Dear Chris,
This post is over a week old, but here it is. Take your time in responses, for I will continue to post.
Today, I write to you from the roof of Gibbs Laboratory. After first being taken up here by a professor in February, I have always held this place in slight romantic idealization, as a place I would go to to relax and get away from it all. Only I was always to busy to do. Working in Gibbs over the summer, I was always so close. So finally, I have come. I brought a foldable lawn chair, and am sitting overlooking the city, East Rock, and ocean. It is absolutely gorgeous, and offers me a view not often available. It is quite windy here, which helps fight the heat, which I actually can't feel at all at this writing.
I find I am most primed to write late at night, when it is past my reasonable bedtime. I just don't seem to have the drive to write will sitting here peacefully on the roof. It's funny how that works, that we want to write the most when we have the least time to do so.
I think the Quality mentioned in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is very close to the passion after which we strive. Because Passion does make us more interesting people, and someone who lolls around all day (this is a word, no?) is not as interesting as someone who actually does something. But is this then Quality of Life? I mean, they say in the book (I'm sorry that I'm going on about a book that I would assume neither you nor our dear readers (Wizard People, Dear Reader is awesome, for the record. Watched it before going to see the midnight showing of the sixth movie, which was equally awesome) have read, but I think I can explain out the ideas a necessary amount) that you know quality when you see it, and I think it can be agreed to that someone who sits around all day watching TV doesn't have a very high quality life.
Why is it that we judge someone (we = me) much more harshly for spending a day watching TV or watching movies than we judge those who spend the day reading? Is it because reading is more interactive, at more of an individuals pace, leaving time for thought and reflection, while TV shows and films just whip right past us. Or is it the higher quality of books on average to TV shows? Or is it really that if I look closely I'll find that I despise people who spend the whole day doing solely one activity in such a solitary manner as that? Perhaps that is the case.
Back to Quality. You can certainly see this in day to day conversation. I think we call it being earnest, don't we? Or sincere.
But you know what I mean. Some people seem to do everything with the same calm attention and detail, and I feel like we all coalesce around such people.
Love,
Alan
Friday, July 24, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
This is Not a Post
Dear Alan,
I am still alive, and I am still pondering, though the things that I have been pondering have changed dramatically in the last two weeks. Unfortunately, it's been difficult for me to find time to even send worthwhile emails to friends, let alone post on this blog or my own. However, I am working on entries for both, which should be up by the end of the week. I'm sorry that's it's taken me so long.
Yours,
-cy
I am still alive, and I am still pondering, though the things that I have been pondering have changed dramatically in the last two weeks. Unfortunately, it's been difficult for me to find time to even send worthwhile emails to friends, let alone post on this blog or my own. However, I am working on entries for both, which should be up by the end of the week. I'm sorry that's it's taken me so long.
Yours,
-cy
Monday, July 13, 2009
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenace
Dear Chris,
Like you, I have been torn between reflecting on life in this blog and living it. Usually recording such things is completely separate from the living of life, but I like to hope that by encoding this record in a letter open to the world, it somehow counts as living life, or at least eventually furthering the living of life. I should be updating daily, with little snippets of ideas. No matter now. I can promise to start tomorrow, but it is hard to be kept to such a promise. We shall see.
I just finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book I have been meaning to read and finally gained the opportunity to when Joe checked it out from the library and I stole it from him. He has On the Road, so I don't feel bad I stole it.
This book is as much about philosophy as it is about motorcycles, and it was really quite interesting. What I'd like to focus on, though, is a few passages that when I read them I jumped and said, "This is what I was talking about! Right here. This is what I meant." Every major epiphany I had last semester was here! Of course, had I read this book cold a year ago, I would have simply glossed over such things. That's why we have to live and discover them ourselves. But it's good to have some positive feedback.
Page 204 (in my edition, a black-covered utilitarian Yale copy)
"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed."
Page 209
"Cromwell's statement, 'No one ever travels so high as he who knows not where he is going.' applies here."
Page 291
"It was beautiful because the people who worked on it had a way of looking at things that made them do it right unselfconsciously."
Page 357
"Or if he takes whatever dull job he's stuck with-and they are all, sooner or later, dull-and, just to keep himself amused, starts to look for options of Quality, and secretly pursues these options, just for their own sake, thus making an art out of what he is doing, he's likely to discover that he becomes a much more interesting person and much less of an object to the people around him because his Quality decisions change him too. And not only the job and him, but others too because the Quality tends to fan out like waves. The Quality job he didn't think anyone was going to see is seen, and the person who sees it feels a little better because of it, and is likely to pass that feeling on to others, and in that way the Quality tends to keep on going."
Page 377
"Arete implies a respect for the wholeness or oneness of life, and a consequent dislike of specialization. It implies a contempt for efficiency-or rather a much high idea of efficiency, and inefficiency which exists not in one department of life but in life itself."
It's past my bedtime, so I'm going to let these sit in cyberspace for the world to see and then edit them with my thoughts.
I will continue to write, even if my writings become unrequited.
Love,
Alan
Like you, I have been torn between reflecting on life in this blog and living it. Usually recording such things is completely separate from the living of life, but I like to hope that by encoding this record in a letter open to the world, it somehow counts as living life, or at least eventually furthering the living of life. I should be updating daily, with little snippets of ideas. No matter now. I can promise to start tomorrow, but it is hard to be kept to such a promise. We shall see.
I just finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book I have been meaning to read and finally gained the opportunity to when Joe checked it out from the library and I stole it from him. He has On the Road, so I don't feel bad I stole it.
