Living the Martial Way
I’m here in Calif., actually I’m posting from a terminal on the 3rd floor of the McHenry Library at the University of California’s Santa Cruz campus. Even writing this down doesn’t seem to affect me as much as I would have throught it would a week ago– I don’t feel like I’m hundreds of miles away from home. I take that as a good sign.
Outside is a wonderful wilderness, full of redwoods. This is a huge campus, and all through out, there are pockets of forest; and even alongside the newest buildings are redwoods that have to be decades old. The terrain is very hilly– on the way from San Jose, we drove uphill for the entire trip, and my ears popped several times. All the houses have front yards that look like they were laid out by professionals, festooned with colorful flowers and exotic looking plants. It’s strangely cool here for my conception of a California summer should be, but not too cold.
While here, I’ve started rereading “Living the Martial Way”, one of my favorite books on the martial arts, just because it bolsters my self-image to think of myself as an aspiring warrior. I’m considering going back into martial arts, but this time, into a discipline I choose for myself, to fit my characteristics. I was thinking aikido would be a good choice, as its doctrine seems to fit my personal philosophy, or as Miyamoto would have called it (I think), my heiho.
I’m here in the library looking up two books on strategy that were mentioned in that book: “The Art of War” by Sun Tze, and Go Rin No Sho, or A Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi. I really wish I could check them out, but I’m just a guest here. I’m considering purchasing them over the Internet when I reach Livermore. So far, I’ve just read part of the intro to A Book of Five Rings, and it has some pretty intriguing and exciting things to say about Zen. It actually describes Zen in a manner that any sane human could understand, something I’ve never seen done before. Not even Douglas Hofstadter could pull that off.
So, I’m back to read more about Zen, as the library closes at 8 here. Then I’m returning to the apartments to hopefully watch a movie with a new friend on his computer– can you imagine they arranged housing for us, but didn’t get us tvs?! What am I going to do for the remainder of the week?
It’s 7:08pm in Cali. time here.
Possibly relevant posts:
- Library Associates Card (3/24/2005)
- One of my favorite books (1/28/2008)
- Matlab: Lesson 3 (2/17/2006)