June 4, 2020: Eulogy (and Pan)

It is after 10pm. My room is littered with La Croix cans, grocery store receipts, clean clothes, dirty clothes, an empty box, and... misc. There's lots of misc floating around my room. I have decided to embrace the disorder, even though I think it reflects badly on my character. But I am disordered. That's the way it is. So that's the way it's going to be. —for now. 

Anyway. I wrote a eulogy. And it's down below. And I "composed" the music for the piece as well.

I've been reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and it has changed my life. It gave me the realization that I could express my soul through motorcycle repair: this is because a motorcycle is a rational system that can be tinkered with methodically, and then the act of riding is a romantic experience because it is just that—pure experience—, and then when we combine the two things (pure experience and the rational) you can arrive at a third thing—quality. 

Unfortunately, I am too poor to purchase the ideal vessel for quality, so I settled for a broken lawn mower on craigslist. I drove 1.5 hours away from Seattle to south of Olympia to pick up a broken mower with the intention of fixing it.... If you watched the video, you will see that I was not particularly successful. I gave up. (In the words of the author, I ran out of gumption—and cash too...) But I learned a lot. So, I have that going for me.