Writing Life by Andrew Dib

‘There is only one kind of person, Phaedrus said, who accepts or rejects the mythos in which he lives. And the definition of that person, when he has rejected the mythos, Phaedrus said, is “insane”. To go outside the mythos is to become insane.’ Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Robert M Pirsig, I'm midway through my solo motorcycle adventure across the great land of Australia and have just finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M Pirsig (I know, I know, how corny right? Nevertheless, it’s been a great companion for the past month or so). It was first published in 1974 but is very relevant today I reckon, maybe more so. I read it as a contemplation on living ‘right’, not necessarily ‘right’ according to a set of morals or truths but to an inner clockwork, a spiritual commonsenseness that follows a natural rhythm, kind of like following your heartbeat rather than a doctrine or someone ...

Sitting astride my bike, its motor humming and rumbling apprehensively, me admonishing myself: What were you thinking?! Ahead of me a bridge lies submerged in water deep enough to bring this journey to an unceremonious end. Behind, a few thousand kilometres of hard-earned road, the last five hundred or so unforgiving for its hardened corrugated dirt surface. I wonder wryly when the North Queensland Peninsula Developmental Road might reach completion. It’s hard to know exactly how deep the water goes; and I’ve never actually ridden through water before. If I’d considered every possible manifestation of seemingly insurmountable challenge, I’d not have left the house, I tell myself. I suddenly feel that familiar feeling of impending doom; like I’ve just been caught smoking or expelled from school; that feeling of climbing a mountain's edge, caught frozen with the realisation that I’ve climbed too high to safely descend and psychologically unable to go any further; like my l...