Journal Entry #2
ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE
…”[ ROBERT m. PIRSIG ) ?/ –
journal #2
SETH RYAN KING-GENGLER
Although I haven’t been able to read much of my book the last few days since my most recent journal entry, I can still write a lot with only reading one chapter (was the the end of the first part).
Okay, so here’s what happens: Robert is, once again, talking about his friend, who he has never met, Phaedrus. Whilst talking about him, Robert starts talking about his past, and how he was at a party, drinking quite a bit. He went in a room, and said he must have fell asleep (well…passed OUT). From there, he wakes up and has NO idea where he’s at. Well, turns out he’s in a hospital… and he’s forgotten who he even is, really.
After this time, he is told by the doctor’s that he now has, “..a new personality.” This strike Robert quite odd, since he makes the connection that “we” are the personality, and the personality owns this body– the flesh and bone and mass –not the other way around. How can you just discard a personality? In all reality, that’s the horrifying part of death or killing somebody, in my opinion. It is the fact that you’ve stopped a biological process.. HELL, we do it everyday, by killing flies or when butchers kill animals… you get my point– it isn’t the killing of a body, it’s the killing of a personality.
It’s never mentioned in this part of the book, but you can make the connection that whenever Robert talks about Phaedrus, and how he was a master of rationality of of using the “knife” to cut the classical and romantic and even those parts into parts, he means himself. Many a time, when they will have a conversation or even pass somewhere where he was before he lost his memory, the thoughts and recognition of Phaedrus appears, like a ghost ( the word ghost, is a reoccurring theme in the novel).
There may be a connection with the nickname, Phaedrus, with the dialogue written by Plato. Interestingly enough, the dialogue deals mostly with the topic of love and reincarnation.
Cool, right?
