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Waiting For Superman

My Journal

2/15/14


Today I don't want to be introspective. I want to just be superficial, which is kind of different for me, not in an arrogant way, just in a factual way. I thought it was interesting when I read an article about a guy who decided to follow Ben Franklin's schedule for a day. Ben left time for study and to deal with spiritual things. The author said he almost never did that, and it was an interesting thing for him to do. Thinking about big things like God and purpose and why we are here and doing research into those questions is something I grew up doing and something I do all the time. How can you not wonder about that? How can you just go through life and just go to work, come home, be with your someone, party sometimes and that is it. That is satisfying? Really? Don't you wonder about things as a whole? Don't you wonder why we are here or how, or do you just take science's or God's word for it and leave it at that. I guess in a way you could have more of your emotional energy available to fritter away on personal drama. That might be interesting. I know it is kind of a weight on me to wonder about my, and our purpose, to wonder what or who else is out there, and it is a huge itch I am just dying to scratch to see everything as it really is. I used to think I would just go to heaven and God would explain it all to me and I could live with that. Now I am not so sure I will ever know, and ugh, that is annoying.

But to live without that burden, to me is to live in a closet. To live in the small world of what I see now. I just need to get out into the air and breath and wonder, and make wild guesses and hope. So with that comes the burden of what I don't know, of making choices and just not knowing if they are the right ones because I can't have all the information. I can't see past death or into the new millennium, so I have to make some of my best guesses blind.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

A while back I finished reading this book, and I have meant to share some quotes I found particularly meaningful from the book. The book was interesting to me, some parts more than others. I liked Robert Pirsig's insight into college-level education. Some of the transitions between real life and past life were somewhat abrupt, but overall I liked it.

Pg 114: He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments, and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these institutions.

Pg 146: You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

Pg 187: Schools teach you to imitate. If you don't imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated. Of course, you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on you own...

Pg 199: To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow. But of course without the top you can't have any sides. It's the top that defines the sides.

Pg 206: What he's looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn't want that because it is all around him. Every step's an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant.

Of course some of these quotes are controversial, but most of them make you think, whether you agree with them or not. If you find these intriguing you may want to check out the book. Keep in mind these quotes
were little nuggets taken from among 418 pages of text. I did learn some about philosophy, and a bit about motorcycles, though since I have been riding on the back of my husband's for years, I had pretty good insight into that part.