In terms of his use of “they” I think he got some help from Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” which is an excellent text in regards to something as simply complicated as our use of pronouns.

In any event, as a New Yorker, I love his assessment there, and reading Lila would make anyone want to go on a boat trip; not because he romanticizes it, but rather because he can see the excursion for what it is: as much a journey into the self as down the Hudson River Valley.

For example, I like the way Pirsig divided Quality up into four patterns – Inorganic, Biological, Social and Intellectual. He said that “social patterns” like New York City devour the energy of its inhabitants (biological) for its own sustenance.

Looking through his prism allows one to unpack the meaning of words like “they”, as in “Why are ‘they’ screwing things up?”. By seeing “they” as a social pattern rather than a group of people brings new clarity.

Pirsig said that life comes to us as an endless stream of puzzle pieces and I found the pieces he presented in Lila to be reusable in all sorts of puzzles.