Phaedrus Lives!
Fans of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance may recall that it is a sort of elegy for an earlier self named Phaedrus who vanished with the recovery of mental health. Since this is Mental Health Month, the following observations seem relevant.
Reading another weblog’s comments today, I found the following remark:
“…the mind is an amazing thing and it can create patterns and interconnections among things all day it you let it, regardless of whether they are real connections.”
– sejanus
This, of course, prompted me to look for patterns and interconnections. The first thing I thought of was the fictional mathematician in “A Beautiful Mind” establishing an amazing — and, within the fiction, real — connection between the pattern on a colleague’s tie and the reflections from a glass. A web search led to a really real connection…. i.e., to a lengthy listserver letter from an author named Christopher Locke, whose work is new to me but also strangely familiar…. I recognize in his writing both some of my own less-than-mentally-healthy preoccupations and also what might be called the spirit of Phaedrus, from Zen and the Art.
Here is a link to a cache I made of the Locke letter and a follow-up he wrote detailing his sources:
One part of Locke’s letter seems particularly relevant in light of yesterday’s entries related to the death of June Carter Cash:
“Will the circle be unbroken?
As if some southern congregation
is praying we will come to understand.”
Amen.
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (“Q”), quoting Socrates’s remarks to the original Phaedrus:
‘By Hera,’ says Socrates, ‘a fair resting-place, full of summer sounds and scents! This clearing, with the agnus castus in high bloom and fragrant, and the stream beneath the tree so gratefully cool to our feet! Judging from the ornaments and statues, I think this spot must be sacred to Acheloüs and the Nymphs.
This quotation illustrates a connection between Jesus (College) — from my entry of 3:33 PM Thursday — and a Nymph — from my entry of 11:44 PM Friday. See, too, Q’s quoting of Socrates’s prayer to Pan, as well as the cover of the May 19, 2003, New Yorker:
For a discussion of the music
that Pan is playing (today’s site music),
see my entry of Sept. 10, 2002,
“The Sound of Hanging Rock.”
Pan? I heard he died. Then I heard he only became invisible. Then I heard that he sometimes makes appearances on the internet.
Comment by HomerTheBrave — Sunday, May 18, 2003 @ 6:30 pm
I had a recent conversation with someone on “What Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is Really About”. It was almost as though we hadn’t even read the same book!
I haven’t had the time to follow your links yet, but I will. I, too, spend a lot of time on “patterns”.
Comment by iride — Tuesday, May 20, 2003 @ 1:50 pm