When he was twenty, Bryan Cranston read Robert Pirsig’s book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Recently he read it, with half a lifetime behind him. “I didn’t know it then,” he says, “but I was ripe to receive what the book has to offer,” which he sums up as:
Many times I felt the narrator was speaking to me personally: Get your head straight. One of the characters didn’t really want to learn how to repair his motorcycle; he just wanted the bike to work so he could ride. Reward without the work. That was me too. I recognized myself, and knew I had to change. And although I couldn’t articulate it then, the lesson—that work has the power to transform and lift you up—underpins the meritocracy that I fully believe in today.
(Quoted from page 14 of the December 25, 2016, The New York Times Book Review.)
For a brief biography of Bryan Cranston, click here. For images of or relating to Bryan Cranston, click here.
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