Quality

Quality. 2011 is the year of Quality.

I'll explain what I mean by that word. I use it in the sense that Robert Pirsig does in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM). I remember the first time I read the book and came to the place where, after wrestling with the concept for months, he defines quality as an event. "It is the event at which the subject becomes aware of the object... The sun of quality does not revolve around the subjects and objects of our existence. It does not just positively illuminate them. It is not subordinate to them in any way, It has created them. They are subordinate to it."

Quality - to lead a quality life; to make, to the best of my ability, every experience a quality experience.

And that brings me right back to last summer's road trip as I was driving down toward Big Sur when I was pondering my lack of interest in having a relationship. I realized, in a blinding flash of insight, that it was little wonder, given my past relationships, that I had none. Why repeat all that unhappiness, apathy and pain? And it occurred to me, wait, what if I could create a relationship unlike any I have ever had! What if I could have one rooted in mutual love, passion, respect and friendship? Yes, I would like to have that! I would work for something like that.

I've spent the last six months trying to define what that relationship would look like. Then finally, yesterday, it hit me - I want a Quality relationship. That's it: one word - quality. I remember standing in the Museum of Modern Art in Seattle, looking at Van Gogh's Starry Night, and weeping because the experience of quality was so intense: that is what I want in my relationship: an experience of quality. Simple. Let quality be the sun that two of us revolve around.

I thought back, yesterday, to all the relationships I have had in my life because I wanted to pick out the one or the ones that I could define with the word, quality. I was surprised, but perhaps I shouldn't have been, that not one could be defined by that word.

So yes, I want a relationship unlike any I have ever had in my life - a quality relationship. This is the year for it.

It's also the year of continuing to embrace new learning and new experiences and new just about everything. So I am adding James Joyce's Ulysses to my program - it's high time I tackled that tome. I suspect an experience of quality.