Go away, I’m looking for truth

ByHeather

The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.

— Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I actually sent this quote to an internal recruiter once. I had been through several interviews with the company and it seemed that I was progressing towards a job offer. I was excited about the company and it looked to me to be a very good fit.

And then came that one final interview with one of the partners. Within the first fifteen seconds of our conversation I knew that an offer would not be forthcoming. It was clear that she had already made up her mind before the call even began. When the recruiter called a few days later to say that the firm had decided to not move forward I was deeply puzzled.

With nothing to lose I sent the recruiter an email that included Robert Pirsig’s quote. Sometimes, when you are looking for something important, it can be right there in front of you, and you tell it to go away. I never heard from them again, but it felt good to speak my truth.

Similar Posts

  • If You’re Alive…

    ByHeather

    Look, I really don’t want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you’re alive, you’ve got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy, colorful and lively.

    — Mel Brooks

  • Misunderstanding Others

    ByHeather

    It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.

    — Karl A. Menninger, The Human Mind

    This quote is a more poetic version of the one I posted yesterday that said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

    According to Dr. George Watson at the University of Delaware, Karl Menninger was an early psychoanalyst who was probably referring to the criminal mind in this quote. Dr. Watson provides an expanded context of the quote.

  • To Be Is To Do . . . Be Do Be Do

    ByHeather
    To be is to do — Socrates
    To do is to be — Jean Paul Sartre
    Do be do be do — Frank Sinatra

    I posted this quote for the sole reason that it always makes me smile. But as I looked at the list of names, and their sequence, I realized that, in a simplistic way, these simple words also reflect our evolution of philosophy and thought. Socrates lived more than 2,400 years ago and his influence on thought is legendary. Jean Paul Sartre was a prominent French philosopher at the peak of the twentieth century. Frank Sinatra was born only ten years after Sartre but has come to embody a later generation.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.