living for your own children. 

I also loved the section in ZMM where he quotes a section from the Iliad. Hector says of his son:

...may they say, as he returns from war, "He is far better than his father".

There is that feeling with fathers that, not only are we replaced by our children, but that we place in them hope and trust, that they will be better than us.

Jade gave me a lovely card for Fathers' Day and she tells me in her message that I set the bar for being a good father. 

That was a great compliment. Even so, I haven't always cleared that bar but I've done my best and so I should. It's a huge role, a huge job, a huge responsibility and, although I haven't always got it right, I want to, and that's the key really.

I want to be a better dad, and I'll keep aiming to fulfil that verse in Philippians for my children.

It's a lofty goal.

Love and peace - WNP.

You know, most of the time he seems like such a normal guy (John says to Sylvia about the narrator)

Wie geht's?

Recently I got into a conversation with a colleague at work (let's call her Julie) about our favourite books and I mentioned that I'd only ever read one book four times: Robert M. Pirsig's Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

She expressed interest, but I had to tell her that while I would normally lend her my copy, I couldn't in this case. 

You see, the fourth and last time I read it was in 2009 when my father had a stroke from which he wouldn't recover. At the time I wrote in the book things he said while I read beside him, so it has a lot of sentimental value to me. 

She understood and so ordered a copy for herself. I hope she gets a lot from it and recommends it to her husband to read. I really do. It's an astonishing book. A true one-off.

Feeling an urge, I decided to reread it for the fifth time. When I opened it up, I noticed my initials and purchase date of July '99 were written on the inside cover.

Weirdly, I realised that over the last 40 years I have read this book every ten years (give or take) and worn out two previous copies in the process. 

Initially, my good friend, Chris Loud, suggested I read it when he saw it at a second hand bookshop we were visiting. 'This book will change your life' was the blurb on the back cover. Sure enough. I was 23 at the time.

Subsequently, becoming a new father myself of two sons and two daughters was a transformative process in so many ways. My second reading was when I was in my early thirties trying to understand who I was all over again. The book made sense to me in different ways then.

When 1999 rolled around I was 42.

When dad passed away I was 52.

I'm currently 62 and reading this book for the fifth time. Freaky.

The book reasonates with me...Duh!

Strangely, in the past I've identified strongly with Pirsig's ghost presence in the book - Phaedrus - the English teacher who is exploring his stance on things.

This time around, having now spent ten years without my father, I'm identifying with his 11 year old son, Chris, as he struggles to understand his father.

Graham N. Purdy was a logical thinker and a quiet, often fleeting, presence in my life. A chemist, a manager, a great dad in many ways, but rarely emotive, and he wasn't a good communicator. At least, not to me. 

Of course, I now realise this was partly my fault. I didn't have the right questions for him, nor the ability to persist and break down the non-communication like Chris does as an eleven year old with his persistent questions. Unlike my brother, I wasn't on my dad's wave length. Not until I became a father myself.

That's just the way it was. I can't change anything about the past. But I can understand him and more importantly, me, by reading Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance again. 

Love and peace - WNP

P.S. At the same time, I'm also reading that other book in the picture - a Guidebook to ZMM: a collection of stuff about the book I bought while in England in 2018. It's an excellent companion.

You are someone else, I am still right here (Nine Inch Nails)

Another first of Roctober has rolled over and laid down. I had another great birthday thanks to all the social media messages, and thoughts from the family. Bosker!

I have spent my holidays profitably. I have marked and I have prepared. I have mowed and I have chopped. I have read (new Jack Reacher was great - birthday gift from DLG and SWMBO) and I have danced (down tiger - twas in the privacy of ART).

But most of all I've been mildly frustrated by mechanical breakdowns. Yes I know that this is a curse of modern life but why do they all have to go belly up at the same time?

1 The mower - the starter cord thing pulled out of its housing thing. Off to the mower repair shop it went.

2 Car failed its warrant - two new front tyres required thank you.

3 Chainsaw stopped half way through putting down a branch. Wouldn't start. The grinding noise as I tried to restart it was not good.

