2007.05.29
I sort of like when these "for Dummies"-style titles take on weighty subjects. "Rocket "Reconciling the Fundamental Contradiction of Free Will and a Deterministic Universe for Dummies", "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Coping with your Crushing Sense of Existential Dispair", etc etc. (Hmm. If I were feeling a bit more ambitious it would be amusing to make an automatic cover-layout generator for faux titles such as those.)
The books generally are pretty good. I kind of mentally rewrite the titles to "...with few assumptions about what you already know of the subject", which I think is the real crux of what they're getting at. The first ones, like "DOS for Dummies", capitalized on a self-deprecating feeling that PCs of the era brought on.
So I just started "Zen Living". I think I might have some trouble keeping the concepts of Zen's un-ness seperate from what I know of Daoism's "uncarved block", at least in terms of life application.
It also raises the issues of whether you can have relative degrees of Zen. Is it a problem that I'm not looking a moment of "and thus, Kirk was enlightened" so much as improved general clarity and definition in the flow of my life?
Sports of the Moment
Indians played (and lost to) the Red Sox last night. Both are division leaders, likely the current two best teams in baseball, and these games are kind of "win-win" for me... my deeper loyalty is with the Sox, and every win makes life more difficult for the Yankees, but the Indians are in a tighter division race.
Anyway, I was reading the Indians' wikipedia page when I came across this gem:
In April 1962, the Indians sold Harry Chiti to the New York Mets for a player to be named later. In June 1962, after playing just 15 games for the Mets, Chiti was named by the Mets as the player to be named later.Plus, I was reminded of another reason to dislike Edgar "Rent-A-Wreck" Renteria... besides extremely spotty play for the Red Sox he scored the run that made the Indians lose the '97 World Series to those Punk-ass Marlins.