A Winter's Morality Tale......

Once upon a time, there was a little bird who refused to fly south for the winter.
His friends tried to convince him that winter was coming and he should go, but the little bird was adamant. Finally, his friends left on their journey, but the little bird remained behind.
Pretty soon the weather turned bitter cold. The little bird began to shiver. After a while, he decided he had made a mistake, so he too headed south. But he was too late and the weather descended upon him. As he flew, ice formed on his wings. He grew more and more weary until finally he fell to earth in a cow pasture, freezing and exhausted. He was convinced he was going to die.
As he lay there, freezing to death, a cow came by and crapped on him. The manure warmed his body and wings. The bird realized he would live. He was so happy, he began to sing. A cat was passing by and heard the singing. The cat dug into the manure, uncovered the bird and promptly ate him.

There are three morals to this story:

1. Not everyone who shits on you is necessarily your enemy.

2. Not everyone who gets you out of the shit is necessarily your friend.

3. And, if you're happy in your own pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
And remember what peace there may be, in silence.
As far as possible without surrender,
Be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly,
And listen to others,
Even the dull and ignorant;
They too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
They are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
You may become vane and bitter;

For always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Enjoy your achivements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career,
However humble;
It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
For the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
Many persons strive for high ideals;
And everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especialy do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
For in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
It is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the council of the years,
Gracefully serrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline;
Be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding;
As it should.

Therefore be at peace with god,
Whatever you conceive him to be,
And whatever your labours and aspirations,
In the noisey confusion of life,
Keep peace with your soul.

With all it's sham,
Drudgery and broken dreams,
It is still a beautiful world.
Be careful. strive to be happy.

MAX EHRMANN

Vintage Motorcycles

Something mysterious about vintage bikes, something pleasing.
Scary machines? or works of art?

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 

A surface-level appeal of this book to me when I was younger, and even now, is that it goes into some detail about maintaining a motorcycle. As someone who owned a motorcycle and spent time tinkering with it, reading about engine seizures and rich cylinders was almost sentimental for me. Pirsig uses the notion of motorcycle maintenance to illustrate the core idea that I got out of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is about reconciling classical and romantic modes of thinking. This reconciliation is something I've managed to do in my life and enjoy immensely. However, in this respect, G"odel, Escher, Bach has been a bigger influence (Hofstadter talks about the reconciliation of reductionism and wholism). The reason is that the latter is far more rigourous in its treatment, combining the mathematics, the sciences, philosophy, and the arts in a coherent manner. Pirsig essentially neglects the mathematics and the sciences when he talks about the metaphysics of Quality. The Zen aspect of this reconciliation comes in accepting the fact that there are bound to be fundamental contradictions when that occurs (which, in the case of number theory, is predicted by G"odel's Incompleteness Theorem).
One of the most clever ideas in this work is the notion that even though the "purpose of [sic] scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths", "it is science itself that is leading mankind from a single absolute truths to multiple indeterminate ones". This is not platitude---the more we know, the space of the unknown becomes larger (it is not that we discover that it is larger, but that it actually becomes larger). This is like the theory of relativity which predicts that as we travel faster, the time taken is lesser (not just that we get someplace sooner). As a scientist, I completely agree, but that's the beauty of doing science (in a way, it's job security), and the reason wholistic approaches are essential (the expansion occurs only in the classical mode of thinking; as a romanticist, you can putatively view the entire Universe in one single clear thought).
Pirsig quotes Einstein (in page 115) as saying "Evolution has shown that at any given moment out of all conceivable constructions a single one has always proved itself superior to the rest," and using that as an argument to bolster the view that there are multiple indeterminate truths in science. While that statement about evolution is wrong, the statement about science isn't: in fact scientific theory in the 20th century itself points to such truths (from relativity and quantum mechanics to G"odel's Incompleteness theorem). Pirsig at times does come-off a bit as a techno-luddite. There is also strong new-age spiritual quality to this book that only burdens it. The conundrums Pirsig focuses can easily be dealt without resorting to fluff. Again, I refer to G"odel, Escher, Bach for a better treatment.
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/books/zen_and_the_art_of_motorcycle_maintenance.html

Someone with the same ideas as me, wrote that excerpt, My son rides a Kawasaki, scary! too fast!
but Wow! I have to admit, I like the STYLE!

 

Eva Cassidy - Somewhere Over the Rainbow