4 Tractor overheated after half an hour - water coming out of the hose from the radiator seemed like the likely culprit.

Stands to reason I guess - these days we have more and more devices and gadgets and things to help us so the odds are much greater that minor gumption traps will come along to unsettle us. Yes gumption traps - google it and you should be taken to Robert Pirsig's wonderful book.

On the bright side of things -  the fridge is fine (cold beer and coca-ramas - YES), the stereo blasted out for two weeks solid (I'm up to Status Quo on my personal run through all my Greatest Hits sets), the car got us to Tauranga to get Jade to her nursing interview and mysky didn't fail to record all the NFL games, Arsenal TV (bless you Arsenal TV), Cheers reruns on Jones and Wipe Outs (why oh why I love this? Something deeply primordial in that).

My holiday is rapidly coming to its end - back to school on Rocktober 14. Been gear fab gnarly rad bad phat sick groovylicious to the max.

Love and peace - Wozza

Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm lost (Coldplay)

I got bored in a meeting recently and started making a list in my head of things with a 'lost' theme. One thought tumbled into another and pretty soon I had a head full of LOSTNESS, it helped that it was a very looooooong boring meeting.

I had so much in my head that I had to write it all down later (it filled a page).

Before I outline what was in said head you probably need to get yourself a coffee, then take the phone off the hook and get comfy – this’ll take me a while to explain I suspect.

I started with books on a 'lost' theme but pretty quickly I had roamed all over the cultural landscape - over films, under music, and through TV shows. Along the journey my thinking had morphed into 'lost' record albums and about being in a state of 'lostness'.

Here’s an example of my twisted thought process.

I started, fairly predictably and naturally, with Robinson Crusoe (by Daniel Defoe, published in 1719). Mainly cos it’s in the front of my brain – I downloaded it onto my ipad and have been reading it off and on for the last few months.

It is an archetypal castaway/shipwreck plot which has fed loads of other 'lost' storylines. I’m pretty sure it was the first such realistic adventure book with this plotline. The Tom Hanks film Castaway is a modern rendering.

From there I leapt to Swiss Family Robinson and detoured to Lost In Space’s Robinson family before getting to Gulliver’s Travels.

Lost In Space reminded me of the Albert Brooks film Lost In America which, by being an update of Easy Rider reminded me of the great tagline to the film. What was it again? Something like, ‘They went looking for America and couldn’t find it anywhere’. From there it was a natural leap into Paul Simon’s song America…’And we walked off to look for America’. That also reminded me of the key line later in the song:

Cathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and I'm aching and I don't know why
Countin' the cars on the New Jersey turnpike
They've all come to look for America, all come to look for America

When I got to this bit a light suddenly went on in my brain.

Lost isn’t just the Beatles in Yellow Submarine getting lost in Pepperland. Lost isn’t just a castaway on an island lost from civilization. Lost isn’t just about discovering lost worlds a la Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost Continent  or Edgar Rice Burroughs’ At The Earth’s Core. Lost isn’t just people trying to get away from civilization and looking for a mythical Avalon. Lost isn’t just about seekers trying to answer Allen Ginsberg’s great question - America when will you be angelic?

Lost is all these external things and more. Lost is also about all the internal things – Paul Simon’s feeling of being lost and not being heard. The existential lost world inside us which drives so much great literature and cultural pointers like the TV show…Lost.

Told you my brain was twisted.

Allen Ginsberg from his poem America again:

 

It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again.

The next bit of thinking was my most interesting discovery of all: WHAT IF every theme in songs, TV shows, films, literature…EVERY theme…could be traced back in some way to the theme of loss?

Whether it be an external loss – Paradise lost, loss of life, loss of something tangible/physical, lost relationships…

Or an internal loss - Loss of innocence, loss of life and subsequent grief, feelings of alienation or abandonment, loss of direction in life, lack of understanding…

Or an abstract loss – the whole balance of gains and losses (can’t be one without the other), financial loss, lost in translation, when meaning is lost…

Suddenly I felt a bit like Phaedrus in Robert Pirsig’s amazing book Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In a moment of mad clarity I had glimpsed the universe. But was it true or had I just lost my mind?

