Gumption

I've diagnosed my problem. I'm suffering from a distinct lack of gumption. Anyone who has read Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance will understand me immediately. This bestseller was essential reading for my generation, but I guess there is now a whole new generation which will have never come across this extraordinary book. I'd love to know how many of you out there have read it. And did you love it or hate it ... or both?

Quoting ...

“I like the word ‘gumption’ because it’s so homely and so forlorn and so out of style it looks as if it needs a friend and isn’t likely to reject anyone who comes along. I like it also because it describes exactly what happens to someone who connects with Quality. He gets filled with gumption."

“A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption.

If you’re going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool. If you haven’t got that you might as well gather up all the other tools and put them away, because they won’t do you any good.”

Of course, this applies equally well to fixing software as it does to fixing a motorbike. He offers some advice ...

"The gumption-filling process occurs when one is quiet enough to see and feel and hear the real universe, not just one's own stale opinions about it."

I've attempted to do that today. I went up on the moor and for the first time in ages found a spot in the grass and just sat still, the sun and breeze on my back, and tried to see and feel and hear that real universe that is so often lost to us in the modern world. My tank is low at the moment but I've managed to put a bit of gumption back in there today.