I Want to Have Gumption

I like the word “gump­tion” because it’s so home­ly and so for­lorn and so out of style it looks as if it needs a friend and isn’t like­ly to reject any­one who comes along. It’s an old Scot­tish word, once used a lot by pio­neers, but which, like “kin,” seems to have all but dropped out of use. I like it also because it describes exact­ly what hap­pens to some­one who con­nects with Qual­i­ty. He gets filled with gumption.

The Greeks called it ent­hou­si­as­mos, the root of “enthu­si­asm.” which means lit­er­al­ly “filled with theos,” or God, or Qual­i­ty. See how that fits?

A per­son filled with gump­tion does­n’t sit around dis­si­pat­ing and stew­ing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own aware­ness, watch­ing to see what’s up the track and meet­ing it when it comes. That’s gumption.
‑Robert M. Pir­sig, Zen And The Art of Motor­cy­cle Maintenance

Thanks to deb­o­rahlj for call­ing my atten­tion to it.