Making Good Time

“We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with the emphasis on “good” rather than on “time”….”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

            We are just finishing a two-week road trip through Northern California and Oregon, which brings to mind the term, “making good time.”

            When I first saw people reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in the 70s, I wasn’t interested.  Zen meant little to me, and I was not born to be a motorcycle enthusiast, let alone a mechanic. But eventually I decided to read it and found it to be insightful.  The author sets out on a cross-country motorcycle trip with a friend and their adventures provide a setting for reflections on how we live our life.

            One instance is his sense of how we use the term “good time.”  If we ask someone who has just completed a trip how long it took and they give us a number — e.g., “Four hours” — and if we think that suggests they completed the trip in a relatively short   amount of time, we might say, “Oh, so you made good time.”

I remember a Dutch farmer I knew as a parishioner. His wife once told me that the family dreaded going on long car trips with him, because he was often unwilling to make rest room stops when asked — he was determined to get to the destination as fast as possible. Things became worse when he announced he had installed a reserve gas tank on the vehicle so he would be able to make even fewer stops. The family did not share his enthusiasm.

Pirsig has his own take for the word “good time.” We may have reached our destination quickly, but did we enjoy it? Did we experience something new? Did we find ourselves being grateful for something we saw? Or did we become completely focused on our goal, put the pedal to the metal, and rush to our destination?

That, to Pirsig, sounds like time used poorly.

As a result, he would avoid the freeways and interstates. Instead he looked for older highways, country roads, and routes that would still get him to his destination. On these byways he’d be attentive to his surroundings and appreciative of passing through communities and open land he had not experienced before. This may take longer, but it was “good time” because he was present and open as he traveled, instead of narrowly focused on the beating the clock.

May we find which mindset opens us to the valuable experiences of life.