UNIQUE_ELEMENTS=”`for ELEMENT in ${ARRAY[@]}; do echo ${ELEMENT}; done | sort -u`”

I understand Zen to be not so much the opposite of life as a recognition that we build our mindful existence on faith: faith in our sensations and cognitions and in logic: in other words, the most fragile of foundations, but all we have.

In a time of many unknown unknowns and fewer known unknowns, this made more sense as a loci of thought. But today, with so many known unknowns on the horizon, the promise of enlightenment through striving for yet-to-be attained knowledge makes zen seem a less relevant, less attractive philosophy, IMO. Or maybe the potentialities are an illusion that distract us from mindfulness we are living and breathing already?

Godel, Escher, Bach ought to be required reading for everyone. Though I’ve yet to get anyone I’ve tried to convince to pick up the damn thing :>

The bad thing about it was that whenever I was doing something enjoyable I found myself thinking ‘one day this will just be a distant memory too’. Depressing!