This book is as much about philosophy as it is about motorcycles, and it was really quite interesting. What I'd like to focus on, though, is a few passages that when I read them I jumped and said, "This is what I was talking about! Right here. This is what I meant." Every major epiphany I had last semester was here! Of course, had I read this book cold a year ago, I would have simply glossed over such things. That's why we have to live and discover them ourselves. But it's good to have some positive feedback.
Page 204 (in my edition, a black-covered utilitarian Yale copy)
"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed."
Page 209
"Cromwell's statement, 'No one ever travels so high as he who knows not where he is going.' applies here."
Page 291
"It was beautiful because the people who worked on it had a way of looking at things that made them do it right unselfconsciously."
Page 357
"Or if he takes whatever dull job he's stuck with-and they are all, sooner or later, dull-and, just to keep himself amused, starts to look for options of Quality, and secretly pursues these options, just for their own sake, thus making an art out of what he is doing, he's likely to discover that he becomes a much more interesting person and much less of an object to the people around him because his Quality decisions change him too. And not only the job and him, but others too because the Quality tends to fan out like waves. The Quality job he didn't think anyone was going to see is seen, and the person who sees it feels a little better because of it, and is likely to pass that feeling on to others, and in that way the Quality tends to keep on going."
Page 377
"Arete implies a respect for the wholeness or oneness of life, and a consequent dislike of specialization. It implies a contempt for efficiency-or rather a much high idea of efficiency, and inefficiency which exists not in one department of life but in life itself."
It's past my bedtime, so I'm going to let these sit in cyberspace for the world to see and then edit them with my thoughts.
I will continue to write, even if my writings become unrequited.
Love,
Alan
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
The Vibrancy of my Peers
Dear Chris,
I had previously thought of what I wanted to write, had a topic in mind. But I don't feel like writing about that. So I'm not going to. Instead, tonight is about what I have discussed this week with others.
I had a talk with David, in which he asked me how I would summarize my life story if I had to do it. After not-to-much thought, I told him that my life story would be first an acceptance of self, and revealing of self, and finally a search for self. Hopefully I will return to this subject.
Monday night Drum Major Dave came into town, and he visited. I thought it was interesting that one of the things he said was that he worked on the movie his year so hard because Oh-Sev would always give him a hard time about how uncohesive and lackadasical his class was, and he just wanted to show them wrong. I don't know what that says about anything, I just thought it was interesting.
I had a great discussion with Aditya today about organ donation. We agreed that it would be more just to give preferential treatment for organ transplants to people signed up as organ donors, as in a shitty choice between two people, it seems more fair. But Aditya was opposed to it purely on the grounds that that's not how medicine is run, not how the entire medical philosophy is set up. I see his point, but I feel like that idea, known as the LifeSharers Initiative, is interesting.
Back to the earlier bit. I find it sad that when I was younger I would hide my interests from the world. I remember in second grade I refused to read my story to the class, out of fear of them thinking it was stupid (it was really really bad Star Wars fan fiction). Then I remember not admitting that I was really into Pokemon, even though there really was nothing wrong with that. Even in high school, I hid or played down my interests to hang out with the "cool" smart kids in my year, even though I did and knew I would get along really well with the geeky anime Japanophile kids. That was silly of me (also, one had a huge crush on me that she let me know about a month before I left, and I put her down as gently as possible, although in retrospect that could have been a lot of fun). But so by the time I got to college, I think I have shed most of that (especially by this point, I feel like I more or less have a decent personality of my own). Now my problem is actually figuring out what that means.
Working Man's Dilemma! Of f to bed with me!
Love,
Alan
I had previously thought of what I wanted to write, had a topic in mind. But I don't feel like writing about that. So I'm not going to. Instead, tonight is about what I have discussed this week with others.
I had a talk with David, in which he asked me how I would summarize my life story if I had to do it. After not-to-much thought, I told him that my life story would be first an acceptance of self, and revealing of self, and finally a search for self. Hopefully I will return to this subject.
Monday night Drum Major Dave came into town, and he visited. I thought it was interesting that one of the things he said was that he worked on the movie his year so hard because Oh-Sev would always give him a hard time about how uncohesive and lackadasical his class was, and he just wanted to show them wrong. I don't know what that says about anything, I just thought it was interesting.
I had a great discussion with Aditya today about organ donation. We agreed that it would be more just to give preferential treatment for organ transplants to people signed up as organ donors, as in a shitty choice between two people, it seems more fair. But Aditya was opposed to it purely on the grounds that that's not how medicine is run, not how the entire medical philosophy is set up. I see his point, but I feel like that idea, known as the LifeSharers Initiative, is interesting.
Back to the earlier bit. I find it sad that when I was younger I would hide my interests from the world. I remember in second grade I refused to read my story to the class, out of fear of them thinking it was stupid (it was really really bad Star Wars fan fiction). Then I remember not admitting that I was really into Pokemon, even though there really was nothing wrong with that. Even in high school, I hid or played down my interests to hang out with the "cool" smart kids in my year, even though I did and knew I would get along really well with the geeky anime Japanophile kids. That was silly of me (also, one had a huge crush on me that she let me know about a month before I left, and I put her down as gently as possible, although in retrospect that could have been a lot of fun). But so by the time I got to college, I think I have shed most of that (especially by this point, I feel like I more or less have a decent personality of my own). Now my problem is actually figuring out what that means.
Working Man's Dilemma! Of f to bed with me!
Love,
Alan
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