I needed to test out this what if thesis on some random texts.

First some books (obviously this is restricted to ones I’ve actually read). I went to the Guardian’s list of the books I should read as a random source (wooah there were a lot of books in the list I’ve not read!). Here’s the first three I’d read:

Don Quixote (Cervantes) – bags of mental loss starting with a loss of perspective and geographical displacement (anyone working in education in the sandpit will identity strongly). The Don is a few mangoes short of a chutney, i.e., he’s lost!

High Fidelity (Hornby) – Lost loves and lost records!

Catch 22 (Heller) – Sanity has goneburger and the world is lost!

Okay – so that’s all literature…tick!

Next - some random films from imbd’s ‘films to see before you die’ list.

Fight Club – lost masculinity and lost teeth.

American Beauty – Lester in a mid life crisis is mourning his lost youth.

Road To Perdition – about a hit man and his loss of humanity and his lost relationship with his son.

Okay – so that’s all films ever made…tick!

Music might be tougher though. I’ll need to do three random songs for this exercise.

Some reductions are required first though. It think it’s a given that every love song ever written will conform to Wozza’s Lost thesis ©. It’s either lost love, or the love that never was, or unrequited love, or she-done-me-wrong love or some other twist that always involves human relationships. And those we can trace all the way back to Paradise Lost. So that’s love songs done and dusted.

So I’ll take a random three non-love songs from the Guardian list (set out thematically bless ‘em):

It’s My Life The Animals – lost opportunities and the way Eric Burden sings, ‘No regrets’ you know he’s lying.

Space Oddity  David Bowie – severe dislocation and alienation for the poor geezer floating in his tin can high above the world. He’s very literally and metaphorically lost in space!

Penny Lane The Beatles – beautiful nostalgia from Macca and all nostalgia involves a sense of loss.

Okay – music…tick!

Finally - Television shows. Here’s the last three series we’ve watched:

Grey’s Anatomy – a whole heap of lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year.

Bones – lost lives, lost hopes and dreams.

Hustle – a bunch of Robin Hoods stealing from damaged people who have been making their vapid way in the world.

I think the Wozza ‘Lost’ thesis © holds up but I invite you to send me your challenges. I bet I can find an angle!

So there you have it - I'll leave you with this great still from The Graduate. Two people, embarking on a mystery ride, lost in thought having just read this post and wondering what the heckfire Wozza was on about.

Love and peace - Wozza

Try to see it once my way, everything zen.

Dad continues to make some progress with physio and is still in North Shore Hospital. The football season is finally over in NZ and I had my first Saturday sleep-in today, since about April. A good feeling.

The Pittsburgh Steelers got off to a good start today - beating the Titans in the first game of the new season 13-10. Santonio Holmes was again a hero (and Hines Ward nearly a villain). Do you remember that catch to win the last Superbowl? Check back through the blog. It's worth it. He caught a touchdown pass today in great fashion. Wahoo! He's still my hero.

This is the 101st post on this weblog. Pretty cool huh. I'm quite pleased with its evolution over those 100 posts. I wanted to mix up the mundane day to day stuff with other things and that will continue throughout the next 99.

I'm re reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance again. This will be the fourth time I think. I dip into it from time to time but only three times have I completely reread it. Immediately I was struck by the following passage:

"What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow.

This pursuit of trivia is why I haven't bothered with Twitter (well named though, isn't it?). Its 'what I am doing right now?' premise is guaranteed to deliver an endless parade of trivia. It's not for me and even Facebook doesn't hold that much appeal really. I know Keegan has jumped off the social network site Facebook with no regrets.

The latest Guardian Weekly ran a comment column on the world's microblogging culture and the dawning of the age of interactivity. It made some interesting points - that this technological/emotional/cultural revolution is driven by a belief that constantly interacting with others is an inherently worthwhile activity.

The last word goes to the great great Henry David Thoreau who wrote in Walden - "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing to communicate".

Love and peace - Wozza