One of the biggest ideas juggled in [[Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]] is how we should handle the negatives and positives of modernity. According to Pirsig, the answer isn’t to run away from the negatives of high strung society like consumerism, technology, and more. That would be abandoning your fellow human beings and running away from the greatest good. Instead, you find peace “not by avoiding the things that make twentieth century life enjoyable but by caring about what you are doing when you are dealing with those things” (Pirsig, p. 25). “Whether you are caring about sunshine or cycles, if you are really caring, you are not being drained and dissipated, because caring involve being in relation to Quality—‘care and quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing’” (Pirsig, p. 247). When you are in relation to [[Quality]], you are full of gumption.