1.14.02

two interesting things i learned this weekend:

– i have the same birthday as buddha – april 8.

– the universe, when viewed from far away, is my favorite color – green.

i just finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig). it’s a book that my father says he reads once every five years just to remind himself of what it has to say. it’s not a bad idea. i’m going to loan my copy out to a few people i think might like it, and then put it on the shelf and save it for year 28. at the gym i’m reading The Tao of Pooh, which is very sweet and has large print (good for the gym), but is vehemently anti-intellectual, which always makes me squirm a bit, because, of course, i don’t like to be told that my intellectualism is closing doors for me as fast as it is opening them. so far i’m a bit dubious, as the author has spent the first couple of chapters explaining how he won’t be able to define taoism because by it’s nature it is indefinable, yet he’s written a whole book about it, so there must be a definition lurking somewhere in there. Zen and the Art had sort of the same challenge, actually – writing about a philosophical paradigm that defies description – but Pirsig and the main character were aware of that catch-22.