Interview with the author

• The writing experience, how to avoid disturbance and focus

1. Reading is an enemy of writing. And you don't realize that until you actually get into something that when you're doing your own thing, when you're concentrating on your, on your book, if you see a movie or watch a TV show, or get involved in any kind of exterior activity, it sort of takes over your own internal TV program. And it ties you all up and it stops you.

2. Writers have to have that long period of uninterrupted silence in order to collect everything they want to say together.
• How did he do?
• "I finally bought a pickup camper and took off for the North Shore, and they're up by two harbors, located the camper in a spot in April before the place it opened. And I just sat there in this camper a day after day, week after week and wrote the last six chapters of the book. In my opinion, those are those are six of the best chapters in the book. And they're written because they had a complete consciousness. "
• Some of this book was written while he was working full time during the day reading computer manuals. His schedule is like this for two years: I get up at two o'clock in the morning and go down to a little place on Lake Street in Chicago Avenue. And work there at two in the morning. And then sit down and sometimes write and sometimes not write because sometimes just no thoughts would come. But I got into the discipline of just getting there. And not particularly having anything to do except write this book. And then with that kind of attitude, getting something out. Once in a while I'd have a good day, once in a while, I'd have a horrible day. But every time I'd have some kind of day, and that way the whole first draft of the book got written. Then after that, four hours was over, I'd come home and have breakfast, and go off to my job. And then at lunch, I'd always had my head down on the desk, and I take that lunch hour for nap. I go to bed at night at six o'clock.

3. They're written out of pure boredom. I think in writing is to be really bored. Because if your mind is jammed with any kind of extraneous thoughts, you can't get the full picture of what you want.

4. About the book: It enquires the relation between technical value and human value. ZEN in everyday life: People usually think that Zen is something apart from the everyday world. And it never is. And I'm trying to bring that point home with the use of Motorcycle Maintenance. This is not an exotic activity at least normally considered. This is not going and sitting on a mountaintop or contemplating the petals of a flower this is just getting in and getting your hands greasy. And yet that's still Zen. There's everyday aspect of Zen and see that by concentrating on everyday aspects of life, you can expand your understanding of the world just as well as by the more exotic techniques.

5. How to think about stuckness?
1. That's not a bad moment. That's actually a pretty good moment. And the times I've been stuck, I've been able to catch myself being stuck and instead of getting mad, just gone off and had a cup of coffee, and I noticed whenever I'm stuck like that, that if I look at the clouds, the clouds are much more beautiful. And that's getting a little bit sentimental. But I find that at the very moment of stuckness, if you just stop and look around you, you find the world is very real. If you remember back in your own life periods went when your life was very vivid, it was usually during a hang-up, or at least for me, so I think stuckness is very good for people and that when it comes, you should welcome it because it won't last long. You always are. I think people in Western culture are trained to believe that if they get stuck, that may be the end of the world. But life doesn't stop, it just goes on even when you're stuck.
2. "无为“的意义：The stuckness is kind of what would you call non-doing. Our whole society is set up for doing. People are predisposed to think that unless you are doing something, something's wrong. But then after you acquire both skills, skills at doing in skills at non-doing, you find that if you're stuck in traffic, it doesn't create frustration, you just swing into your non-doing life. That is if your car won't go forward, you just sit in your car and you build your life that way. But when you don't do anything, all that garbage in your head that's accumulated from all he's doing during the day starts to come to the surface and float away, and your life is purified again, or at least your ears, your mental life, psychic life. And this is very valuable. （是否会产生一种消极的态度？反正不管为或不为，生活都滚滚向前。）

6. About the central concept in the book-- quality

1. The transcript is saved on otter.ai, have listened to until 19:39.