Not-a-Book

Books are traditionally static. Bibles are especially static — holy books documented centuries ago that can no longer be edited or even questioned.

Zen and the Art of [nothing] is neither. It’s Not-a-Book.

What That Means

The intention is not to hand you a finished set of answers. It’s to build a knowledge-transfer system — one where the most important ideas get generated and re-generated, generation after generation.

The [nothing] in the title is a placeholder. It stands for your art. The art of your life. Whatever you put in the brackets is the thing you care about enough to pursue with quality.

The physical book contains blank pages. The system contains room for you to write.

“Sooner or later, you’ll realize you are the narrator of your own epic story. To get started, take an empty notebook and write an intention. Leave room to edit that intention and start writing.”

Book Zero of an Infinite Series

The numbering is deliberate. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is book one. Lila is book two. Zen and the Art of [nothing] is book zero — what came before the beginning.

The next book, Zen and the Art of Weekly Accounting, is book three: the practical application of the philosophy to seeing a business clearly.

The CoAuthor Community

If you’d like support on your motorcycle trip, the community lives at CoAuthor.one.

See the poem Not-a-Book.

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From Zen and the Art of [nothing] by John Zdanowski & Jeff Abrams, Chapter 15.