Publisher : Bantam
Publication Date : 1984 03 01
>> Zen and the Art of Philosophizing
I read this book so many years ago it is a miracle I still have it in my collection It sits dusty and tattered in an honored place on my shelf behind my desk with my Isaac Asimov tomes as if one day I might pick it up and read it again which at the moment is very unlikely due to the stack of yet unread books in front of it
I bought this book because at the time I was into motorcycles cross country trips and I did my own vehicle maintenance It had some of that but it was soon evident that this book had little to offer to anyone planning a cross country trip on a motorcycle Yet there was a bigger story about insanity and sanity I stayed with the book because I was also very much into exploring psychology and philosophy
I was very impressed with this book not so much for the gratuitous philosophy which I found boring but for the story of an intelligent man who went insane perhaps because he read too much of other s philosophies without developing his own who subsequently underwent electroshock to purge his old identity and form a new one but in time culminating on the cross country motorcycle trip narrated in the book recovers his old identity safely merged with his new identity and more or less now safely sane however we define sane And the burning question raised as to whether such procedures as electric shock had merit as a medical tool
I believed the story was an actual account and the author assures us that it is indeed based on facts As a factual account it thereby has merit and a real lesson to be learned which would probably be different for each reader
Some of the reviews here seem to focus on the philosophical content as what makes the story meritorious and suggest the story might be nothing more than a fabricated account created to stealthily teach the reader philosophical concepts I disagree non too disrespectfully Rather I think it was too much absorption of the philosophizing of others that led to the insanity and loss of identity and it was not until he developed his own philosophy perhaps synthesizing this and that from others that he becomes sane again
I like philosophy but only my own and the philosophizing attempts of the ancients as they initiated incipient science philosophy and mathematics However I detest most modern philosophy especially that associated with modern concepts of secular progressivism as so much mental masturbation perhaps it feels good but it has little to nothing to do with furthering humanity and perhaps a lot to do with corroding and confusing social values
This book has great merit not for all the bits of philosophy interspersed but for the realization the story might help us achieve that we must in the final analysis create our own internal philosophy that is workable and realistic as president George W Bush so colloquially said to be comfortable in our own skin
>> Highly profound
I have owned and read this book numerous times in my lifetime so I already knew what I was getting I was replacing this book as my last copy had wandered away with a borrower but I could not stand the thought of it not being in my library This book was a life change for me one of the most profound moments in my life and I recommend it to anyone
>> good but
probably the most over hyped book of all time i like practical books check out Live Like A Fruit Fly also on amazon
