Zen and the estrangements of mankind

Part 1 (on work v passion) and then part 2 (on mental models), makes this the third part in the flow of the book, but the fourth written and posted.

Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some sort of climax is reached. @1253

Part 2 ended with an idea left unsaid. And it was too soon. It is easier now, another year on from that day, our 9/11 - 227, or 7/22. 

July 22nd 2011 will probably live on for quite some time as a reminder. But even the most horrible dates fade over time, "never again April 9th" - reflecting on the way Norway was invaded by Germany and caught unprepared in 1940.

Yet it is a saying almost gone from our mind. And 70 years later we were in fact more or less taken unprepared.

By a single man. 

And his vision of the present, the future and the defining moments.


Not crazy, at least not crazy in a judicial definition - so he is serving his time. But somehow he entered into his own "world", and step by step built up a "vision" that lead him to, step by step, assemble a plan - and then a rationalization in the form of a mash up manifesto. I read parts and skimmed parts in the hours and days after 227, but have been unable, unwilling, to open it afterwards. It is best left for history, as it gives little else than a varnish atop a narrative oh so bewildered.


Which, in a strange way brings us back to ZEN - and the journey back into a life gone for our guide

He was insane. And when you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he’s insane, which is not to see him at all. To see him you must see what he saw and when you are trying to see the vision of an insane man, an oblique route is the only way to come at it. [ibid, 1406]

It certainly seems like a good definition of insanity; when it is something we can't grasp, when we need to shift our mental models "one step left" in order to even grasp the outlines of the story.

Yet only a few pages previous, there is this passage;

We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think ... We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world [ibid, 1370]

Is the world even real, beyond our sampling insights or fragments of reality? Like the Matrix, it could all be a simulation. Or at the very least suffer from a solid selection bias?

We see and react to what we all can live with around us, as opposed to the jarring discomfort of unwanted elements. Like beggars, how much simpler to ignore them actively or passively, letting their strange haven under the bridge be a hidden sight, their needs and encroachment on our daily bustle.

Like science and philosophy. Most people go on their merry way rather uncaring and untouched by the big questions. Does that make them more or less real, pressing, true?