ZEN

For the past month, I have been reading this book. A little while ago a friend of mine told me she thought I would I like it, so when I saw it at the Columbia Bookstore I picked it up. It continues to be the exact opposite of what I expect. Granted I have been reading mostly novels this summer and I knew when I started that this is nonfiction, but I was supremely frustrated by the lack of character development in the first part of the text. He mentions John and Sylvia and then he jumps right in to Chautauquas. What the hell is a Chautauqua anyway? I still don't know. Reading the book makes it hard not to grasp the general concept, but if anyone asked me to define it I most certainly would not be able to. Stuttering slowly along the first part of the book took longer than I expected. This is certainly no Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or Barrel Fever (the last book I read before starting this). It was also no Harry Potter. I could read that in 10 hours. This book? Who knows how long it will take me to finish.

I found the second part really intriguing. His discussion of Quality sometimes found me shaking my head, (I get easily frustrated by Philosophy and people who let it consume their lives) but his arguments were pretty valid. We know what is, the world can't exist the way it does without it, but we can't define it or measure it. It's almost subjective, but yet it's not subjective. I thought his comparisons of hip and square were pretty much right on, also. I know both kinds of people and his having the theory published only confirmed what I already knew to be true. I just recently started the third part and hey! Right there on the page was some character development! He said earlier that the people in his book were in fact people and not characters and that he didn't want to develop them as such, but the whole Phaedrus thing needs to be explained. I could use a little more insight to Chris, but I guess you can never write accurately about your child when you're the parent.
One of my goals is to finish this book before my summer ends. Oh and does anyone else find it a little haughty that he named his other personality after an ancient greek philosopher? Unless it was a conscious choice with a bit of sarcasm behind it, I think it's a bit presumptuous.

Find it surprising to find me writing about books? Guess what! I do other things than watch TV and sleep. I observe, sometimes with painstaking attention to detail, sometimes with none. I think too much for my own good; I fall in love with Sufjan Stevens... wait that doesn't really prove my point, does it?.

Well, remember a few entries back when I said that I wanted to start doing things? Basically I came to that decision because I do nothing. I have one friend in a 30 mile radius; I wander from one job to the other - one makes me want to scream and the other waivers in terms of the things they actually have for me to do. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be where I am and I'm grateful to have to opportunity to have the options that I do this summer, but the bottom line is that it has been almost a complete waste of three months. Would a summer in Ohio have been any more fulfilling? Maybe not, but at least I'd have friends and family around. I'd have my pets, my house, some kind of familiarity and friendliness that New York doesn't offer. Before I go into even more ridiculous detail - I am getting things together. If I accomplish anything this summer, it's going to be how to live as a semi-adult. Take care of myself, be responsible, do the right things, stay sane. I'm learning how to grocery shop and get myself the perfect amount of food for under 30$ a week. Now I just have to wean myself from these ridiculous naps I've been taking...

Don't get me wrong. I like myself, I like my life..... But do I? Isn't ambition really just masked unsatisfaction?