Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This book I read, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, it's uniquely structured. The interweaving of a storyline and characters with deep examinations of theoretical fields within science, philosophy, engineering, seems really innovative. I don't know enough about literature to make that claim, though. 

One portion I like in particular is about grades. The narrator's past self, Phaedrus, teaches rhetoric at a college. He experiments with abolishing grades for a semester. He believes they're a hindrance to true learning, which arises only from voluntary, self-driven effort. Grades, in his view, mask this true learning by transforming it into a means to a goal; a degree, a quantifiable level of prestige, the grade itself. It's so phony it actively slows down "the cart of civilization," as the author, Robert Pirsig, puts its. 

For a while in middle school I didn't care about grades. Then I started wanting better grades because I realized they were important for one reason or another, but I couldn't figure out how to get them. This was a chunk of high school, and I reverted there for part of college (whoops). Finally I deciphered the maneuvers for As. 

I don't know if it was maturity. Or the classes got better, especially in college. Or I got smarter. Whatever the culprit, I didn't ever get over thinking grades were rotten deep down. I still think they're overvalued, the trophy of a game that does not test for what is most important, learning, instead rewarding a certain type of memorization and participation. Not that people who get good grades don't learn or have sight of what's important, just that the grades themselves are not fostering that process. 

Eh, it's all idealistic.

Anyways, the narrator refers to Quality as the essence of everything, the reality of us and all, the Tao (real one, not spoken one). He proposes that we cannot define "Quality"; it is. It fully encompasses both subjectivity and objectivity. This is an intriguing way of turning things over in the mind.

Nuclear Weapons

There are nine countries that have nuclear weapons. The following is that list along with the number of warheads in each respective stockpile, including retired but still intact warheads. 

 

Russia               6,372

USA                  5,800   

China                320

France               290

UK                    195

Pakistan            160

India                 150

Israel                 90

North Korea      35   

South Africa is the only nation to ever create then disband its nuclear weapons program. Development of a bomb began in 1974 amidst mounting international pressure to break the apartheid system. The U.S. relinquished its support for the program in 1976, but Israel remained steadfast, exchanging technology and raw materials with the segregationist government. UN Resolution 3379 called it "the unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism."

The end of apartheid in 1989 marked the end of the nuclear weapons program as well. Under President de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela, South Africa signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and agreed to IAEA inspections in 1991.

Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery

There is a cemetery outside Tehran called Behesht-e-Zahra, "The Paradise of Zahra" in Farsi. (Yea, I linked Wikipedia. I feel bad because I know this encyclopedia isn't so reputable. But I could find almost nothing at all online about this graveyard. Only a bunch of media outlets re-publishing an AP story that I am using for the rest of this post. The report is also where I learned about this place. But I must say I'm a bit surprised at the lack of information on it. Not suggesting any nefarious reasons, just startled to see the internet not spilling over the brim with data.).

What caught my eye in this article was the size of the cemetery. There are around 1.6 MILLION bodies there. The graves cover more than a thousand acres.  It's in the news because the facilities are being overwhelmed with COVID deaths, bodies coming in at a rate higher than during even the butcherous Iran-Iraq War. They're digging fifty percent more tombs than usual. 

This made me wonder how old this sacred site must be. It is Tehran's main burial spot, after all, the capital of an ancient civilization prospering for over two thousand years. Actually, it was built in 1970. Tehran itself became the national seat of power in 1786, relatively recently in Persian history. Persepolis, in contrast, the Achaemenid capital, was created in the 5th century BCE.

2 plant things

1:
Late this summer, the stickiness appeared beneath pecan trees. Sidewalks, grass, cars, dirt coated in a gluey film. If we left the outdoor furniture in the wrong spot, it could be irreversibly gross. A few people explained different causations for this sap-seeming drip to me, but none seemed entirely assured in their theorization. 

Turns out it is aphids excreting sugar sucked from the leaves of the pecan. The excretion is called honeydew. Yellow pecan aphids, not to be confused with black-margined aphids (check the wings), bite into the leaf epidermis, consuming intravenous nutrients and water, which they release after digestion onto the good Earth below. Pleasant. 

2:

I have a curious plant in my room. I bought it five years ago. Never once has a leaf on it died, never once a branch withered. It consistently sprouts new stalks that arch over the side of its pot. Many stems have become so old, adding greater volume each passing season, that they dip dangerously low, an inevitable snap awaiting if left to the forces of gravity. I had to tie bunches of them together vertically to foster healthy growth. Which, amazingly, appears unrestrained. 

The plant is called Zamioculcas, or ZZ plant. Apparently another name is Zanzibar gem. I like that this species is from East Africa, because that region is close to home. 

It takes an unbelievably small amount of care. I water it once every few weeks. I add soil once a year. I have it next to a large north-facing window. Its glossy green leaves and olive-colored branches keep multiplying.