It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you

Hear the strange and luminous words of Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: “It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away. Puzzling.” In this paradox lies the plight of mankind—that we search endlessly for what is often standing before us, and in our blindness, we dismiss it. We are wanderers who crave revelation, yet when it comes humbly and quietly, we do not recognize it.

The origin of this thought lies in Pirsig’s lifelong meditation on philosophy and perception. He wrestled with the human tendency to idealize truth, imagining it as some distant and exalted thing. Yet he discovered that the search often blinds us to what is plain and present. The truth may come not as thunder, but as whisper; not as a shining vision, but as the ordinary fact, the simple answer, the reality we refuse to accept. And when we turn it away, still demanding the grand revelation, we lose it.

History bears witness. Consider the tale of Ignaz Semmelweis, the physician who discovered that handwashing could save mothers in childbirth. The truth knocked at the door of medicine, simple and undeniable. Yet his peers dismissed him, still searching for lofty theories of humors and invisible vapors. They said, “Go away, we are looking for the truth.” And so, the truth went away—for a time—while thousands perished needlessly. Only later did humanity embrace what had always been before them.

So too in the life of Galileo. He placed before the rulers of his day the telescope, inviting them to look and see the moons of Jupiter. The truth knocked. Yet they refused, declaring, “We already know the heavens; we already possess the truth.” And so, the door was shut, and Galileo was condemned. The truth had come, but because it did not fit their expectations, they cast it aside. Pirsig’s words ring like a bell across centuries: how often has this puzzling blindness cost mankind dearly?

The lesson is clear: the truth often arrives clothed in humility. It does not always descend like lightning from the heavens; it comes in the face of a stranger, in the quiet voice of a child, in the evidence that contradicts our pride. If you wait only for grand revelations, you may miss the simple knock that holds the answer you seek. To live wisely is to open the door, even when the visitor is plain and unadorned.

O seekers of tomorrow, let your hearts be humble and your ears attentive. When new ideas come, do not dismiss them too quickly. Ask: could this small and ordinary thing hold a fragment of the truth? Test it, weigh it, but do not scorn it simply because it is not wrapped in grandeur. For the world’s greatest discoveries often began as whispers ignored by the mighty.

Therefore, let your practice be this: cultivate openness. When the truth knocks, open the door, even if it unsettles you, even if it seems too simple, even if it is not the form you expected. Do not cling so tightly to the image of truth in your mind that you cannot embrace the one that stands before you. In this way, you will not be numbered among those who said, “Go away,” but among those who welcomed the guest and grew wiser.

Thus remember Pirsig’s puzzling wisdom: that many who seek truth most fervently are the very ones who turn it away. Be vigilant, be humble, and be ready—for when truth comes, it may be in the very knock you were not expecting.