An Open Letter To Parents

I could make this post into a refusal of the assignment. For lack of experience, or aversion to specificity, I could say I have no advice to give, no criticism to make, no praise to dole out.

But on second thought, that isn't completely true. What is true that I am content with how I have been made, shaped, raised, and brainwashed. It is true that I do not regret any formulation of my relationships with those who parented me, or any childhood experiences I have gone through. It is true that parenting is relative, ambiguous, and respective. I loathe shallow specifics, and avoid equally shallow generalities. "You should let your kids have candy twice a week." " You shouldn't use be negative towards your children." What does any of that mean? How does it even apply in all, if any, child-rearing situations? 

My point is this. As much as you can do to raise your child, you will not be the only one in control. My current self and contentedness with it is present because of school, media, books, friends and bums just as much as it is from my parents and the environment I grew up in. It is just as much because of the teenage girls who lived in my old apartment complex and snuck out at night to sleep around as it is because of my prodigy classmates. In the end, the child, though young, vulnerable and changeable chooses what to do with his experiences. He could just as much choose to rebel as get sucked into the parents' world. 

All I could ask of you now, parents, is to recognize it, and let it be. Then keep on truckin'.

Who is Phaedrus to Robert Pirsig?

        In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig explains that Phaedrus was a philosopher from Plato's time. One of the ancient, famously philosophical, revered geniuses whose mind mysteriously travels through thoughts and ideas that a normal person would not care to touch on in daily life. Basically enough, this name is given to Pirsig's former personality, an enigmatic English professor who somehow thought himself into a mental breakthrough (or breakdown) so huge and deep that he went insane and destroyed his personality, replacing it with a much simpler consciousness that has many scattered and vague memories of its previous self, but is nevertheless still a philosopher. 

       The name explains it all. Pirsig views his former personality as a deep thinker and philosopher, a mystery, and enigma that he is slowly uncovering, like an "archaeologist". Thought Phaedrus had shared this same body, Pirsig treats him as a completely different entity. One that he used to know, but now barely remembers. One that all his friends and his family remember, but whose disappearance he must keep hidden from them. 

       I won't say Pirsig doesn't want to know all about Phaedrus. He is curious. He is enamored with this genius philosopher, this scientist, this rhetoric professor. But he makes no haste to discover his past. He goes along with life. He doesn't bury himself and obsess himself with his former mind. He patiently learns of it from others. He is also content with the mind he has now. But then again, that's the point of Zen.